The History of Cuba Volume III Part 23

One of Cuba's greatest poets, Luisa Perez, was born near El Cobre in 1837, and was married in 1858 to Dr. Ramon Zambrana, an eminent man of letters of Havana. She wrote much in youth, and published a volume of poems in 1856. In addition to her poems she wrote "Angelica and Estrella" and other novels, and translated much from the French and Italian. When Gertrudis Avellanda returned to Cuba, Luisa Perez was chosen to place upon her brow a golden laurel wreath.

The second of the four authors was Jose Gonzalo Roldan, whose best work was in poems of tender sentiment. The third, Rafael Maria de Mendive, devoted himself almost exclusively to poems of melancholy or at least pensive sentiment. He was a pa.s.sionate admirer and to some extent a disciple if not an imitator of Byron and Moore, many of whose poems he translated into Spanish with much success. Beside his poetical work however, he cooperated with Quintiliano Garcia in founding and conducting _The Havana Review_, a meritorious fortnightly literary journal. His career in Cuba was cut short early in the Ten Years' War by banishment for treason. He was at that time the head of a boys' school, in Havana, and was suspected by the authorities of inculcating in his pupils forbidden ideas of freedom and democracy. One night in January, 1869, when there was much popular indignation against the Spanish government on account of a very drastic proclamation which had been issued against the insurgent patriots, a number of Cuban women marched to a theatre in Havana, wearing dresses of red, blue and white adorned with stars, obviously representing the colors of the revolutionary Cuban flag. Some of Mendive's boys were present, and they applauded and cheered the women so vigorously that a riot arose, in which the notorious Volunteers caused some bloodshed. For this Mendive was held responsible, and he was arrested and exiled to Spain for a term of four years. The influence of the American poet Longfellow and other literary men, however, procured his release, on condition that he would not reenter Cuba. He accordingly went to New York and there lived until the general amnesty after the Ten Years' War permitted his return to Cuba.

While in New York he wrote much in behalf of the insurrection, and he cheerfully sent his son as a member of the ill-fated _Virginius_ expedition; writing a touching poem on that occasion:

"'Tis well that thou hast done, Most n.o.ble and most right, To answer honor's call, my son, For Fatherland to fight."

The fourth of the four poets of "Cuatro Laudes" was Felipe Lopez de Brinas, who drew his best themes from nature, and who addressed his best poems to his wife.

One of the most popular poets in the period just preceding and during the Ten Years' War was Jose Fornaris, who in his "Cantos de Siboney"

related many legends of the Cuban aborigines, some of them actual traditions but most of them invented by himself. A contemporary who essayed similar themes with almost equal success was Juan Cristobal Napoles Fajardo. Another, Miguel Teurbe de Tolon, devoted himself to legends and ballads not of the aborigines but of the Cuban people of European ancestry. Tolon was an intense patriot, and for that cause suffered exile. For some years he lived in New York, where he was efficiently active as the secretary of the Cuban Revolutionary Junta in that city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOAQUIN LORENZO LUACES]

But perhaps above all others the poet--we might say, the Tyrtaeus--of the revolution was Joaquin Lorenzo Luaces, though he did not live to see the beginning of the war which he did so much to provoke. Luaces, who was born in 1826 and died in 1867, was a devoted Greek scholar, and took Greek poetry for his model. For that reason many have thought that his writings were somewhat academic and artificial. There is however in his poems an exquisite finish surpa.s.sed by no other Cuban writer, while many of them reach a height of inspiration which few others have equalled.

There was in them, moreover, an irresistible call to Cuban patriotism, which had vast effect in rousing the nation for the Ten Years' War. One of his most stirring lyrics was on the Greek War of Independence, ent.i.tled "The Fall of Missolonghi":

To arms, ye Greeks! Missolonghi falls!

And Ibrahim conquers her soldiers brave.

But the Moslem finds within those walls Corpses of Greeks, but never one slave!

JOAQUIN LORENZO LUACES

Lyric, dramatic and patriotic poet, Joaquin Lorenzo Luaces was born in Havana in 1826, and was educated at the University of that city.

His themes as a poet were largely those of the great events of the day, or of history, such as the Fall of Missolonghi, the Death of Lincoln, and the Laying of the Atlantic Cable. Many of his poems were patriotic appeals disguised in cla.s.sic forms. He died in 1867.

This pa.s.sionate call to patriots to do battle to the death against tyrants was addressed to the Greeks, thousands of miles away, and the tyrants against whom it raged were Moslem Turks, hated by all true Spaniards; wherefore the Spanish censor permitted it to be published freely in Cuba. But every Cuban patriot read in it "Cubans" for "Greeks"

and "Spaniards" for "Moslems." Luaces was the author of a number of meritorious dramas.

