Magdalena Peñarredonda Dolley

Patriot, journalist and political activist, fighter for Cuban independence, delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in the Province of Pinar del Río, she achieved the rank of commander in the Mambí independence army. Magdalena Peñarredonda is considered the "Distinguished Patriot" of the Cuban province of Artemisa.

She was born on a farm in Quiebrahacha, Mariel, then province of Pinar del Río. She was the daughter of Amelaide Dolley, descendant of French immigrants from Jamaica, and Hilario Peñarredonda Ortiz, a Spaniard, native of Santander and captain of militias (who was in turn the son of José Peñarredonda, commander of one of the ships that participated in the Battle of Trafalgar). The family also resided in the nearby city of Artemisa.

Thanks to the rebellious spirit of her mother and the liberal education she gave her children, Magdalena Peñarredonda developed early on a great attachment to Cuban traditions and a resolute and rebellious character that, as it matured, became patriotism and a spirit of sacrifice for independence. The journalist and writer Herminia del Portal testifies to her precocious sense of justice in the magazine Bohemia, when she describes an episode that occurred in Magdalena's family home in which the girl helped facilitate the escape of a prisoner of her father.

Other testimonies assert that Magdalena, her sisters and mother cut their hair as a show of solidarity with the women of Camagüey and as a sign of disapproval of the execution of the patriot Joaquín de Agüero. On various occasions Magdalena and her siblings risked their lives to collaborate with independent conspirators, who on many occasions managed to escape police raids thanks to the children of Captain Peñarredonda.

Married at age 15 to the merchant José Cobielles, a native of Asturias, she converted her house in Havana into a recognized center of literary and political gatherings attended by renowned figures of Cuban and Havana culture and intellectuals such as Enrique José Varona, Alfredo Zayas, José María Gálvez, Manuel Sanguily, Julián del Casal and José Antonio Fernández de Castro. These meetings also served as moments of revolutionary conspiracy against Spanish authorities.

An event that profoundly marked Magdalena's life was the assassination of her brother Federico, on December 24, 1884, at only 29 years of age, who had already distinguished himself for his ideas and revolutionary statements against Spanish colonial rule.

In 1888, she was prosecuted for the first time for her political activities, in this case, for the publication of articles in the newspaper "El Criollo". Due to case 294 filed against her for political rebellion, she was forced to leave for the United States.
There she met several patriots, among them José Martí, who, aware of her prolific conspiratorial work, immediately sympathized with her and recognized her with the gift of a volume of his Simple Verses, in whose dedication he wrote: "To Mrs. Magdalena Peñarredonda, model of patience and patriotism. Your respectful friend, José Martí."

In 1893, Magdalena Peñarredonda was recognized in Cuba and in New York as a center of important conspiratorial groups. Her prestige led to her being appointed at the beginning of the War of '95 as Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) in Pinar del Río, the only woman in Cuba who held such an important responsibility.

From 1895 onward, back in Cuba, she operated constantly between Pinar del Río, Artemisa (then headquarters of Spanish troops at the Mariel-Majana Line) and Havana. The delegate knew how to take very good advantage of every favorable circumstance to carry out her important and risky work, using visits to her relatives in Artemisa as a pretext. She crossed the Line on numerous occasions, carrying correspondence for General Antonio Maceo, sometimes engaging in verbal confrontations with General Arolas, the highest authority of that military line. Her leadership and loyalty made her the most capable and skillful figure of the Revolution in the west, capable of coordinating actions aimed at supporting the Liberation Army.

She was one of the few people with whom Lieutenant General Antonio Maceo communicated to coordinate his entry and exit from Pinar del Rio in February and March of 1896. During this period of the war and during the Campaign of Pinar del Río, this brave woman was Maceo's main liaison. He on more than one occasion celebrated her help and thanked her for her valuable services.
After Maceo's death in combat in December 1896, Magdalena Peñarredonda continued as a collaborator of Major General Juan Rius Rivera and later of Major General Pedro Díaz Molina (commander of the sixth corps of the Mambí army). She maintained an extensive correspondence with Tomás Estrada Palma, Delegate of the PRC, after the death in combat of José Martí, as well as with other leaders of the western mambisado, such as: Emilio Laurent, Pedro Delgado, Mayía Rodríguez and Alberto Nodarse.

When the National Patriotic Board was founded on October 12, 1897, presided over by General José Rogelio del Castillo, she was the only female figure that was part of its board of directors.

Despite the persecution to which she remained subjected and with the exception of missions she carried out outside this territory, she did not abandon the Havana-Pinar del Río area during the war. She was a faithful chronicler of the crimes of the Reconcentration and publicly denounced the criminal policy of Valeriano Weyler's Reconcentration.

Given the intensity of her revolutionary work, she was again prosecuted "for aiding the rebels" and entered the National Prison of Havana on April 4, 1898, where she remained until October 1st of that year. During that period she became a leader and defender of the rights of imprisoned women and as such was constantly required by prison authorities. Despite the difficult conditions of the prison, she refused to be released through the charitable work of the wives of Spanish officers. She was a staunch opponent of the American intervention of 1898 and openly denounced the ambitions of American power circles with respect to Cuba. Through the Artemisa and Havana press she opposed the Platt Amendment. At the end of the war she was promoted to the rank of Commander of the Cuban Liberation Army, the highest military rank achieved by a woman.

From 1901 onward, she converted her profession as a journalist into a militant platform. In her articles in "El Jordán Patriótico", she lashed out at the "new Weylerist political parties" that prospered at the expense of a people whose dreams of independence and sovereignty were frustrated. She criticized those who became rich in the Republic through political careers and who never fought against Spain for independence. Her revolutionary activism made her the most renowned and controversial female journalist, not only in the Artemisa press but also in the capital of the country.

She opposed the second American intervention in 1906, the massacre of the Independents of Color in 1912, and the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado. Her articles "Morbid Epidemic" and "Bursts of Truth" testify to this, denouncing corruption and the penetration and economic and political domination of the United States over the island. In the 1920s, despite her advanced age, she supported the anti-Machado revolution. In her home and spirit found asylum the youth of the José Martí Popular University, the intellectuals of Falange de Acción Cubana, of the Grupo Minorista, the fighters of the Movement of Veterans and Patriots, the women who in 1923 organized their first national congress, as well as leaders of labor unions.

She died in Artemisa on September 6, 1937, at the age of 91. Owner of the valuable items that symbolize the spirit of struggle of the Sixth Corps of the Liberation Army in Vuelta Abajo and that were given to her for her valuable services to the Revolution: a piece of the shirt in which they buried the Bronze Titan and a fragment of wood belonging to the boat in which Maceo crossed Mariel Bay deceiving the Line from Mariel to Majana.

In her memory stands a bust in the Central Park of Artemisa.