Eduardo Facciolo Alba

He was born in the town of Regla. Together with his parents, Carlos, a native of the Iberian city of Cádiz, and María de los Dolores, a Creole, he resides on San Agustín Street, number 21.

In the year 1837 he was enrolled in the Elementary School for Boys of that town where he receives his first instruction. A student of the elementary school for boys of that coastal locality, he has Juan Coca y Quintana as the teacher who educates him. In his academic file it is noted that at nine years of age he was already part of the eighth-grade class, the most advanced level of the era.

Being very young he begins to learn the trade of typographer in the literary printing shop under Domingo Patiño, of the Cuban capital, since the difficult economic reality facing the island strikes the family and forces him to seek employment. In a few months he learns all the rudiments of the work. Subsequently he works as a typesetter in various rotatives, until in 1844 he enters the workshop that edits the newspaper Faro Industrial de La Habana, of which he becomes manager.

He becomes a careful and diligent linotype operator. This is how he meets Cirilo Villaverde, José García de Arboleya, José María de Cárdenas, and other writers and journalists who instill in him love for his country and revolutionary ideals.

In 1844 he begins to work in the printing shop where the newspaper El Faro Industrial de La Habana was edited, where he was designated by its director Don José García Arabaleya to occupy the position of Manager at the end of 1845.

Juan Bellido de Luna, former director of the National Historical Archive, describes him as "a rather handsome young man, of regular height, white complexion, curly black hair, green eyes, small mouth and smiling countenance, who dressed with cleanliness but modestly, a man of good character, frank and disinterested, without vices, hardworking, economical and a decided lover of all liberal and broad ideas."

A young man accomplished in the art of printing, with gifts and a natural inclination toward knowledge, Facciolo lived in a difficult and precursory era of his country's history.

Meanwhile, Salvador Bueno refers to him as: "the image of his cheerful face, with a musketeer mustache, with a strand of hair that falls romantically over his temples. In his eyes, however, there dwells like a cloud of nostalgia, as it almost always does in those predestined for glorious deeds and early death."

Despite his young age, the execution by firing squad of Diego Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, Plácido, in 1844, marks Eduardo's life forever.

For this reason he makes demonstrations in protest against the cruel tyranny that Spain exercises over Cuba, which cause his father to censure him for his incipient anticolonialism. Even his godfather, the pedaneous captain of Regla, Guillermo Gonzáles, severely reprimands him for that attitude.

After the suppression of the Faro Industrial de La Habana in 1851, and with the American citizen John S. Thrasher, the newspaper's former director and Facciolo's friend, taken prisoner, he decides to return to Regla and open a cigar shop.

Given the need to find a way to respond to the campaign of insinuation that the government press pours out against the Creoles, the Revolutionary Junta proposes to journalist Juan Bellido de Luna to publish a clandestine newspaper to counteract the slanders and insults and to advocate for the independence of our land. Anacleto Bermúdez and Porfirio Valiente agree to collaborate on this dangerous project.

With this task, Bellido de Luna seeks a trustworthy typographer.

From prison, in the fortress of La Punta, Thrasher recommends he contact Facciolo, and assures the journalist that this is a trustworthy man. In this way, the young man becomes the executor of the enterprise. To this activity are added printers Santiago Spencer and José M. Salinero. The first supplies equipment; the second, the type. They organize a small rotative that allows them, with great effort and in a surreptitious manner, to put the plan into practice.

A letter-copying press is prepared for them by American Abraham Scott, and they install the equipment in an upper interior room, property of Ramón Nonato Fonseca, located in front of the Palace of the Captains General, in La Habana. A trunk, in the shape of a coffin, and lined with black leather, serves to hide the machinery during necessary transfers to avoid being caught.

After having the improvised workshop ready and with the support of two other workers who were Eduardo's friends, the first issue of La Voz del Pueblo Cubano is edited on June 13, 1852.

The publication calls on nationals to fight for freedom, to struggle against enthroned tyranny, to overthrow the government that represents Spain. It self-titles itself as an organ of independence, this precursor of Cuban revolutionary press.

The number of two thousand printed copies quickly invades the streets, generating, on one hand, the confusion of the authorities and, on the other, the joy of the Creoles who yearn for freedom.

Despite all efforts to prevent the circulation of the newspaper, it leaves the town of San Cristóbal de La Habana and reaches other cities in the country and even the United States and Spain. The government considers that the publication is an act of audacity aimed at encouraging a spirit of rebellion among Cubans and provoking an uprising against the metropolis.

The Captain General of the Island, Valentín Cañedo, issues severe orders that military and police forces use all resources to discover the printing shop and imprison the editors of the newspaper. Cañedo offers high sums to those who denounce the authors.

Inside the trunk, which they call "sarcophagus," the printing press is carried, initially, to a sugar warehouse, located on Teniente Rey Street, property of Antonio, brother of Bellido de Luna. It is later moved to the home of a Facciolo friend, in Regla.

On July 4 the publication reappears with its second issue, but now with the shortened name of La Voz del Pueblo. This time, three thousand copies are transported to the warehouse, inside champagne baskets, to be distributed later clandestinely. Here Cañedo receives the epithet of "General Sausages." It also includes a poem dedicated to the Venezuelan annexionist Narciso López.

