Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
With haste and a strong patriotic unitary feeling, on November 4, 1868, the people of Camagüey entered the first war of independence, initiated by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, with the uprising of 76 combatants in the Paso de Las Clavellinas of the Saramaguaicán River, three leagues (13 km) from Puerto Príncipe, on the road to Nuevitas.
Under the name of the Las Clavellinas Uprising, the beginning of the insurrection in Camagüey is closely related to the Ten Years' War, and it did not occur in unison due to the sudden start that Céspedes was forced to make and, along the way, due to the logistical obstacles that the enterprising members of the Revolutionary Board of the region had to overcome, with greatly redoubled colonial vigilance, to go to the jungle.
In general terms, the Creole conspirators active and organized in the area through the Board were aware, at that point, that colonialism would not yield one iota to the interests of the children of this land and that only armed struggle and total emancipation would make them owners of their legitimate rights.
Not everyone shared the urgency to carry out an imminent uprising, since the majority of the natives involved in the conspiracy were owners of sugar mills and farms whose final product, the harvest, and other items, had to be taken care of and were used as reasons to postpone the beginning of that contest. They also thought that their wealth was based on slave labor, without the predominance of modern techniques to replace it.
Not everyone shared the urge to carry out an imminent uprising, since the majority of the natives involved in the plot were owners of sugar mills and farms whose final product, the harvest, and other items, had to be taken care of and were given as reasons to postpone the beginning of that contest. It also weighed heavily that their wealth was based on slave labor, without the predominance of modern techniques to replace it.
In the midst of this reality and contradictions, came the outbreak of Demajagua, on October 10, 1868 in Manzanillo, immediately converted into Grito de Yara, due to the place where the first encounter occurred - unfortunate for the mambises - with Spanish soldiers, from the other side of the city of the Gulf, heading to Bayamo. But it acquired the glory of being a baptismal one.
Camagüey's action was not completely improvised either, it was previously planned in large meetings that took place even before the Céspedes uprising: one at Rubalcaba's farm, another at the Los Caletones property and the third in the vicinity of the central city of Puerto Príncipe.
And when the unavoidable duty of joining the feat initiated by the orientals became more important, a feverish hustle and bustle broke out in those days at La Filarmónica Society, where the main promoters of the insurrection in Camagüey went to obtain financial funds, weapons and everything necessary for the insurrection. The ladies embroidered cockades with the colors of the flag of 1851, later recognized as the national flag.
Historian Elda Cento Gómez, referring to the undoubted feeling of unity with the cause of the patriots of the center, pointed out at the same time that unity was a very elusive element in the future of the Cuban liberation movement.
The truth is that the good patriots felt then that they could not wait any longer and that it was of great importance to go for arms, because they had to strengthen the Revolution, which had begun so impetuously, and try to achieve the greatest dispersion and confrontation of the detachments of the metropolis in various points of the Island.
Experts affirm that such action influenced the later incorporation of the area included in the old department of Las Villas, further west than Puerto Príncipe.
Among the most notable participants were Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Marquis of Santa Lucía, at the head of the Revolutionary Board at that time; and the young and brilliant lawyer Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz, although they were not present at the Las Clavellinas Uprising because they were in the middle of preparatory work for the insurrection.
Agramonte soon honored his commitment to fully join the jungle and on November 11 he did so from El Oriente sugar mill, near Sibanicú. His actions are inscribed with golden letters in the history of the nation.
How can we describe that glorious fourth of November in Las Clavellinas? Around 7:00 in the morning, as planned, the young rebels set out for El Cercado sugar mill, whose owner was Martín Castillo Agramonte.
There, Jerónimo Boza Agramonte was named superior military chief of Camagüey and Gregorio Boza, second chief, while the rest of the soldiers were organized into seven platoons.
Other illustrious patriots were present at that historic clarion call: Ignacio Mora de la Pera, Manuel Boza Agramonte, Martín Loynaz Miranda, José Recio Betancourt, Eduardo Agramonte Piña, Francisco Arteaga Piña, Manuel Agramonte Porro, Juan, Manuel, Gregorio and Gerónimo Boza; Augusto Arango, Francisco Sánchez Betancourt and Ángel del Castillo.
There were numerous members of the same family involved, hence the crosslinking of surnames that can be seen in this composition marked as tonic that initial nucleus and was a characteristic of the Puerto Principe’s mambises.
On November 26, an unyielding Ignacio Agramonte had to ratify the validity of the anti-colonialist armed struggle, in the face of divisionist attempts by the metropolis, which undermined the will of some. And the battle continued.
The patriots of the Center, as this historic region of extensive plains was also called, knew how to understand in the face of the facts the urgent need for their incorporation.
More so, when they learned that the Spanish general in charge of the colony would soon send reinforcements in arms and men, through the Port of Nuevitas, against the insurrection of the East and the newly born Republic in Arms, victorious in Bayamo.
Once on land, the shipment would travel by train to its destination. They say that Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, after discussions for and against, ended them when he said: “Gentlemen, tomorrow I will go alone or accompanied to stop that train, because I have written to José Ramón that the weapons will not reach Mena's hands; and you should know that if I were to receive them, the train would have passed over my dead body before then.”
With the entry of Ignacio Agramonte, in full youth and strength, he organized the force subordinate to him with iron discipline, camaraderie, bravery and always ahead with the force of his example. The impressive cavalry that he organized is one of the most real and legendary examples of that epic, which his compatriots from the region joined on November 4.
Only his early death physically stopped El Mayor, who today is a hero as loved and admired as then. (Martha Gómez Ferrals/ACN) (Photo: Archive)
