Rosa Castellanos Castellanos was born in Bayamo, the former East province. Daughter of slaves from Africa, personally suffer the ignominy of oppression. Consequently, she had knowledge of the insides of the maroon, either from her own experience or from her close relatives. Thus, The Cry of Independence in La Damajagua was for the former slaves and also serfs, a continuity of their struggles for their emancipation that began nationwide with the Conspiracy of Aponte in 1812.

In this sense, the American journalist Grobert Flint, due to the fame that Rosa had, investigated his humanitarian work and published in the Journal newspaper: she served the Nation in a Hospital that she founded and that she maintained at her expense and under her sole responsibility… those wounded in the Saratoga combat were perfectly hospitalized; the majority in the Sierra de Najasa. Eleven of them found rest on the mountain of Polvorín; the most fortunate, because a good woman named Rosa cares took care of their recovery.

Rosa, the mambisa nurse

Jorge Juárez narrated that Rosa had to act as a doctor, a health worker, a fodder, a cook, and a laundress. She was even a chemist to manufacture the Creole medicines that she needed for her patients, and even had to serve as an explorer and escort of the Hospital, and that due to her vigilance, it was never assaulted.

In this way she began in the medical corps for her knowledge in popular medicine, healing wounds, reducing fevers, relieving stomach ailments, headaches, skin diseases as a result of insect bites, infections, among other ills. She knew healing herbs better than anyone. She had an extraordinary knowledge of the therapeutic properties of the Cuban flora. Popular wisdom collects that in the hospitals where she was, no one died, she took care of her wounded in the solitude of the night, in their hammocks without letting them be seen and captured.

Her field of operation was in Camagüey. From 1868 in Las Clavellinas, Rosa, was willing to offer her efforts where it was most needed. She observed that the medical corps could be the field where she could contribute the most. She brought with her an ancient wisdom of the properties of green medicine. Herbs, honey, sums, potions, ointments, in short, the love to a healthy life. She settled in the mountains of Najasa, there she treated the wounded from the combats in La Sacra, Palo Seco, El Naranjo, Mojacasabe, Jimaguayú, Las Guásimas, among others.

The Pact of Zanjón surprised her on the battlefields and as the fight restarted, the experience she had acquired helped her to have better conditions in her hospital of charity and mercy. When the fight restarted in 1895, she reincorporated, her care and her fame with her popular medicine was so great that Generalissimo Máximo Gómez in 1896 grated her the rank of Captain of the Liberation Army.

She died in Camagüey on September 25, 1907

At 7 p.m. on September 25th, 1907, the councilors Mr. Pedro Guzmán, Oscar Ávila, Esteban Castellanos, José Reyes, Carlos Guerra, Filiberto Pichardo, Fernando Mendoza and Emilio Arteaga met in Camagüey city and before starting the agenda, it was agreed at the request of Mr. Arteaga to record in the minutes the deep feeling of the corporation for the death of the well-named Sister of Charity of the Revolution fields, Mrs. Rosa Castellanos y Castellanos ( La Bayamesa). Her corpse rested in a funeral chapel at the request of the City Council, in its Section Room. Agreement reached last May 29th, since then the end of her journey was starting.

In San Isidro Street (which today bears her name), number 22, early in the morning, at approximately 8:00 am, surrounded by those closest to her, the strong body gave way, that one, that calmed so many wounds. At 12 noon, her remains were transferred to the City Council and for 30 hours the people of Camagüey flooded the front of her coffin as an act of love and respect for those who knew how to win it.

The Agramontinian shoulders disputed the honor of transferring her in her last moments to the General Cemetery. There, among flowers, tears, solemn music, her body was placed in the second niche of vault 71 of the first section. Twenty years after her physical disappearance the Territorial Council of Veterans transferred her remains to the Veterans Pantheon.

Bibliography

AHPC: Fondo Ayuntamiento, Acta Capitular, 26 de junio al 9 de octubre de 1907, Legajo 77 Fuera de caja, Folios 170-171.

AHPC: Fondo Jorge Juárez Cano: Biografía de Rosa La Bayamesa, Carpeta 99, Folios 20 – 21.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García