For the forge of the nation
Martí stirred up political efforts from outside the Island and called on the old fighters of the glorious epic to encourage them to return to fight for the project of the nation that he drew with fire from his mind. The Master did not delve into old differences and tactical errors from the previous process, which had led to lowering the sword in El Zanjón.
To raise Cuba up in arms, there is nothing better in its project to liberate the nation than to remember each “October 10th”, honor the essential men in the struggle, offer an imaginative portrait of “April 10th”, and remove from the historical showcase Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and Ignacio Agramonte.
Knowing the ethical, moral, patriotic, radical, enlightened profile of up-to-date Cuban examples, Martí placed them exactly at the core of the call for the defining unitary impulse and to firmly raise again the sword that had been dropped. On October 9th, 1888, the Maestro wrote in an autumn morning the moving article that as soon as it came off the printer in the pages of El Avisador Cubano was distributed among the patriotic emigration in New York. Its content was impressive.
Amalia Simoni, the widow of the man from Camagüey and whoever knew him, thanked El Mayor for his honor, for the text in which a certain ponderative emphasis was made visible by the caudillo of Camagüey. Remember the biographical sketch « the rapture of Céspedes, and the purification of Agramonte»; and that one: “And what we want is to see them again”; or of the principeño: “That diamond with the soul of a kiss.”
El Mayor to the fight for the country
Knowing the tough character of several of the old fighters and the inexperience and immaturity of the “new pines” that would be called to fight, Martí sought the formula to attract them and forge that unity for superior achievement. Precisely to compose the pondering portrait of Agramonte who had to be followed to the fields of Cuba, as if he were still alive, he alludes: «But the war came, tamed the natural pride of the first attack, and he was seen by the force of the body, the exaltation of virtue.
Céspedes and Agramonte had to be present in the appeal for the new country, without Spain. For everything when he alludes to the second, in his worldview, claiming that the young people or “new pines” would assume the same patriotic values to use them in combat in the fields of Cuba, he highlights: “Is there no other man who has subdued to a similar degree in hours of tumult their natural authority to that of the homeland!».
He would say more: «And that was the one who at the pace of glory commanded the army of his people, virgin and gigantic (…)? The one who harangued his troops with unknown voice, and inflamed his patriotism (…)? The one who never allows anyone to get ahead of him in the fight (…)? The one who when a thousand Spaniards take his friend prisoner, he hits them with thirty horses, gets between their haunches, and frees the friend? The one who, with no more military science than genius, organizes the cavalry, remakes the waste Camagüey, maintains war workshops in the forests, combines and directs victorious attacks, and uses his reputation to serve with him the prestige of the law? , when he was the only one who, perhaps with popular approval, was always able to challenge it?» . The hero of Jimaguayú to promote the fight and the union.
Marti’s article “Céspedes y Agramonte” is worth reviewing in the classroom. His summons to wage the fight for the country with shame and decorum; to reinforce the unity of all; to strive for a Better World; to defend history as a nation’s culture; and to be better human beings; Martí continues to summon us to this and more to be at the side of the march of the Father of the Nation Céspedes and Mayor Agramonte. And the recent victory in the elections for Deputies to the National Assembly of the Cuban Parliament confirms that we are going well along the path of those initiators of our epic struggle.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
