Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Note on language and translations
- Introduction
- 1 James J. O'Kelly at Jiguaní (1873)
- 2 José Martí at Vega del Jobo (1895)
- 3 Richard Harding Davis in Santiago de Cuba (1897)
- 4 Edward Stratemeyer at Siboney (1898)
- 5 Andrew Summers Rowan in Bayamo (1898)
- 6 Josephine Herbst in Realengo 18 (1935)
- 7 Antonio Núñez Jiménez on Pico Turquino (1945)
- 8 ‘Less than human’: Guantánamo Bay (2002)
- Envoi
- Glossary
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Andrew Summers Rowan in Bayamo (1898)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations and maps
- Note on language and translations
- Introduction
- 1 James J. O'Kelly at Jiguaní (1873)
- 2 José Martí at Vega del Jobo (1895)
- 3 Richard Harding Davis in Santiago de Cuba (1897)
- 4 Edward Stratemeyer at Siboney (1898)
- 5 Andrew Summers Rowan in Bayamo (1898)
- 6 Josephine Herbst in Realengo 18 (1935)
- 7 Antonio Núñez Jiménez on Pico Turquino (1945)
- 8 ‘Less than human’: Guantánamo Bay (2002)
- Envoi
- Glossary
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Cuban lag was flying over the village of Bayamo. At the door of the headquarters I was met by General Calixto García. I gave him my papers, made a short statement of my business, and was given a glass of rum and invited to breakfast, for it was now twelve o'clock. Breakfast over we went to work, and by nightfall the return dispatches were ready. General García asked me if I could leave that night, and I answered in the affirmative. In an hour our mounts were standing before the door. He bade farewell, and … we rode off to the northward.
(Andrew Summers Rowan)Although General Máximo Gómez was in command of the Cuban army from 1895 to 1898, the figure who came to represent the Cuban insurgency, at least to a US readership, was General Calixto García Íñiguez. García had the advantage of a romantic history. In 1873, during the Ten Years' War, on the point of capture by Spanish troops, he had put a pistol under his chin and fired. he bullet left a hole in his forehead, but he miraculously survived. Ater he had recovered sufficiently to face a firing squad, Spanish soldiers called attention to how well he had treated them when they'd been captured—so he was just imprisoned in Spain until the war ended, a decision that the Spanish authorities must have deeply regretted. Committed to the Cuban cause, García had returned to Oriente on the night of 24/25 March 1896, landing just north of Baracoa, and had soon been made Gómez's second-in-command.
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- Information
- Cuba's Wild EastA Literary Geography of Oriente, pp. 226 - 279Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011