The angry and vengeful action of the colonial government is not long in coming: arrests, searches of printing shops, businesses and homes follow one another. With visceral hatred they desperately seek those "infidels" who dare to slander Spain and proclaim the freedom of Cubans. The authorities cannot conceive that the publication is printed in La Habana, due to the excessive custody of the city.

The precautions taken by Facciolo and the other patriots, that is, coming and going with the linotype inside its peculiar protection, in addition to the care of choosing collaborators, allow them to evade surveillance and undertake the publication of the third issue.

Facciolo composes the next newspaper in Regla, and decides to buy a printing press at a cost of five hundred pesos, offered by the widow of printer Vicente Torres.

While police and secret agents continue their investigations, in a workshop on Galiano Street, belonging to Eduardo, on July 26, 1852, the awaited newspaper sees the light.

The intrepid typographer suggests to his companions the possibility of finding a suitable location to establish the linotype and discard the black trunk. On Obispo Street, he finds and rents a space to install the workshop: a hallway, room and patio of a large house belonging to writer and poet Ildefonso Estrada Zenea.

In constant danger, the patriots do not abandon their conspiratorial actions and dissemination of revolutionary ideals. However, being well known to the repressive forces and unable to remain in the city much longer, Bellido de Luna embarks for the United States on August 6.

Ambrosio Fornet in "El Libro en Cuba" recognizes that before leaving the Greater Antilles, the journalist advises Facciolo to abandon the idea of settling and recommends that he continue with the constant exchanges that had given him excellent results until that moment. Eduardo ignores his friend's advice. This constitutes his first major error.

An informant leads the police to the house where the newspaper is printed. The highest colonial authority orders Rafael V. Valladares, constable of the Dragones neighborhood, to capture the individuals who, clandestinely, labor in the printing shop located at Obispo 44.

Juan and Antonio Bellido Luna, Andrés Ferrer, Juan Atanasio Romero, Florentino Torres, Juan Antonio Granados, Félix María Cassard, Antonio Palmer, Ramón de Palma, Antonio Rubio, Ladislado Urquijo, Ildefonso Estrada y Zenea, Francisco Pérez Delgado, Ramón Nonato Fonseca and Eduardo Facciolo de Alba, are accused of being authors and accomplices in the printing of La Voz del Pueblo.

It remains only to arrest them and for the Military Commission to initiate proceedings to condemn them.

At the precise moment when Facciolo and two of the brave propagandists meet to publish the fourth issue, they are surprised by the Spanish.

"What publication is this?" asks Valladares, while trying to read in the metal type, the form, to verify the denunciation.

"It is the same La Voz del Pueblo, do not trouble yourself, this is the only proof that has been printed," responds audaciously Eduardo, and offers him the first printed copy, still imperfectly rendered.

"Are you the author of the newspaper?"

"No, and I do not know those who brought the form and paid me for its printing."

For a long time he cannot hide the role he played. Knowing that all evidence points to him, and aware that Juan Bellido de Luna and Andrés Ferrer have managed to escape abroad, he deepens his statement and declares himself guilty.

A controversy over who proves to be the person who reveals Facciolo's risky enterprise arises from this moment. Luis Cortés, a neighbor of the place;

Ildefonso Estrada y Zenea, owner of El Almendares, a newspaper printed in the same workshop; or the Catalan Eudaldo Cabrises, in charge of the house where the rotative was located, are some of the suspects.

But the greatest doubt about the true informant falls on Emilio Johnson. This individual is detained at the moment of the raid, but hours later is released.

Facciolo's second mistake lies in trusting this citizen, who passed himself off as English for having been born in Nassau. It appears that Johnson feigns sympathy with the liberating cause and gains the friendship of Eduardo and his companions.

The Court Martial, composed of Francisco Velasco, Pedro Aguilar, Casimiro de la Muela Chacón, Baltasar Gómez, Francisco Mahy, Bernardo Villamil and Felipe Dolsa, agrees to sentence the main responsible parties: Juan Bellido de Luna, Andrés Ferrer and Eduardo Facciolo y Alba, to death by garrote vil. The first two are more fortunate. Those who write, cooperate in printing and distributing the newspaper, manage to evade persecution.

To the rest of the implicated, other sanctions are imposed, in accordance with the charges accumulated against them.

In consideration of his young age, Dolsa, Gómez and Villamil request for Facciolo the sentence of ten years imprisonment in Africa, with the condition that he never return to the Island.

On September 24, Cañedo does not accept the request for clemency and ratifies the verdict.

At seven in the morning on Tuesday the 28th: "he was placed in the garrote machine situated in front of the Royal Prison and executed in it until he appeared to be lifeless."

Thus dies the patriot, hero and martyr of the printing press, the lover of study and fine letters…he who hours before his immolation writes to the author of his days: "I am inspired by the noble sentiment of dying for my country and my brothers."

Facciolo is one of those Cubans who help prepare our people for the defense of their legitimate rights, fervently encourage them in the struggle and expose the grievances committed by Spain, as well as the just aspirations of those oppressed to achieve independence, using the press in the achievement of their objectives, without ostentation or personal reward for their work.