When someone speaks of Ignacio Agramonte the ideas that settle in our memories go tinged of example, value, love; in short with just say The Major is enough. To write about his life, his passion for Cuba, for the justice and the love he professed to his Amalia are not complex topics because since we begin to read, we get to know about them.

Today it corresponds to me to look for few well-known sides of his existence, difficult topic, because his figure is inspiration for the camagüeyanos; but there’s one of extraordinary fondness that has not been a discovery and even so it is never been mentioned: And it is Ignacio Agramonte as a father…

In his troubles for the freedom of Cuba it was also included his concern as a father about the future that his children would have if the independence Cuba weren’t achieved.

 About his children… 

Ignacio Ernesto, the mambisito, as he baptized him to have been born in the manigua was his inspiration in fight and love, but according to the historian Elda Cento he didn’t get to know Herminia his daughter, because Amalia was pregnant when he was -in fact captured by an enemy column in operations the day his son turned his first year -, and the girl was born in the exile.

When we enjoy the material that investigator Elda Cento dedicated to the topic, we live the moment in that the mambisito was born. Imagine the nerves Ignacio Agramonte would have had that he was fighting and at the same time he was to the expectation of when his son would be born.

Amalia was a great woman, her calm and anger were transmitted to her lover in all moment and sample of this is the text Ignacio Agramonte in their private life a passage, from Aurelia del Castillo that Cento mentions in her material:

“general and messenger arrived together to the place where they had to go, and Ignacio, informed of what happened, gave orders to the boss of general staff and he returned hastily together his lover.”

“But it was already half night when he arrived and the room of Amalia was crowded with ladies because of the war had gathered, and they were sleeping. Ignacio had the necessary willpower to dominate the desire that killed him, and, putting in the floor his saddlebags, he spent the night, in candle without a doubt, behind that door that the respect to women […] forbade him to get in.”

Ana Betancourt was one of those women. She went to see Amalia once it was day, she came closer to the bed where Amalia was to get to know about her and her baby. “I am very well, Amalia told her, and I think to have felt Ignacio has arrived”. Indeed, when she opened the door, she saw Agramonte in excitement that is easy to show off. “Get up soon, she screamed to the other ladies, and leave out because here’s a man despaired to hug his wife and to know his son.”

To be father… 

It’s not necessary more words to imagine how much feeling was crowded together in the atmosphere, how much nostalgia for his son, for his wife; for those that he visited brief instants and without showing any fatigue he dedicated them cares, mimes and he also did the domestic chores so that Amalia could rest.

His mail is an alive testimony of how much he loved his family, of his great paternal sense and of his eternal commitment with the homeland that also wrapped him up as a son between its arms.