Antonio Maceo always on his time

A new anniversary of the birth, on June 14, 1845, of Lieutenant General Antonio Maceo y Grajales, a brilliant warrior, a distinguished patriot who came from a lion and a lioness, according to Jose Marti's metaphor, with a forging trajectory in his land, yesterday and always.

It was in the rural locality of San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, where 178 years ago was born the boy named Antonio de la Caridad, initiator of the heroic lineage of the Maceo and Grajales, who with the strength of his age and convictions formed especially by his mother and family, entered at a very young age in the first libertarian campaign initiated in 1868 at the very dawn of this one.

For many years his fellow countrymen have been inspired by him as a symbol of the highest and most exemplary revolutionary morality, fidelity and combativity -Protesta de Mangos de Baraguá, March 15, 1878- and in the flag of his difficult to equal trajectory in campaigns (War of the 10 years and Necessary War).

He was only 23 years old when Antonio enlisted in the ranks of the nascent Liberation Army, a few hours after the uprising of October 10, 1868, a decision in which his ideals and the request of his mother, Mariana, today venerated as Mother of the Homeland, came together.

To focus even fleetingly on Mariana Grajales is essential when talking about Antonio and his unforgettable family. Together with her father, Marcos, she trained her children as a line of first-rate patriots and she herself collaborated as a nurse in the struggles in numerous field hospitals.

Scholars assure that the family influence also prepared the Maceo's offspring as bold, courageous, impetuous, extroverted people, full of strength and desire to serve their fellow men and the homeland, a sacred concept for them. That clan had more, the treasure of honesty, constancy, the vocation of self-improvement. Humble and essential family pedagogy.

The founding fathers of their home were mestizos, owners of a small rural property in which they worked hard, who despite overcoming misery, lived vexed by racial discrimination and the lack of favorable opportunities for academic study and social life with justice, rights that they should enjoy as free citizens before the law.

They were only an exception within the panorama of an officially slave-owning society, subordinated to a colonialist metropolis that did not allow freedoms, but committed atrocities against the Creoles who wanted equality and progress and were not satisfied with crumbs.

In the ranks of the first Liberation Army, Antonio quickly gained experience, and the effectiveness of his performance grew within the Mambi camps. It is worthwhile to dwell a little on his vertiginous trajectory, which always responded to his merit.
He was accompanied by a great offensive force, shown in the same night of his first combat in Ti Arriba, which made possible his appointment as sergeant. On October 20 he was already a lieutenant and captain standard-bearer on December 10 of the same initial year.

His heroism and expertise earned him the rank of Commander on January 16, 1869 in the combat for the defense of the heroic city of Bayamo, unfortunately not won by the independence fighters and only 10 days later he was conferred the insignia of Lieutenant Colonel, a position he held until 1872 when he was promoted to Colonel.

He reached the outstanding position of Brigadier General in the middle of the following calendar. He received the star of Major General in May 1877, position with which the initiatory war ended.

When at the end of the Ten Years' War he was forced to go into exile and toured several Antillean nations, he was always connected to the Cuban libertarian cause, until he settled in Costa Rica, in the agrarian colony La Mansion.
It was a sort of truce of about 17 years, until he rejoined the project of a new war with Marti and Maximo Gomez, which broke out on February 24, 1895.

In April 1895, he returned to Cuba in an expedition, along with another well-known Mambi leader, General Flor Crombet and his brother, General Jose Maceo, for another great independence campaign, the Necessary War organized by Jose Marti, who had contacted him abroad and invited him to return to the battle.

He fell in combat on December 7, 1896 at the age of 51 in San Pedro, Punta Brava, in the middle of the consolidation and success of the Invasion from East to West. Antonio Maceo, as Lieutenant General, was the second in command of the camps of the 95 War, led by General Maximo Gomez.

When he died on the ground of Punta Brava, the beloved Bronze Titan or General Antonio, bore on his body the sacred traces of some 27 wounds, some of them very serious and that put him on the brink of death before the fateful moment.

The tenacity of his comrades and above all of his mother and wife Maria Cabrales, had saved him from dying before, in multiple occasions, in which his brother Jose, another outstanding hero of the history of the Island, also played a leading role.

The historical objectivity and not only the sentimental link values the stature of General Antonio, as military strategist and Mambi chief in both battles. Just like General Maximo Gomez, he was recognized not only in Cuba, but also in the region, when the Cubans astonished the world with their resounding victories and performance in the last battle of that century. Antonio Maceo is part of the pride of being Cuban in a very convincing way.

Especially for Baragua, where he set the bar very high for our courage, dignity and unredeemed will to fight. Marti understood his greatness when he affirmed that he had as much strength in his mind as in his arm and he said more when he described that his thought was as harmonious and pondered as the lines of his skull.

His moral and physical beauty accompany us today, more than the sadness for his absence, on the day of his birth. In his way, nothing passive: inspiring us to continue fighting and to never surrender, to repudiate treason and cowardice, intrigue and annexationism.
Thinking of him, Cubans reaffirm: "This is going well, General", as he exclaimed when he started the battle on the fateful day of Punta Brava.