Máximo Gómez, America’s “first guerrilla”

Máximo Gómez Báez was born on November 18, 1836, in the rural town of Baní, Santo Domingo, in a household where he learned about honor, severity and virtuosity, the qualities that shaped the strong personality of the man who would be the future Generalissimo of the Cuban Liberation Army.

He used to describe himself as "Dominican by birth and Cuban by heart", based on a scorn on injustice and inhuman slavery that would lead him to devote more than half of his life to the cause of independence, especially since his arrival in Cuba in 1865 as an exiled officer of the Spanish military reserve.

Once discharged from the Spanish army and settled with his family in eastern Cuba, and seeing the slaves working from sunrise to sunset in the sugar cane fields under the whip of the foremen, his sense of duty and justice made him follow Carlos Manuel de Céspedes on October 10, 1868.

He soon excelled as a guerrilla tactician in the fight against the strong Spanish empire. His first charge against the enemy, branding machetes, took place on October 26 that year: Gomez and about 40 infantrymen ambushed a 500-plus strong Spanish column and killed more than 200 soldiers.

It was just the beginning of the extraordinary career of the man who would be considered by renowned foreign military men as the first guerrilla fighter in America and whom Carlos Manuel de Céspedes promoted to General.

Then came the Zanjon Pact and a 17-year-long exile marked by hardship and disease in his family. However, he never stopped thinking about the independence of Cuba.

José Martí wrote to him in 1892, when the Necessary War was being prepared: "[...] I give you without fear to negative this new work; today I don’t have any payment to offer you but the sacrifice pleasure and the probable ingratitude of the men.” To this Gómez replied: "From now on you can use my services".

His exceptional military talent flourished during the new conflict. Together with Antonio Maceo, he led the invasion from East to West, taking the war to the whole of Cuba in memorable battles in which they defeated the most select colonialist troops. Nonetheless, following the deaths of Martí and Maceo and left therefore as the only top figure of the Revolution, he would suffer the Yankee intervention that frustrated the independence and paved the way for the neo-colony in 1902, facilitated by the division and betrayal of the annexationist and first Cuban president Tomas Estrada Palma, whose attempts at reelection in 1906 he adamantly opposed.

Gomez’s fight against the rigged presidential election earned him so much popular affection that he was always shaking hands, which infected a small wound he had in a hand. In just days, the infection developed into blood poisoning and took his life on June 17, 1905.

It was his last battle inspired by his love for Cuba, unchanged since those distant days of October 1868, albeit this time waged against the evils of the false republic.