We have spoken of Dona Louisa Perez as probably the foremost of Cuba's women poets. Her chief rival for that distinction was Dona Gertrudis Gomez de Avellanda, a woman of real genius. But she, although born in Camaguey, was for practically all her life so identified with Spain that she is commonly regarded as a Spaniard rather than a Cuban. Born in 1814, she went to Spain with her mother in 1836, and there remained until 1860. By that time she had gained world-wide reputation as a poet and dramatist, and also as a writer of prose fiction, and on her return to Cuba she was publicly greeted as though she were a queen or an empress. A few months later she hastened back to Spain and there spent the remainder of her life. Only a few of her writings were on Cuban themes, but they indicated that she retained in her voluntary exile a deep love for and sympathy with her native land.

The successor of Domingo Del Monte as a patron of Cuban letters was Nicolas Azcarate, a very wealthy lawyer of Havana, himself a writer and orator of great power, and an ardent patriot, though generally inclined toward reforms and autonomy rather than independence. He was the leader of that "Committee of Information" which went to Spain in 1865 to lay before the Spanish Minister for the Colonies, Canovas del Castillo, the grievances and the demands of Cuba; a mission which was quite fruitless, for it was quickly followed by the outbreak of the Ten Years' War.

Azcarate also founded and conducted at his own cost a newspaper at Havana, _La Voz del Siglo_, to advocate reforms and autonomy. But he lost popularity with the Cubans, who were by this time almost unanimous for independence, while he could not command the favor of the Spaniards; and in consequence he lost his influence, his fortune and his place in society, and ended his life in obscurity and poverty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERTRUDIS GOMEZ DE AVELLANEDA

Although most of her life was spent abroad, the name of Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda y Arteaga must always be enrolled among the glories of Cuban literature and Cuban womanhood. She was born in Camaguey on March 23, 1814, and almost literally "lisped in numbers," since she wrote an elegy on the death of her father at the age of six, and two years later wrote a fairy tale, "The Hundred-Headed Giant." In 1836 she bade farewell to Cuba in a memorable sonnet, and went to France, and thence to Spain. There she wrote poems and dramas which placed her in the foremost rank of the world's literary artists; her poetical drama of "Baltasar" in 1853 being one of the greatest triumphs of that generation. In 1860 she revisited Cuba and was publicly crowned in the Tacon Theatre before a great a.s.semblage of the foremost men and women of the nation. She returned to Spain a few years later and died at Seville on February 2, 1873.]

Prominent among the poets of the Revolution was Juan Clemente Zenea, who was a martyr as well as a poet. He was born at Bayamo in 1832, his mother being the sister of the poet Fornaris already mentioned. He was one of the pupils of Jose de la Luz y Caballero, and before leaving school began to write patriotic poems and other articles. At the age of twenty he had to flee from Cuba to escape arrest and prosecution for his complicity in some revolutionary publications; whereupon he went to New York and there continued his revolutionary writings. So extreme were some of these that in December, 1853, a court martial at Havana condemned him to death. Under the amnesty of 1855 he returned to Cuba and became a teacher of modern languages and a writer for the press, and a few years later published a volume of charming poems. After ten years he left Cuba for New York and then for Mexico, and upon the outbreak of the Ten Years' War he joined the Cuban Junta in New York and became editor of its organ, _La Revolucion_. In 1870 the Spanish Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, wis.h.i.+ng to negotiate secretly with Cespedes, the leader of the Cuban revolutionists, gave Zenea a safe conduct to pa.s.s through the Spanish lines and convey a message to Cespedes. This errand was undertaken against the advice of his friends. It was accomplished in safety, however, until when, on his return trip, he was just about to pa.s.s beyond the limits of Spanish jurisdiction. Then he was seized by order of the Volunteers and imprisoned. The Spanish government at Madrid telegraphed orders to the Captain-General to honor the safe conduct and to release him at once. But that officer, the notorious Count Valmaseda, ignored these orders, kept Zenea in prison until there was a change of Ministry at Madrid, and then, on August 25, 1871, put him to death. The Spanish government disavowed this monstrous crime, and paid Zenea's widow an indemnity of $25,000, though it failed to punish Valmaseda according to his deserts.

