Concepción Agramonte Boza

===BODY===
Concepción Agramonte Boza was one of the first women from Camagüey who cut her hair as a sign of rebellion following the execution of Joaquín de Agüero and his companions. Years later, when the war began, she marched with her husband and ten children, four of them daughters, to the countryside.

She was born in the mansion on Soledad Street (today Ignacio Agramonte) at the corner of Candelaria (Independencia). She received revolutionary influence from her parents, and on June 12, 1852, she married the patriot Francisco Sánchez Betancourt, one of the main revolutionary leaders of the 1868 conflict in the territory.

At the dawn of the Ten Years' War, she clandestinely sheltered in her home young people from other parts of the Island, such as Rafael Morales (Moralitos), Antonio Zambrana, and the brothers Julio and Manuel Sanguily.

One of Concha's first tasks was to participate in the preparations for the Assembly of Guáimaro; after the burning of that town, she went into the fields as a nurse to care for the wounded; furthermore, she participated in the rescue of combatants, putting her life in danger.

As the war intensified and due to the siege by the Spanish army, she had to move constantly with her children. After three years in the countryside, she was surprised and taken prisoner in 1871 in the fields of Najasa, on her San José estate; she suffered imprisonment and was later banished to the United States. Her husband and two of her eldest sons, Juan and Benjamín, remained in the war.

In New York she suffered serious economic hardships with eight of her children, the loss of a young daughter, and the confiscation of her parents' properties by the Spanish Government.

After the Pact of Zanjón, she returned to the homeland with the sorrow of losing her son Juan in combat in 1873. She returned to Camagüey and settled with her husband and the rest of her family, still with conspiratorial interests to continue a new conflict.

Concha was deeply loved in Camagüey because she provided economic assistance to the poor. At that time, the Sánchez-Agramonte couple responded affirmatively to the emissaries of José Martí, with a view to offering their support for the resumption of the 1895 war.

When combat began in the province, five of Concha's sons went to the battlefield, and due to her advanced age, she remained in the city as a liaison between the young people arriving from other places to join the insurgency, among whom were Enrique Molinet and Néstor Aranguren.

The colonial authorities became aware of her clandestine work, for which she was detained in 1897 and sent to the House of Refuge in Havana, where there were no differences between common and political prisoners.

Deported to the United States, she provided valuable services to the delegation of the Republic in Arms, in coordination with Tomás Estrada Palma and with the colonel of the Liberation Army, Fernando Figueredo Socarrás. After the conflict ended, she returned to Cuba.

At the age of 73 in 1907, together with Salvador Cisneros Betancourt and other personalities, she participated in the establishment of the Patriotic Board of Havana, which had as its objectives the immediate evacuation of the Island by American soldiers and the repeal of the Platt Amendment.

An exemplary and courageous mother, educator, and patriot, Concha Agramonte was inspired by Mariana Grajales, and despite the painful personal situation she faced, she did not stop her revolutionary work. She died in Havana on August 25, 1922.

An heir to the lineage of Concha Agramonte was her grandson Calixto Sánchez White, a fighter against the Batista dictatorship and leader of the Corynthia yacht expedition, which landed in an area of Mayarí.