Author Name: Carribean Channel, Cuba TV.
This story was originally published on canalcaribe.ict.cu. [1]

Máximo Gómez Báez, The strategist par excellence of the mambisa feat

['Please Enter Your Name Here']

Date: 2021-10

An essential man in the struggles against slavery and Spanish colonial rule in Cuba is Máximo Gómez Báez. His exploits on the battlefield and his ample skills as a military strategist earned him the epithet of “The Generalissimo”.

He was born in Baní, Dominican Republic, on November 18, 1836. At age 16 he joined the army in the fight against the Haitian invasions, obtaining the rank of lieutenant. He fought for the annexationist troops in the Dominican Restoration War.

After the signing of the agreement of ¨El Carmelo¨, in 1865 and the issuance of the Decree of the Cortes by means of which the annexation of Santo Domingo to Spain ceases, the royalist forces are evacuated from the Dominican Republic and with them Reserve officers, among which was Máximo Gómez. He arrives in Cuba aboard the steamer Pizzarro, in the company of relatives.

In 1866 he was discharged from the army and settled in the Guanarrubí Mill, Bayamo jurisdiction, where he was dedicated to agricultural tasks and the sale of wood. In January 1867, his friend José Vázquez brought him closer to the conspiracy for the independence of Cuba and he joined the group of El Dátil, led by Eduardo Bertot Miniet.

Joining the Mambisa feat

He joined the Mambí army on October 14, 1868, his dedications to the independence cause were more than enough, and among his feats he has the direction of the first charge to the machete, which would become the most fearsome weapon of the Mambí army.

Given his military experience, Gomez was conferred the rank of general. He married in the bush with the Cuban Bernarda (Manana) Toro, who accompanied him during the war. He was noted for his attacks on the coffee plantations of El Cobre, for his action to free the endowments of slaves and for his offensive activity during 1870.

He was second chief of the Cuban Division, which covered the entire eastern south from the Gulf of Guacanayabo to Baracoa and Maisí, and succeeded Donato Mármol in command upon his death. In 1871, after having assumed command of that Division, Máximo Gómez directed one of the most brilliant operations of that war: the invasion and campaign of Guantánamo, a territory previously dominated by the Spanish. This was the first successful campaign of the patriots after the Bayamo fire and the fierce Spanish offensive that dismantled the Mambisa forces and led them to retreat into the mountains and mountains.

On January 6, 1875, he crossed the Trocha de Júcaro to Morón with 300 cavalry men and 600 infantry, with which he entered Las Villas and marched through the sugar lands of Cienfuegos, threatening the rich region of Matanzas. But their invading movement was interrupted by the divisions that had arisen within the Mambí camp and the reluctance to send reinforcements assumed by some eastern leaders. The opposition of some local caudillos to the chiefs of other regions made him return some of the eastern part of the country to their region of origin, and he himself was forced to resign the command of Las Villas, also questioned for not being a native of Cuba.

He left Cuba after the peace that followed the Pact of Zanjón in 1878, convinced that it was impossible to hold on to arms, for which he refused to join Antonio Maceo after the Baraguá Protest.

Participation in The Necessary War

Together with Martí, he signed the Montecristi Manifesto on March 25th, 1895, in which the purposes of the Cuban revolution were exposed to the world. He landed in Cuba with Martí to start the new war and immediately assumed the military leadership of the insurrection. He was present at the conference of the La Mejorana farm, April 5th , 1895, where both agreed, together with Maceo, to organize the government of the Republic in Arms. He directed the combat of Dos Ríos, an action in which on May 19th Martí found his death, without Gómez being able to rescue his body.

In mid-1896 he fought the battle of Saratoga in Camagüey, one of the most important of the war, and towards the end of that year he planned the campaign of La Reforma, consisting of attracting large enemy forces to entertain them and beat them in a territory. barely ten square leagues in the central region of the country. Once the war ended, he opposed the contracting of a loan to pay the liberators, in order not to put the republic in debt before its birth, and accepted a donation from the American executive. This led to his dismissal by the civil leadership of the revolution, grouped in the Cerro Assembly, which dissolved itself before the popular rejection of his decision.

Gómez always maintained the position of a fully free Cuba and tried to mobilize Cuban opinion and social forces to achieve absolute independence. He rejected the presidency for not considering himself suitable for his performance. Surrounded by the respect and affection of the Cuban people, he was surprised by death in Havana, on June 17, 1905, when he was exercising his political influence against the presidential re-election of Tomás Estrada Palma.

(C) Cuba TV, Cuban state owned media.
[1] Url: https://www.canalcaribe.icrt.cu/en/maximo-gomez-baez-the-strategist-par-excellence-of-the-mambisa-feat/

via Magical.Fish news feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/cubatv/