Another pupil of Luz y Caballero, and a close friend of Zenea, was Enrique Pineyro, a journalist, historian, essayist and lecturer, who, born in 1839, had the good fortune to survive until 1911 and thus to see the work of Cuban independence triumphantly completed. Jose Morales Lemus, born in 1808, established in Havana in 1863 the paper _El Siglo_, a powerful advocate of reforms and autonomy. He went with Saco and Azcarate on the Committee of Information to Madrid, and on his return from that bootless errand he went to Was.h.i.+ngton as the first Cuban Minister. He was the envoy of the Provisional Government of the Cubans in the Ten Years' War, and as such, though the Cuban Republic did not receive official recognition, he partic.i.p.ated in formulating the plan of Cuban settlement which General Daniel E. Sickles, as a special American envoy, carried to Madrid to propose to the Spanish government.

This plan provided that Spain should grant Cuban independence in return for a large indemnity to be paid by Cuba under the guarantee of the United States. It was not certain that the Cuban people would have approved that plan. Indeed, it is probable that they would not have done so. The Spanish government would not listen to it, however, and it was abandoned. A little later, in June, 1870, Lemus died.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENRIQUE PInEYRO]

ENRIQUE PInEYRO

The son of a University professor of literature and history, Enrique Pineyro was born in Havana in 1839 and was educated at La Luz's school of El Salvador. He became a successful journalist, writer and teacher, and when the Ten Years' War began he went to New York and there edited "La Revolucion" and "El Nuevo Mundo," and wrote several notable histories and biographies. After the war he returned to Cuba for a short time, then went to Paris and remained there until his death in 1910.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOSe MORALES LEMUS

A veteran of the Lopez insurrection and of the Ten Years' War was Jose Morales Lemus, who was born at Gibara on May 2, 1808, and became a successful advocate. Convinced of the wrong of slavery, he liberated his own slaves, who however insisted upon voluntarily remaining in his service. He partic.i.p.ated in the Lopez invasion in 1851 and in the Pinto conspiracy in 1855, on which account he was exiled to the United States.

In 1866 he returned to Cuba and became President of the Junta of Information. At the outbreak of the Ten Years' War he went to New York to become head of the Cuban Junta there, in consequence of which all his property in Cuba was confiscated. At Was.h.i.+ngton he strove earnestly though in vain to secure the recognition of Cuban belligerence. His efficient patriotic labors were continued in New York to the day of his death, which occurred on June 23, 1870.]

One more Cuban writer demands attention, prior to the War of Independence; though there were indeed many others of merit whose names might well be recalled if a bibliography of the island were to be compiled. Rafael Merchan was born in 1844, and was thus a mere youth when the Ten Years' War began to be planned; yet we must reckon him to have been perhaps the foremost patriotic journalist of that struggle. It was he who suggested the name "Laborers" which was at first commonly applied to the Cuban revolutionists. It will be recalled that in Cuba affairs were directed by a "Labor Committee," that in the United States societies of "Cuban Laborers" were formed in many cities, and that periodicals called _El Laborante_ were published. Proscribed and sentenced to death by the Spanish authorities, he found asylum in New York, and there edited the Cuban revolutionary journal, _La Revolucion_.

Thence a few years later he went to Bogota, Colombia, to engage in business and also to continue his literary career. It was his good fortune to be able to resume his patriotic writings in 1890, when the War of Independence began to loom upon the horizon, and to write in 1895 and later several pamphlets in support of that struggle, some of which had much influence in both America and Great Britain. He lived to see the Cuban Republic securely established, and to go abroad as its Minister to France and Spain in 1902. His service was brief, however, because of ill health, which soon brought him home to die.

It would be pleasant, and not lacking in profit, to dwell at greater length upon these and other intellectual leaders of the Cuban people.

What we have said is, however, sufficient to show how greatly and how masterfully the intellectual side of Cuban life was developed during the century of political stress and fitful military strife which served as the stormy prelude to Cuba's achievement of her independent rank among the nations of the world. It was a development admirably comparable with any ever recorded of any other people, and one which splendidly vindicated the claim of the Cuban people to worth as a sovereign nation.

Moreover, it was an unmistakable earnest of approaching independence.

While for a century Cuba was purely a Spanish colony, her intellectual life was embryotic and inert. During the two centuries while she was more or less an object of international contention, she showed little activity. But in her fourth century, the era of revolution and of aspirations for independence, she showed the stuff that was in her sons and daughters. Her soldiers were valiant in battle. Her statesmen were wise in council. Her scholars and literati commanded distinguished attention in the most brilliant intellectual era of human history, and demonstrated that the Cuba that was about to be would be in the culture of the higher life a worthy member of the community of nations.

THE END OF VOLUME THREE