Fernando Figueredo Socarrás, joined in body and soul to the 10 Years War. He was Secretary of the Father of the Nation: Carlos Manuel de Céspedes; Chief of the General Staff of the Liberation Army; assistant of the Bronze Titan: Antonio Maceo and witness of the honorable Protest of Baraguá; delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in Tampa, and in 1912 president of the Academy of Cuban History. He died in the country’s capital on April 13th, 1929.

President of the Academy of Cuban History?

This last appointment of president of the Academy of History, well deserved, is validated by one of his masterpieces, La Revolución de Yara. In the prologue, he signified the value of Cuban women, those who in exile made the spirit of La Damajagua beat, after the Pact and vivified by Baraguá:

“To do justice, I must mean that the revolutionary spirit was maintained, unchanged, by a group of Cuban ladies who, with the charming name of “Daughters of Liberty”, like other virgins of the Roman Temple, fed the holy fire of patriotism inextinguishable: Around it, like luminous satellites, different Clubs revolved, and together they formed, in those moments of doubts and disappointments, a sublime ensemble in which religious worship was rendered to the sacrosanct idea of ​​a Revolution.”

Daughters of this Club are the conferences that Fernando held for five years in Tampa, Key West, from 1882 to 1887, which later emerged in this aforementioned text. The oral and written sources and his active participation in the 10 Years War are the platform for such a worthy book.

Remarks of José Martí on the work of Fernando

Regarding the immense value of this History, José Martí, nurtured by his irreplaceable contributions to re-build the new liberating effort, wrote:

“’Don’t be afraid V., something will be done that leaves nothing to be desired. I promise to publish it in two volumes and to make an edition dedicated to the Revolution that we create: I want to form the soul of the new Army in the heat of the teachings of the old. I will join the two books by a strap and I will make an effort so that each soldier carries this work with him, with the same faith that the believer guards the Bible… May the old Army and its works be the foundations on which not only the inexperienced liberators rest, but that the building of the Homeland rise gracefully over them.”

The conferences of the engineer and intellectual, Figueredo Socarrás, a mambí in exile, constituted a living, powerful memory in the hands of the Master. The book of October 10th, with the strap of the Little War, joined the second book of February 24th, to perpetuate the cry of Independence.

 Legacy

Today, that historical memory constitutes the sap of the present. It is the nurturing essence of our identity, of the sense of belonging to the small homeland and to humanity.

Bibliography

Figueredo Socarrás, F. (1902) La Revolución de Yara, 1868-1878. Conferencias. Habana, M. Pulido y Compañía, Impresores 30 Amargura. Cuba.

Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García