Emilio Bacardí Moreau

Born in Santiago de Cuba, he was the son of Facundo Bacardí y Massó, a merchant of Catalan origin who would create the important spirits company Ron Bacardí —of which Emilio and his brothers were principal shareholders— and of the Santiago native Amalia Moreau.

In 1852 his family moved to Barcelona, where Emilio Bacardí completed primary and painting studies. Upon returning to his native city, he received secondary education at the San José school, although without reaching higher education, since he had to devote part of his time to his father's business operations.

He showed an early aptitude for literature; in 1867, the Liceo de Puerto Príncipe awarded his essay Conveniencia de reservar a la mujer ciertos trabajos.

His political concerns were equally early, first in the reformist movement and, shortly thereafter, in the ranks of independence, as a participant in a failed conspiracy that, following the uprising of October 10, 1868, sought to depose the governor of the Oriental Department.

Accused of providing money and weapons to the insurgents, in 1876 he was sentenced to imprisonment in Chafarinas.

He participated in the founding of the Liberal Autonomist Party in Santiago de Cuba, but also became involved in conspiratorial activities that culminated in the Little War, for which he was deported again in 1879.

In 1896, once more, his emancipationist activism during the War of Independence led him to prison –on that occasion in Ceuta– under the accusation of having provided weapons to the patriots. His son Emilio —born of his first marriage to María Lay—, would achieve the rank of colonel in the Liberation Army, as aide-de-camp to Antonio Maceo during the invasion campaign.

After the end of Spanish rule, Emilio Bacardí was appointed mayor of Santiago de Cuba, and elected to the same position in 1901. During his active management of government, he created, with the purpose of preserving relics of the liberation struggle, the museum that would bear his name, as well as an Academy of Fine Arts and the municipal library —attached to the museum—, named Elvira Cape in honor of his wife; all works financed in large part with his own funds.

He also promoted women's employment, offering work in the Santiago city hall to women who had been widowed or orphaned as a result of the recently concluded war.

Elected senator in 1905, he drafted a bill on work accidents, and another so that only civil marriage would be legally valid.

When the liberal uprising of August 1906 occurred, he unsuccessfully attempted to find an institutional solution to the conflict —through the resignation of Tomás Estrada Palma and the election of a successor by the Senate— to prevent a new North American intervention.

In later years, withdrawn from politics, he devoted himself to creating a substantial historical and literary body of work. In the former, his Crónicas de Santiago de Cuba stand out, in ten volumes, which compile in the form of chronicles the events —political, commercial, cultural, religious, etc.— of his native city, from when it was founded by Diego Velázquez in 1514, until 1902.

Also of a historical nature are his biographical sketches of the Santiago patriots Florencio Villanova and Pío Rosado, which he published in 1920.

He cultivated various literary genres such as travel writing —in which Hacia tierras viejas stands out, an account of his travels through Egypt and Palestine, in which he displays his fine gifts of observation—, narratives for children, and theater.

His drama El abismo was staged in 1912 by the Virginia Fábregas company, and published by the magazine Cuba Contemporánea.

However, as a writer he stands out above all for his historical novels; particularly for Vía crucis —a vivid portrayal of the sacrifices and sufferings caused by the War of the Ten Years— and for Doña Guiomar, a notable attempt to recreate the atmosphere of envies and daily conflicts in which life developed in Santiago de Cuba during the first decades of the town.

In Doña Guiomar, Bacardí demonstrates remarkable ability in achieving authentic setting and constructs an attractive plot, even if in its development he allows himself, at times, considerable chronological liberties.

Some of his works remained unpublished and were published years after his death. Thus, Cuentos de todas las noches, for children, and a substantial Epistolario, both edited by his daughter and literary executor, Amalia, author also of his most complete biography.

He was a member of the Academy of the History of Cuba and of the National Academy of Arts and Letters.

He died in Cuabitas on August 28, 1922.