P1 FREECULTURAL XPRESSION - FEBRUARY 2017 Culture CULTURAL XPRESSION - FEBRUARY 2017 P2 MAJOR FIGURES IN AFRO- remembering Antonio mAceo grAjAles ( cubAn CaribbeanrevolutionAry AHistorynd generAl p2) THE MEETING, than a quarter mil- known as the Protest lion soldiers and tra- of Baraguá (“Protesta versed all the island, de Baraguá”), began even through the mil- when a messenger itary trails, walls and was sent to Maceo fences built by the from another Cuban Spanish Army with high officer, who pro- the purpose of stop- posed an ambush ping them and dealing against the Spanish with an overwhelming general. Maceo reject- technical and numer- ed the plan, informing ical superiority of the the would-be conspir- Spaniards. The level ator via letter: “I don’t of coordination and want victory if it goes cohesiveness of Cu- accompanied with dis- ban forces was driven honor.” by the fact that Máxi- After respecting Mr Antonio Maceo Grajales Photo by tvyumuri.com mo Gómez had clearly the truce time for established a chain of the interview (a few ish and faced assas- by the Delegate of the la. Several days lat- command that subor- days), Maceo resumed sination attempts by Cuban Revolutionary er, Martí, treated as a dinated all Major Gen- hostilities. In order to the Spanish consul- Party (Martí). In Cos- non-military “Doctor” erals to Maceo, his ex- save his life, the gov- ates, and also in Ja- ta Rica, he faced, gun by Maceo, would fall ecutive officer. ernment of the Repub- maica, Maceo even- in hand, another at- in battle in Dos Ríos The invasion of lic of Cuba gave him tually settled in the tempt of assassination (confluence between Western Cuba had the task of gathering Costa Rican province by Spanish agents at the rivers Contramae- been previously at- money, arms and men of Guanacaste. The the exit of a theatre, stre and Cauto). tempted by Brigadier for an expedition from president of Costa with fatal result for After Gómez was General Henry Reeve the exterior. Maceo’s Rica assigned Maceo one of the aggressors. designated Gener- during the Ten Years’ movements were use- to a military unit and al in Chief of the Cu- War but faltered (and less, however, due to provided him with a CUBAN WAR OF IN- ban Liberation Army, collapsed) between the dismay of the ex- small farm to live on. DEPENDENCE Maceo was named the easternmost sec- iled sympathizers who Maceo was contact- In 1895, together with Lieutenant General tion of the province were unhappy with ed by José Martí and Flor Crombet and oth- (second in command of Matanzas and the the Zanjón pact. urged to initiate the er lesser officers, Ma- after the General in westernmost section Later in 1879, Ma- War of 1895, called by ceo disembarked in Chief). Starting from of the province of Ha- ceo and Major Gen- Martí the “necessary the vicinity of Baracoa Mangos de Baraguá vana and Reeve per- eral Calixto García war”. Maceo, with the (close to the eastern (place of the histori- ished. At the time Ma- Íñiguez planned from experience and wis- tip of Cuba) and after cal protest in front of ceo had collaborated New York a new inva- dom gained from pre- repelling a Spanish at- Martínez-Campos), with Reeve under the sion to Cuba, which vious revolutionary tempt at capturing or Maceo and Gómez, direction of Máximo initiated the short- failures, argued that killing him, he got into on command of two Gómez. The eager- lived Little War. Ma- there were a number the mountains of that long mambises col- ness for independence ceo did not personally of impediments to region. After many umns, took brilliantly and the cruelty of the fight in these battles, military success in a difficulties, he man- the task of invading Spanish high officers for he had sent Ca- brief but intense epis- aged to gather a small the west of Cuba, rid- made rural inhabi- lixto García as high- tolary exchange with contingent of armed ing or walking more tants of the western est commander. This Martí, warning about men, which rapidly than 1000 miles in half of the island ea- avoided exacerbating the causes of the par- grew with other rebel 96 days. After sev- ger to give support in the racist prejudices of tial defeat in the Ten groups of the Santiago eral months bleeding men and logistics to fellow Cuban officers Years’ War (1868–78). de Cuba region. In the the Spanish forces in the Liberation Army. that were inflamed by Martí responded with farm of “La Mejorana”, Havana and Pinar del This was the cause of Spanish propaganda. his formula of “the Maceo had a histor- Río Maceo arrived at the institution, by Va- The Spanish tried to army, free; but the ic, but unfortunate, Mantua, in the west- leriano Weyler, of the create the impression country, as a coun- meeting with Gómez ern extreme of Cuba, reconcentration. Hun- that Maceo was trying