“Guillermón” Moncada’s military skills and boundless bravery

José Guillermo Moncada Veranes, who took part in three wars of independence, was one of the extraordinary fighters of our history. He added his military skills and boundless bravery to his loyalty to the ideals of liberation and his opposition to the Pact of Zanjón, and was together with Antonio Maceo in the historic Protest of Baraguá. He only laid down his arms when it was impossible to continue the struggle.

On April 5, 1895, he died of tuberculosis in a mambi camp in eastern Cuba, only a month and days after the outbreak of the Necessary War organized by José Martí. He had fallen ill during his six years of inhumane imprisonment in Spain. Still, he dedicated his depleted strength to guarantee the uprising on February 24 in eastern Cuba, home to the rebel groups that he led along with other veteran soldiers like Bartolomé Masó and Quintín Banderas.

Previously, during the Tregua Fecunda (Fertile Truce) period, he participated in conspiratorial plans and took up arms in the Small War in August 1879 in Santiago de Cuba, together with colonels José and Rafael Maceo and Quintín Banderas, with the rank of Major General granted by the chief of the new conflict, General Calixto García. He remained in the battlefield until June, when he capitulated.

His service record began in November 1868, one month after the beginning of the Ten Years' War, when at the age of 27 he joined the Liberation Army under General Donato Mármol’s command and his courage earned him the rank of Brigadier General in March 1878.

Guillermo Moncada was born on June 25, 1841 in Santiago de Cuba to a freed slave and a black woman. Despite his origins, he persevered and learned to read and write at a very early age. As a young man, his comrades-in-arms nicknamed him “Guillermón” (Big Guillermo) for his height, bearing and strong physical complexion, as well as for his unrivalled skills with the machete, which he learned after years of hard work as a peasant and used as a weapon on the battlefield to defeat several renowned Spanish officers.

José Martí's reference to Antonio Maceo, of whom he said: "He had as much strength in his mind as in his arm", can also be applied to Guillermón. Likewise, General Máximo Gómez wrote that the brave mambí fighter stood out for both his courage and his commanding and strategic skills.

Years later, under the pseudo-republic, military institutions insulted his memory by naming “Moncada” the country's second fortress in Santiago de Cuba, a hotbed of repression and assassinations that the Centennial Youths attacked on July 26, 1953 and which the Revolution later turned into a School Center.