Enrique Collazo Tejada

Enrique Collazo. A man of action and thought, he was the first in Cuba to appeal, in a systematic manner to history to denounce and fight uncompromisingly against North American imperialism.

Brother of Brigadier General Tomás Collazo. He was taken to Spain, at barely nine years old, by his uncle and godfather. In July of 1862 he entered the artillery school of Segovia, Spain, where he graduated on August 22, 1866 with the rank of second lieutenant. In September of 1868 he was promoted to lieutenant. He was a writer, among his works stand out "From Yara to Zanjón", "Independent Cuba", "Heroic Cuba", "The War in Cuba" and "The Americans in Cuba".

When the movement that defeated Queen Isabel II took place, he escaped to Madrid and on March 20, 1869 he left for New York, via France, with the decision to participate in the war of independence of his country. He enlisted as a soldier in the expedition of the steamship "Perrit", which landed on May 11, 1869 on the peninsula of "El Ramón", in "Nipe Bay", province of Oriente, under the command of American General Thomas Jordan.

He was part of the company of freedom riflemen. At the same landing place he had his baptism by fire when he was wounded in the leg. Four days later he participated in the combat of "Canalito". He was appointed commander of the company of "Bijarú", in Holguín. After the attack on "La Cuaba" he marched to Báguanos to recover from the wound, which had become infected. Feeling better, he was entrusted with the command of the company of "Bijarú", in the division of Holguín.

Shortly after he joined Major General Máximo Gómez, who made him his aide. At the end of 1870 he went to the general staff of the cambute brigade (Second Brigade of the Cuba division). His health deteriorated increasingly, until it was decided to send him abroad. Under severe anemia he left for Kingston, Jamaica, on December 7, 1872. After having been in Panama, Colombia and the United States, he returned to Cuba in the expedition of the Uruguayan steamship "Octavia", being one of the eight expeditionaries who managed to land at a point near the Sierra Maestra, in Oriente, on September 24, 1875.

He marched to Camagüey so that the government could make use of his services and was assigned as aide to Brigadier General Gregorio Benítez, chief of the division that operated in that province. On April 3, 1877 he was promoted to commander and a week later he distinguished himself in the combat of Imías. He was part of the central committee, created on February 8, 1878 to negotiate peace with Spain, and was commissioned to make known the bases of what would be the Pact of Zanjón, in the jurisdiction of Santiago de Cuba.

After the war ended he left for Jamaica on March 5, 1878, accompanying Major General Máximo Gómez. He returned to Cuba in 1887 and was one of the organizers of the war of '95. In New York he signed, together with José Martí and Major General Mayía Rodríguez, the plan for the uprising in Cuba, as well as the order for the uprising. Some sources say that on both occasions he represented the patriots who were found on the Island, fundamentally in the west.

On March 10 of that same year, in Montecristi, Dominican Republic, Gómez ordered him to leave for New York to organize an armed expedition destined for the west. The obstacles and difficulties he encountered in that city prevented him from fulfilling the mission in the short term; nevertheless he continued working under the orders of the delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, Tomás Estrada Palma.

In March of 1896 he left from the Florida keys, United States, heading the expedition that, on its first trip, transported the steamship "Three Friends". He disembarked with 54 expeditionaries at Varadero beach, Matanzas, on March 19. Two days later he participated in the attack on a column at the sugar mill "La Andrea", together with Brigadier General "José Lacret", chief of the first division of the fifth corps, in whose general headquarters he remained for two months.

Monument to Enrique Collazo y Tejeda, Línea and N park, HavanaHe fought alongside Brigadier General Juan Bruno Zayas until June, when he moved to the eastern province. On August 13, 1896 he was appointed commander of the Las Tunas brigade and promoted to brigadier general. In January of 1897 he was transferred to the western brigade of Holguín. After participating as a delegate in the constituent assembly of "La Yaya", in November of 1897, he was appointed commander of the eastern brigade of Holguín.

He participated in the combat of Guisa, under the command of Major General Calixto García, chief of the eastern department, on November 28, 1897. In January of 1898 he received again the command of the Las Tunas brigade. As May began, Calixto appointed him to head a small commission to accompany to the United States the lieutenant of the American army Andrew S. Rowan, who had been a carrier of a message from the president of that nation.

His mission consisted of coordinating, on the Cuban side, matters concerning the landing of American troops in Oriente. On the 11th of that month, they arrived at Key West, Florida, in a boat. In July he returned to Cuba and remained at the general headquarters of the eastern department until his discharge from the Liberation Army, on November 12, 1898. In the republic he served as chief of the national armory, a position from which he was suspended due to disagreements with President Tomás Estrada Palma.

He was part of the patriotic board of Havana, founded on October 10, 1907 to oppose the annexionist current that during the second American military intervention advocated for Cuba to become a protectorate of the United States. From 1909 to 1911 he was a representative to the House for the province of Havana, in which he was elected president of the commission on finance and budgets. He held the position of general comptroller of the republic until May of 1913, when he was replaced by the new president, Mario García Menocal.

Shortly after he accepted being part of the "Board of Protests". He was a founding member of the Academy of History of Cuba and a prolific narrator of the wars of independence.

In the countryside he published, together with then Lieutenant Colonel Federico Pérez Carbó, the newspaper "Patria y Libertad" and during the first American military intervention he was editor and director of the newspaper "El Cubano". He published his first book in Havana, "From Yara to Zanjón" in the year 1893, one of whose merits was to contribute to raising the revolutionary morale of Cuban youth at a time when the resumption of armed struggle for independence was being prepared.

After the war ended, Collazo took up the pen again and became the first Cuban historian to criticize in his works "our paternal northern neighbors". Precisely in 1900, he published the book "Independent Cuba" and, continuing that line of struggle, he went on with "The Americans in Cuba" in the year 1905 and "Cuba Intervened" in 1910, in which he exposed the background of the second American intervention.

His book "Heroic Cuba", published in 1912, contributed to raising the patriotic consciousness of the Cuban people. "The War in Cuba", was published in 1926, posthumously. In the last years of his life he held the position of director of the newspaper "La Nación".