Maria Magdalena Cabrales Fernandez.

Photo: File.

A day like today in 1842, the Cuban patriot María Magdalena Cabrales Fernández was born.

María Cabrales is an example of a Cuban woman and patriot.

She has not gone down in history just because she is the wife of Lieutenant General Antonio Maceo Grajales, but because of her high independence values ​​against the Spanish metropolis in the 19th century.

early years

Born on the San Agustín farm, located in the jurisdiction of Jutinicú, San Luis, in Santiago de Cuba, she was the youngest daughter of the marriage made up of free mulattoes Ramón Cabrales and Antonia Fernández.

Her siblings were: Fabián, Santiago, Caridad and Dolores.

He spent his early years, until adolescence on this farm.

Her parents had a comfortable economic and social position, which allowed them to relate to prominent people in Santiago de Cuba.

However, this did not prevent them from suffering the racial discrimination so common at that time.

Very little is known about her education, but the truth is that she was literate, which was important and relatively uncommon for a woman of her time and social status.

Marriage with Antonio Maceo

On the San Agustín farm, the Cabrales had as neighbors the married couple Marcos Maceo and Mariana Grajales, also free pardos and owners of several caballerias of land.

This closeness and the independence ideas allowed both families to strengthen relations, which were strengthened with the marriage of Antonio Maceo and María Cabrales on February 16, 1866.

Maria was three years older than Antonio.

According to her evidence in several testimonies, she was a mulatto woman with a beautiful face, curly hair, slender, and graceful gestures.

She was a good example of beauty, a product of the mixture of races that occurred in Spanish America.

The couple moved to live on the La Esperanza farm, adjusting to the new life.

In this home, the revolutionary ideas continued to be forged in both young people, which were developed in a context in which separatist ideas began to manifest themselves since the mid-19th century and the country was debating in the midst of the burning problem of slavery.

the war of independence

The first war for independence broke out in Cuba in 1868. In the face of such an event that shook the entire island, María was not left out.

It is known that like many women, she went to the bush without specifying the exact date, there she worked as a nurse in blood hospitals.

He knew how to overcome the tragedy.

Along with Mariana Grajales, she visited the mambi camps to treat the wounded after the fighting, or bring them food and clothing.

They were the first nurses of the war, as they provided assistance at the end of the fighting.

She unconditionally supported her husband in peace and in war, in exile and in the insurgent camp.

In August 1877, after the action at Mangos de Mejía where Antonio Maceo was seriously wounded and was pursued by strong Spanish columns, in the midst of danger, he raised his energetic voice to the chief of the regiment Santiago José María Rodríguez: "To save the General or die with him."

Months later, after the Baraguá Protest, he went into exile with the rest of the family to spend several years in different Caribbean countries: Jamaica, Honduras, Panama;

until settling in Costa Rica.

In the summer of 1890 she had a brief stay in Cuba, until she was expelled together with her husband.

In exile, María was aware of the preparations for the war and supported the various independence movements that were generated in emigration.

In this context, she met José Martí on October 12, 1893, in Kingston, Jamaica.

A great friendship emerged from this meeting and the founding, twelve days later, of the "José Martí" Patriotic Club.

On July 18, 1894 in Costa Rica, after a new meeting with the delegate, he founded another club, this time with the name “Hermanas de María Maceo”.

When she found out about the preparations for the new independence war and the omission of women, she demanded her position: “(...) and if now there are not going to be women, who will take care of the wounded?

(...)”

Of extraordinary natural intelligence, he could not fully develop intellectually due to the characteristics of the time, but he knew how to adapt to the economic precariousness of revolutionary life.

He suffered all the hardships of warfare without expressing a complaint.

He shared with Maceo the rebel attempts, the persecutions, the war, the mountains and the exile.

He lived the heroic deed of 1868, the revolutionary attempt of the Little War and also the sublime stage of 1895.

Death

The fall in combat of her husband on December 7, 1896 did not intimidate her, she continued the fight in her revolutionary tasks.

In September 1897 she returned to Costa Rica to support herself financially, there she joined the "Cubanas y Nicoyanas" women's club, of which she was elected treasurer.

After the end of the war he returned to his homeland on May 13, 1899. Here he was linked to various patriotic and humanitarian tasks such as the direction of the homeland orphans asylum.

On July 28, 1905, he died at the San Agustín farm, the place where he was born 63 years earlier.

His remains were transferred to Santiago de Cuba where the people paid him honours.

Ella María rests today in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.

María Cabrales assumed the leading role of the Cuban woman who contributed, with her work and revolutionary attitude, to forging the historical destiny of her people.

María in her work at the head of the José Martí Club.

Thousands of people from Santiago gathered for the burial of María Cabrales