February 24 showed our pro-independence spirit

It would seem that February 1895 would be a second good month for the colonial power in Cuba. Earlier, on January 12, a large shipment of arms and vessels destined to wage war in Cuba was seized at the Port of Fernandina, in Florida. However, the setback stepped up the spirit of the Cuban struggle for independence.

The seizure put paid to two years’ worth of intense preparations by the Cuban patriots to resume war with José Martí as the architect of the plans to gather tons of ammunition and military equipment.

The fundamentalist press in Madrid and its correspondents in the U.S. and Havana exposed details about the resources allocated to those expeditions and described the loss as a coup de grâce to the war effort, but as it happened, when the Cubans heard about the disaster, they were undaunted. Instead, they redoubled their support, which provided evidence of the Maestro’s leadership capacity and commitment.

José Martí, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo decided to go ahead with the preparations for the general uprising, interrupted by the failure of the Fernandina Plan, and agreed on an ingenious way to send to Cuba the order to fight, signed by Martí and other leaders on January 29, 1895: they wrote it on a fine paper inside a cigar delivered by the patriot Miguel Angel Duque De Estrada to Juan Gualberto Gomez, who would send it to the rebel leaders by February 24.

In his book El Partido Revolucionario Cubano en la Isla (The Cuban Revolutionary Party in the Island), Dr. Ibrahím Hidalgo Paz states that the copies of the insurrection order were issued to the top leaders of the country: Guillermón Moncada, in Santiago de Cuba; Bartolomé Masó, in Manzanillo; Salvador Cisneros, in Camagüey; Francisco Carrillo, in Remedios, and Juan Gualberto Gómez, in Havana.

The text stated “(…) authorizes the simultaneous uprising (…) of the regions involved (…) during the second half of February, and not before. (…) An uprising in the West would be dangerous and unwise if not carried out at the same time as in the East (…) in the conviction that the enthusiastic and compact emigration today is willing and able to contribute to an active and short-lived war”.

Juan Gualberto chose February 24 to take advantage of the carnival celebrations in Havana, so that the movements and meetings of the mambises would not arouse suspicions.

Spanish spies in western Cuba learned of the plans and, inexplicably, General Julio Sanguily, head of the insurrection in Havana, was arrested at his home—his links with the Spanish authorities remained unknown until many years later. Moreover, Juan Gualberto Gómez was also arrested together with other conspirators, which thwarted the revolutionary outbreak in the west.

It was in the eastern region where the rebel plans had stronger support, so February 24 saw the uprising of forces led by Guillermón Moncada, Bartolomé Masó, Quintín Bandera, Pedro (Periquito) Pérez, and other patriots. On the other hand, Antonio Maceo, his brother José and Flor Crombet disembarked on Cuba’s easternmost region on April 1, whereas Martí, Gómez and other patriots did it on the 11th.

After a few days, on May 5, Martí and Gómez met Maceo. Together, they consolidated the pro-independence plans designed by the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party, who would fall in combat on May 19, 1895 after devoting many years of his life to making possible the armed uprising that triggered the Necessary War against Spanish colonialism.