Carlos Gabriel García Vélez

Brigadier of the Cuban Libertador Army, son of Major General Calixto García Íñiguez. He studied Dentistry at the Faculty of Medicine of San Carlos, Madrid. Diplomatic representative of Cuba in several countries after the conclusion of the war.

He was born in El Tejar de Santa Rita. He was the third child of the marriage of Calixto García and Isabel. In 1872, at only five years old, he moved with his family to the United States, motivated by the imperatives of war; there he lived in a patriotic environment that allowed him to develop a profound love for the land of his birth.

His stay in that country allowed him to master English perfectly, and consequently, to participate, according to his means, in its cultural life. At thirteen years old, after finishing his class schedule, he had to work to help his mother in some way with the support of the home; he became a messenger for the Western Union Telegraph Company and later in that same activity in Comercio Zell y Po.

In the midst of those material hardships, Carlos developed great sensitivity for music, even venturing into learning the piano, his favorite instrument; he attended concerts systematically, which he paid for with money given to him as an advertiser of posters and exhibition programs. At his young age he met José Martí and was one of those who helped in the organization of acts and rallies.

On March 15, 1882, Carlos Gabriel, along with his mother and other siblings, boarded the Villa de Marcella of the French Transatlantic Company headed for Gibraltar, from there they went to Algeciras, where Calixto García was waiting for them and together they left for Cádiz and from there, by train to Madrid, staying on the second floor left side, number 90 on Fuencarral Street.

In Madrid he studied at the Instituto del Cardenal Cisneros; upon completion, his father inclined him toward law, but he preferred Dentistry, which he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of San Carlos, where he had as professors the Americans Tomás and David Whitmarch, graduating as a Dental Surgeon from the Central University in 1887. He immediately moved to France where he began to practice his specialty.

During his last years in Spain he specialized in Oral Pathology, studying in particular stomatitis and alveolar pyorrhea. In 1894 he made an important contribution to dentistry by founding and directing the Spanish Stomatological Review, the second of its kind published in the world.

On October 30, 1894, he departed for New York where he joined his father and together they sailed for Cuba aboard the ship Bermudas, arriving at Mayarí, Baracoa on March 24, 1896; from that point on he cultivated an extensive record of services rendered in the war, carrying out numerous missions and participating in countless battles, among which he stands out in the land-naval combat carried out on the Cauto, facing Guasimilla, which he personally directed and where the Spanish naval ship Rayo was blown up on January 17, 1897.

On August 29, 1897, during the Battle of Las Tunas, Carlos Gabriel took the Cavalry Barracks with his brigade, displaying great courage and valor. He concluded the war with the rank of Brigadier General, being chief of the Second Brigade, of the Second Division, of the Second Corps, composed of the Jiguaní and Céspedes Regiments.

On the occasion of making a visit to the United States, and in turn, to President McKinley in 1899, he was able to confront him and express to him the unjustifiable conduct of the Union troops in Santiago de Cuba against the Cuban forces and made evident the dignified attitude of General Máximo Gómez and his own against the intervention.

He was President of the Cuban delegations to the IV and V Pan-American Conferences held in 1909 and 1929 in Argentina and Chile respectively.

In the first republican governments he was diplomatic representative of Cuba before Washington, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and London. He was catalogued at the time as a diplomat of inflexible backbone, because according to him:

"the greatness of peoples is not measured by their physical strength, but by the values of the spirit"

He died in the City of Havana on January 6, 1963.