Bolivarian Frasquito Agüero
While a handful of brave principeños traveled between Colombia and Peru, at the time of meeting El Libertador Simón Bolívar in Venezuela, Frasquito Agüero Velazco from Camagüey and his cousin Alonso Betancourt y Betancourt made efforts to receive approval for the Venezuelan armed support, with which the Greater Antilles could be insurrectioned and independence from Spain obtained.
Frasquito had collaborated closely with Alonso Betancourt to guarantee the success of the so-called “Expedition of the Thirteen”, which meant the number of letters of the word Independence that alluded to the number and name of the members of the expedition that was to explore the southern Cuban coastline and select the geographically convenient site, away from Spanish coastal surveillance – to facilitate the landing of the seven ships of the Venezuelan expeditionary force in support of the Cuban patriots and start the total insurrection.
The thirteen members were Alonso Betancourt, Ramón Guerra, the brothers Mariano and Bartolomé Castillo, the colonels from Colombia, Juan José de Salas and Juan de Betancourt, Santiago Zambrano, Francisco Desa, Fernando Betancourt, a Peruvian “Indian” whose name was unknown -assistant of Colonel Salas—five Englishmen, and the captain of the English sloop Margaret, Mrs. Dolphy.
Colombia had assigned its officers Salas and Betancourt for the risky mission, which was not to be discovered by Spanish patrol ships.
The coastal rapprochement took place in March 1826, while, in the city of Puerto Príncipe, the current Camagüey city, Frasquito was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities until he was hanged after the investigation, together with his companion and informer Andrés Manuel Sánchez Pérez. .
His death was a great loss, and it was even more regrettable to lose contacts and secret documentation, in addition to all the plans coordinated with the rest of the patriot nuclei, who were waiting for the call of the generalized fight.
In the United States, where he traveled to spend a year preparing in the city of Philadelphia in 1823, his compatriots Gaspar Betancourt Cisneros, the Trinidadian brothers José Aniceto and Antonio Abad Iznaga Borrell and other men from Cuba were waiting for him.
From said North American city, he left on the schooner Sofía for Maracaibo, arriving at its port on May 16th, 1825. After meeting with Colombian and Venezuelan soldiers, he returned to the port of Kingston, in Jamaica. On board the British sloop Maryland, Frasquito Agüero and the mestizo Andrés Manuel Sánchez left for Cuba on January 11th, 1826, until they arrived at the Sabanalamar estuary -close to the port of Santa Cruz del Sur, in the region of Camagüey, on January 20th of that same year.
It is worth noting that Frasquito left a Masonic organization for independence conspiracy purposes created on Colombian soil, with the name of the “Arcana Globa de Mara, Orden Chimborojana y de Círculo de la Esfera”, whose objective was to incorporate the greatest possible number of interested parties in the independence of the Island, their national origin did not matter.
It was his greatest desire. For this inalienable cause for Cuba, he died while his body oscillated on the gallows, raised in the Main Square of his hometown before a few onlookers and those of his Spanish matadors, who did not care that his real father, the Councilor of the City Council Pablo Antonio de Betancourt y Agüero and his mother Josefa de Velasco y Agüero and other relatives resided in houses located a few meters from that central square of the city.
Nor were they interested in disappearing the bodies in the First Section of the General Cemetery of Puerto Príncipe, in secret tombs, where their relatives would never know.
But Frasquito’s death was not in vain. Other principeños followed his example and his fight spirit. The most consistent to his memory and his sacrifice was Mr. José Agustín Arango y Ramírez. Later, other stubborn fighters would follow.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
