Federico Eduardo Isidro Fernández-Cavada Howard

Cuban patriot of the War of '68. Civil engineer and surveyor

On July 1, 1871, Federico Fernández Cavada y Howard was executed by firing squad in Puerto Príncipe, in what is now the province of Camagüey, considered by many as one of the most important generals of the Liberation Army during the first Cuban struggle against Spanish colonialism, known as the Ten Years' War.

Cavada was born in Cienfuegos in 1831 and as a child, upon his father's death, moved with his mother to the United States, settling in the city of Philadelphia where he graduated as a Civil Engineer from the University of Pennsylvania, though he also showed inclinations toward artistic painting influenced by the landscape work of the Hudson River School.

At age 30 he enlisted in the Pennsylvania volunteer regiment of the Union army, with the rank of captain, to participate in that country's war of secession. For his performance he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and although he was a prisoner for a year by opposing forces, upon being released through prisoner exchange, he rejoined the troops and fought until the end of the war.

That military training would be essential to Fernández Cavada's future when he returned to his native land at the end of the 1860s, settling in the Trinidad area.

The central province would be the stage for his artistic creativity when he painted three small but significant paintings: "Cuban Landscape" (Las Villas) and Study of the San Juan River and San Juan River (Trinidad).

But very soon his vocation as an artist was displaced by that of revolutionary. Committed to the independence uprising, he organized the patriots of the Villaclara region and in February 1869 he took up arms; he established his camp in Macagua, Sierra de la Siguanea.

Almost immediately he was appointed General of the Trinidad District and later General-in-Chief of Las Villas.

Convinced of the need to deprive Spanish forces of all types of aid from Cuban landowners, he proclaimed a manifesto in which he called for a war of extermination through the fiery torch against the properties of Creoles who supported Spain:

"If Cuban commerce opposes the passage of liberty, then Cuban commerce must perish. Popular revolutions know no insurmountable obstacles."

It was precisely that disposition and the systematic and consistent application of that procedure that conditioned his nickname of General Candela.

Time passed and in April 1870, by presidential decree, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Liberation Army, at the end of that same month, and after the resignation of Ignacio Agramonte, he took the position of chief of the Camagüey Division.

He would resign from that responsibility shortly after when the people of Camagüey refused to accept a chief who was not from that territory.

Fernández Cavada was considered a great strategist of that struggle, not only for being the first to attempt to carry out the invasion of the West, but also for his use of the guerrilla warfare method.

Regarding the latter, he developed several theories in the books "Brief Guerrilla Instruction" and "Guide for Commanders and Officers of Campaign," approved by the Chamber of Representatives to be used in the training of officers and troops.

In them he set down the strategies for guerrilla warfare and intelligence work.

Cavada participated in several actions and for his intrepidity and audacity during one of them he was wounded by a projectile that pierced his foot, making him unfit for military life, which he resisted.

Despite that limitation, in 1871 he decided to leave the Island and carry out the mission of the revolutionary state near the American government. There, taking advantage of his relationships, he would try to obtain resources for Cuba and recover his health.

With that intention he headed to the north coast of Camagüey and while waiting at Cayo Cruz, he was surprised by Spanish forces and taken to Nuevitas, where he was executed the following day, being denied burial in the cemetery.

Federico Fernández Cavada carried in his blood the vocation of a warrior. His determination and intrepidity bore the spirit of those who renounce everything in defense of the emancipatory aspirations of the Homeland.