the funeral path of José Martí

SANTA CLARA, Cuba. – About six months would have handed because the occasions in Dos Ríos when the peasant José Rosalía Pacheco identified to Enrique Loynaz del Castillo the precise position the place the “president of the insurgents” had fallen, marked by means of a middle stick. “Right here, proper right here I amassed Martí’s blood. “I nonetheless see the mark of the knife the place I pulled out all of the pool of coagulated blood from the bottom to stay it in a knob.”

3 kilometers northwest of Palma Soriano, the place the Cauto and Contramaestre rivers converge, the Spanish military brought about a unmarried casualty that noon on Might 19, 1895. In useless, the younger lieutenant Ángel de l. a. Guardia had attempted to rescue the fallen guy, believing him nonetheless wounded within the skirmish. Mins after the retreat and next go back to the Cuban troops, the Baconao horse gave the impression lined in blood as speedy affirmation of the misfortune.

In spite of the ideas introduced by means of De l. a. Guardia, who used to be accompanying Martí at the moment, Normal Máximo Gómez nonetheless maintained the appearance that he can have been misplaced within the “confusion of the struggle” or a prisoner of the enemy column. In a letter to the Spanish colonel-in-chief, he asked evidence of lifestyles or to a minimum of be informed the place his stays were deposited, however he won no reaction from the counterpart. After a number of failed makes an attempt to get well it and after the go back of the messenger who carried the letter, he assumed definitive simple task of the loss of life of the delegate and long run president of the Republic in Hands.

No longer even Colonel Ximénez de Sandoval himself, accountable for the column that performed the improvement, used to be totally assured of the identification of the killed guy till he needed to test his non-public property. In a next message despatched to his superiors, he clarified that the “titled president fell with 5 bullets” and that the ownership of his frame used to be being “very disputed by means of his folks.”

In this day and age of the deadly shot, Martí used to be a very easy goal for enemy sight: he used to be dressed in ankle boots, a black jacket and a depressing beaver hat, and in his hand he carried the Colt revolver with a mother-of-pearl maintain given to him by means of Panchito Gómez Toro, held round his neck by means of a wire, from which no longer a unmarried cartridge used to be fired.

In his ownership he had an eye fixed and a handkerchief, each along with his initials (JM), and a number of other treasured paperwork in his wallet: letters and a portrait of María Mantilla and different letters from Carmen Miyares, Bartolomé Masó and Clemencia Gómez addressed to him, consistent with the overdue researcher Rolando Rodríguez critiques in his e-book Dos Ríos: On horseback and with the solar on our foreheads.

Additionally discovered used to be the incomplete manuscript of the letter to Manuel Mercado, a blue ribbon and the penknife and cockade which are stated to have belonged to Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. From more than one references in ancient texts it’s recognized that the revolver used to be later given to Normal Arsenio Martínez Campos as conflict booty and that the epistles have been conferred to the Spanish army archives.

After correct identity of the frame, which remained wrapped in a hammock, the column transported it folded and tied to the again of a horse, to deposit it on the foot of a jobo ahead of heading to Remanganaguas, the place that they had prior to now opened the outlet for his or her first grave in residing earth.

Martí’s first two burials

Best 3 days after that first burial, the frame used to be exhumed in order that the Cuban physician Pablo de Valencia may just perform the method of post-mortem, embalming and due opinion of the deceased during which he used to be described as “skinny, of standard peak”, “with a small bald spot at the crown of the top, very pronounced receding hairlines on the temples and a large, transparent brow.”

The record additionally specifies that he had a penetrating gunshot wound to the chest with an go out wound behind the thorax, some other within the neck beneath the chin, a 3rd within the thigh and a few bruises and lacerations on the remainder of the frame. The viscera and the guts have been extracted and positioned in the similar open grave, and to raised maintain the corpse the physician implemented an answer of alum and polish.

Alternatively, because of the complex state of decomposition, the manufacture of a country cedar coffin with a tumbler window used to be in an instant ordered to in any case be transported to Santiago de Cuba, first on stretchers carried by means of mules after which alongside the railway tracks in a wagon. shipment of the passenger educate that lined the path, consistent with the e-book Imperishable stones: the funeral path of José Martí.

The coffin of the champion of the brand new conflict entered Santiago at 6:00 within the afternoon of the twenty sixth and even though a crowd amassed on the educate station, the coffin remained hidden within the automotive till overdue into the evening. The following morning, patriots, acquaintances and buddies of José Martí attended Santa Ifigenia to corroborate with their very own eyes that it used to be his corpse.

To be able to reveal it to the unbelievers, a Spanish soldier used to be commissioned to boost the lid and take away the spikes along with his bayonet. The testimonies describe a country picket field sealed with strips of cans and a frame “slightly decomposed, resting with its mouth open and its hair combed again.” “There used to be undoubtedly, it used to be the similar brow,” probably the most attendees would write.

In a while ahead of the frame used to be deposited in area of interest 134 of the south gallery of the cemetery, the photojournalist Higinio Martínez would take the one symbol that exists of José Martí’s cold face, a snapshot printed two weeks later at the entrance web page of the biweekly newspaper. The Cool animated film.

After a next exhumation, fragments of items of clothes have been discovered, together with a black bow tie, so historians suppose that during Remanganaguas he used to be dressed once more ahead of being positioned within the sarcophagus. With nice drama and in all probability a definite recognize, Ximénez de Sandoval himself pronounced the farewell phrases, claiming: “Don’t see the enemy in the only in our sight, however see the corpse of the person that the political struggles positioned ahead of the Spanish squaddies.”

A yr after the tragedy of Dos Ríos and in the similar position marked by means of Loynaz del Castillo with a picket go, generals Máximo Gómez and Calixto García would make a pilgrimage in conjunction with Fermín Valdés Domínguez and a bunch of squaddies. Through order of the Dominican, every one dropped a stone extracted from the Contramaestre at the actual web page of the autumn, till forming a country pyramid, an act that used to be repeated as a tribute all the way through the conflict of independence.

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