2023-11-18 20:20:25
New York, August 27, 1893. People look for jobs in the city like a thirsty man hallucinates for a glass of water after miles of walking. Dozens of banks have failed, prostitution is on the rise. Not oblivious to all this, behind the façade of house 116, on West 64th Street, José Martí lives the independence ardor.
On the desk lies the most recent edition of Patriaand in its long pages, perhaps the most complete portrait of the Generalissimo, the veteran with the snow mustache, to whom the Master had gone in September 1892 and at the beginning of June 1893, in Montecristi, Dominican Republic.
Also nearby is Martí’s own coat with pockets full of papers. Also, on top of the bureau, the letter I had just finished writing to Major General Serafín Sánchez Valdivia, who, with a healing word, bridged the mighty river of doubts and resentments that distanced the old warriors and the nascent paladins.
Letter from José Martí to Serafín Sánchez
“Dear Serafin: I need it here, I got used to having it, and everyone around me soon fell into the habit,” the Apostle of Independence expresses in the letter, the original of which is part of the collections of the Casa Natal Mayor General Serafin Museum. Sánchez Valdivia, from Sancti Spíritus, after being acquired from a private collector in 2018.
“Our institution has valuable pieces related to Seraphim, such as letters from family and other patriots sent to him; but, without a doubt, this one, signed by Martí, occupies a privileged place within our collection,” says specialist Eunice Rosell Gómez.
According to the researcher, the document confirms the friendship and trust that the organizer of the Necessary War professed in the most illustrious of the people of Sancti Spiritus, who was living at that time in Key West and who had arrived—for the second time—in the United States in June 1891, from the Dominican Republic.
He arrived in that Caribbean nation in 1880, precisely from New York, where he stayed only a few days in August of the same year. For more than a decade he has lived in Dominican land, which he considered his second homeland; up there “sick in body and soul, and without resources,” writes Gonzalo de Quesada in a profile of the Sancti Spiritus, which appeared in the book Héroes Humbles (1894) and written by Martí’s friend, apparently on the Master’s recommendation.
In the Dominican Republic, Sánchez Valdivia “devoted himself to the material work of the countryside, now in the sugar mills, now on the railway lines (…), but never tarnishing his clear name with any baseness; without forgetting a single day about the cause of Cuba,” Quesada notes in thick handwriting, who also knows the simplicity of the Sancti Spiritus native, appreciated in Key West.
“From the glorious chair of command to the no less glorious chair of the worker,” Quesada emphasizes, “it may seem like a lowering to those who do not understand the true greatness of the human character. Others will think that the soldier loses luster at work; But those who want to found free and happy peoples, truly republicans, admire this general (…)”.
An observer like no other, Martí sees in our champion honesty, modesty, a sense of justice and the ability to join the preparations for the new emancipatory feat without asking for anything in return; qualities implicitly recognized in the letter sent to the Sancti Spiritus citizen on August 27 from New York, considers Eunice Rosell.
“The country (referring to Cuba) wants war. And we are going to take it away before trust in us is diminished, or the government becomes too alert. If the step I am going to take goes well, and that is not going to Paris, in two months we will be ready to go. So get ready,” the political leader recommends to Serafín.
And because the start of a war does not depend solely on wills but on contingencies and unpredictability that arise along the way, the conflict breaks out on the island on February 24, 1895. A few weeks later, on April 11, Martí disembarks, along with Máximo Gómez and other warriors, through Playita de Cajobabo, south of Oriente, while, the “moon appears, red, under a cloud”, describes the Master in his Campaign Diary.
The same at night, but on July 24, Major General Serafín Sánchez would do so through Punta Caney, on the southern coast of Sancti Spíritus, in command of an expedition, also led by Generals Carlos Roloff and José María (Mayía) Rodriguez.
Shortly thereafter, Serafín assumed the interim leadership of the First Division – it operated in the districts of Sancti Spíritus, Remedios and Trinidad – of the IV Corps of the libertarian forces, and its leadership since December 1895.
November 18, 1896. The man from Sancti Spiritus, by then Inspector General of the Liberation Army, left with his troops from the La Yamagua camp, Taguasco, towards the left bank of the Zaza River; Once there, Brigadier González Planas takes up position in the La Larga Pass and José Miguel Gómez, with that same military rank, does so in the Ladies’ Pass. Between both places, Sánchez Valdivia places his General Staff.
Reinforcements were added to the Spanish forces, led by Colonel Eduardo Armiñán (Serafín had not predicted it), from General López Amor, who was in Sancti Spíritus. In total, about 2,600 enemies fight against around 800 mambises, with much less offensive power in terms of weapons and ammunition.
After noon, they continue standing face to face against the Spanish adversary; Later, insurrectionary projectiles begin to become scarce. The paladin warns him and orders the retreat. After five in the afternoon a Mauser bullet crossed him from the right shoulder to the left and affected a pulmonary artery. And so, suddenly, the life of that barely 50-year-old warrior disappears.
He left who presented himself before the Master in New York, recently arrived from the Dominican Republic; The military leader, a pillar in the creation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC) in Florida, was leaving.
The friend to whom Martí entrusted the mission of appointing the first and fundamental emissary of the PRC to the island fell in combat, and for whose assignment the man from Sancti Spiritus selected Commander Gerardo Castellanos Lleonart, who visited Cuba three times from 1892 to 1894.
Scholars of the links between Martí and Serafín maintain that the Master sent more than 100 letters, telegrams and cables to the Sancti Spiritus native between 1891 and 1895; Consequently, he became the second person to whom the organizer of the ’95 epic sent the greatest number of messages, barely surpassed by his Mexican friend Manuel Mercado.
And precisely, one of those letters, the one dated August 27, 1893—written in house 116 on 64th Street, in Manhattan—is part of the collection of the Casa Natal Mayor General Serafín Sánchez Valdivia Museum, where Eunice Rosell now holds it. in her hands with the delicacy that a new mother takes her child in her arms.
#Dear #Serafin