Domingo Méndez Capote

Cuban military and politician. Brigadier General who fought with Máximo Gómez, of whom he was Chief of Staff (1897) and vice president of the Republic in Arms (1898), president of the Constituent Assembly (1901) and again vice president of the Republic (1904-1906) with Estrada Palma. He presided over the revolutionary junta that overthrew the dictator Machado.

He was born in Lagunillas, near Cárdenas, Matanzas. The forge of his native land was beginning to smoke with the fire of patriotism. In his paternal home he breathed Cubanness, learned the love for the land. And when that soil began to be soaked in his blood for the freedom of Cuba he saw the example of his elders helping the soldiers of independence, who came to take refuge in the paternal estate "San Francisco".

He studied at the best school in Cárdenas of that era: "El Progreso". During his stay at the school he lived firsthand the odyssey of his older brother, Fernando, involved in the sinister fate of the Medical students in 1871.

He wished to pursue higher studies, but the family situation worsened and his dream was cut short for some time.

He had to work as a laborer, but when he turned 15 years old he moved to La Habana. He taught classes to earn his living. At the same time he enrolled in Law at the University.

He graduated as a lawyer in 1888, which allowed him to achieve a solid economic position. He founded a home and was recognized among the best legal experts of the capital.

He enlisted in the conspiracy and at his country's call he joined in 1894 the Cuban Revolutionary Party, founded by Martí to direct the war. In February 1896, after multiple efforts, he achieved his goal of joining the Liberation Army, at the sugar mill "Matilde", near Camaguán.

In this act he was granted the rank of captain. On February 8 he received his baptism of fire, in the action at Pablo Prieto. In March 1896 he was appointed civil governor of Las Villas by decision of the government council, presided over by Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, who also granted him the rank of colonel.

In 1897 Máximo Gómez proposed to the government council that he be designated head of the legal body of the Liberation Army with the rank of brigadier general. Under these circumstances Gómez carried out the attack on the fortified town of Arroyo Blanco where Domingo Méndez Capote debuted his stars, participating in the combat of Juan Criollo (February 1, 1897). He participated in the assembly of La Yaya, where he was elected vice president of the government council on October 28, 1897.

Facing the intervention of the USA in the Cuban war against Spain, Méndez Capote was the proponent and author of the Sebastopol manifesto signed by the president of the Republic in Arms, Bartolomé Masó, on April 24, 1898. On October 24, 1898, the Cuban revolutionary government held a grand assembly in Santa Cruz del Sur, province of Camagüey. Domingo Méndez Capote took part representing the fourth army corps and was designated as president where he decreed the disbanding of the Cuban army.

Shortly after, during the first American intervention, the government of Major General John R. Brooke appointed him secretary of state and governance. In 1900 he was selected to represent La Habana in the Constituent Assembly of 1901, in which he directed its work. He was also elected president of said convention (Costa 312).

Later he was appointed Senator for the province of Matanzas and was President of the Senate of the republic from 1902 to 1904. In the 1905 elections he was nominated vice president of the Republic, accompanying the new term of Tomás Estrada Palma, a position he resigned from to ease the situation created in the country.

In 1906 he ran for Vice-President of the republic, with Tomás Estrada Palma seeking reelection to the presidency. Both were elected, but shortly after Méndez Capote resigned from his position. He led the republican party in La Habana and was one of the creators of the moderate party.

He ran again for Vice-President of the republic, this time alongside former president Mario García Menocal, who was again running for the presidency. This ticket was defeated with the election of General Gerardo Machado, president, and Carlos de la Rosa, vice-president.

Defeated in the 1924 elections through fraudulent methods, he understood the reactionary and bloodthirsty character of Gerardo Machado and headed a revolutionary junta, which was discovered and he had to go into exile, not returning until the dictator's fall.

Activity as a jurist
He was licensed in administrative law, doctor in civil and canonical law, and also professor of those subjects at the University of La Habana from 1890 to 1895, when he departed for the independence struggle.

At the head of the legal department, he restructured the Military Organic Law, elaborated the penal code, in which he established the death penalty for anyone who entered into dealings with the enemy on any basis other than the absolute and immediate independence of the Island; he also drafted the Military Procedure Law and the regulation of the legal-military body of the Republic in Arms.

In our struggles for national sovereignty, Brigadier Domingo Méndez Capote was the first auditor general of the Liberation Army in Cuba, who exercised this public function under the domination of the Spanish metropolis.

Perhaps Brigadier General Domingo Méndez Capote, the most civilian of the generals, was not equal to what the Republic needed, but he did not participate in the frauds and illicit dealings of the era and gave of himself what he thought was best for Cuba, which he loved so much. He died shortly after in La Habana on June 16, 1934.