try with all its digni- and Martí, because of on October, 1896, af- dreds of thousands of to start a racial war ty represented,” and the disagreements be- ter defeating for many peasants were forcibly against white Cubans, convinced Maceo of tween him and Martí, times the technically carried to the cities, though their propa- the high probabilities regarding the ques- and numerically su- mainly Havana, Pinar ganda efforts did little of success if the war tion of the relationship perior forces of the del Río and Matanzas, damage to Maceo’s was to be prepared between the military Spaniards (five times besides several minor reputation. carefully. As a pre- movements and the the Cuban forces on cities in these three condition, Maceo de- civilian government, occasions). provinces. THE FRUITFUL manded that highest against which consti- Using alternately In the concentra- TRUCE command should be in tution was Maceo, but the tactics of guerril- tion camps created After a short stay in the hands of Gómez, Martí, knowing both la and open warfare, for them, very similar Haiti, where he was which was approved sides of the problem, they exhausted the CONTINUED pursued by the Span- without reservation stood on his formu- Spanish Army of more ON PAGE 3 P3 CULTURAL XPRESSION - FEBRUARY 2017 CARIBBEAN CRUCIBLE: HISTORY, CULTURE, AND GLOBALIZATIONCulture PT.3 By Kevin A. Yelv- a number of military Cervantes Prize, and ington interventions—which Walcott, from tiny St. Conquest and Colo- eventually brought Lucia, won the Nobel. nization pt 3 tourists, satellite tele- Caribbean mu- AS THE anti-slavery vision, the Internet, sic—reggae, calyp- struggle finally ended, and the International so, salsa, merengue, it gave way to the an- Monetary Fund. This rhumba—has gained ti-colonial, nationalist experience was also worldwide notori- struggle, a prominent diverse (see Table 2). ety and acceptance feature of twenti- Political differenc- and influenced other eth-century Carib- es, linguistic diversi- Photo by DCCCD musical styles. Per- bean life, led for the ty, and traditions and formers such as the most part by workers prejudices inherited metropole than with ple have been con- nothing could ever Mighty Sparrow, Celia and their nascent or- from the differing co- the residents of the strained in their po- be built among these Cruz, and the late Bob ganizations. At the lonial powers have island next door who litical and economic rotting shacks, bare- Marley have achieved same time, European meant that the Ca- speak a different lan- relationships, it is footed backyards and worldwide fame, and dominance gave way ribbean has suffered guage. perhaps these very moulting shingles; ... to these names could in large part, though from a lack of unity constraints that have If there was nothing, be added many oth- not completely, to and insular world- CULTURE AND CRE- generated the condi- there was everything ers. Trinidadian car- U.S. political, cultur- views. Islanders of- OLIZATION tions for innovation to be made.”3 And nival masker Peter al, and military he- ten feel more in com- If Caribbean peo- and creativity that made they have. In Minshall was artistic gemony—including mon with the colonial mark Caribbean cul- 1992, the quincente- director for the open- tural forms—from nary of Columbus’s ing and closing cere- language, religion, first voyage, Carib- monies of the 1992 MAJOR FIGURES IN AFRO and music to family bean litterateurs won Olympics in Barcelo- structure. As Derek Europe’s most pres- na, the 1996 Olym- Walcott, a Caribbe- tigious writing prizes. pics in Atlanta, and remembering Antonio mAceo grAjAles p2 an writer and winner Martinican novelist the 1994 World Cup CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 of the Nobel Prize Patrick Chamoiseau opening ceremony in for Literature, once was awarded France’s the United States. to those later built in the ulterior course or three men), the wrote: “Colonials, we Prix Goncourt, Cu- Europe by the Nazis, of war, and with the physician of his Head- began with this ma- ban poet Dulce María CONTINUED almost a third part of Government in Arms, quarters, the Brigade larial enervation: that Loynaz won Spain’s ON PAGE 4 the Cuban rural popu- to establish an agree- General José Miró lation lost their lives. ment between it and Argenter and a small Contrary to the ex- the forces in action, troop of no more than pectations of Weyler, in relation with two twenty men. When the cruel reconcentra- main subjects: the they attempted to cut tion encouraged many raisings of medium a fence for facilitating people to join to the and high officers in the march of horses Liberation army, pre- the Liberation Army through those lands, ferring to die in bat- and the recognition they were detected by tle than in starvation.