The mambises were the guerrilla independence soldiers who fought for Cuba's independence from Spain in the Ten Years' War and Cuban War of Independence .
23-600: According to Cuban writer Carlos Márquez Sterling , "mambí" is of Afro-Antillean origin and was applied to revolutionaries from Cuba and Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic ) in the 19th century. The surviving Spanish soldiers, who had been fighting in Santo Domingo, were then sent to Cuba once the Ten Years' War broke out in 1868. These soldiers, noting the similar tactics and machetes use by
46-613: A few weeks to seek election as president of the House of Representatives, a post he held for about a year before resigning for reasons of ill health in August 1942. In the 1950s, he was detained many times by the government of Fulgencio Batista because of his opposition to Batista dictatorship. He ran unsuccessfully in the 1958 Cuban general election for President of Cuba as head of the Free Peoples Party. The following year
69-631: A history of Cuba, Historia de Cuba Desde Colón Hasta Castro (1963). In 1984, the Florida House of Representatives honored him for his contribution to "Cuba, democracy, justice and liberty". He died on May 3, 1991, in Miami, Florida . He is buried in Miami Memorial Park Cemetery . Elpidio Vald%C3%A9s Elpidio Valdés is a cartoon character and comic , who starred in a number of features, shorts and strips of
92-583: A monkey crossed with a buzzard. The mambí soldiers made up most of the National Army of Liberation and were the key soldiers responsible for the success of the Cuban liberation wars. They consisted of Cubans from all social classes including white Cubans, free black people, slaves, and mulattos . During the Ten Years' War, slaves were promised their freedom if they assisted the Creoles in the fight against
115-438: A son. The character's story is told in three films. The following characters accompany Elpidio in his adventures. The creator, writer and senior editor of the series is Juan Padrón. They have also participated as directors Tulio Raggi, Mario Rivas and Juan Ruiz. The theme song from the original series, the "Ballad of Elpidio", is composed and performed by Silvio Rodríguez about the music of Lucas de la Guardia. The theme of
138-639: Is portrayed as a mambí colonel, fighting for the liberation of Cuba from the Spanish. Several films have been made in Cuba, both before and after the Cuban Revolution , that portray the national significance of the mambises. These cinemas have been used to create a sense of Cuban national identity. One such film, El Capitán Mambí y Libertadores o guerrilleros, which was made before the Revolution,
161-838: The University of Havana . He founded the Manuel Márquez Sterling School of Journalism at the University of Havana. He served as a member of Cuba's House of Representatives as a member of the Liberal Party and was elected president of that body in April 1936 after weeks of deadlocked negotiations among parties, none of which controlled a majority of votes in the chamber. Following the impeachment of President Miguel Mariano Gomez in December, which ended
184-449: The 250,000 Spanish troops sent to the island. Mambí independence fighters were not limited to men. During the War of Independence, Spanish general General Valeriano Weyler Nicolau initiated " Reconcentración " which forcefully moved rural inhabitants into the cities in makeshift concentration camps. Conditions in these camps resulted in mass starvation, disease, and large numbers of deaths of
207-510: The Cuban independence fighters as by the original “men of Mamby”, began calling the Cuban independence fighters mambises. Though this was meant as a derogatory slur towards the Cuban rebels, the Cubans accepted and started using the name with pride. Other sources cite the term to be of Congo origin or, as stated by Esteban Montejo in Biography of a Runaway Slave, mambí refers to the child of
230-475: The Cuban peasants in the 19th century Army of liberation. He owes his name to Cecilia Valdés , Cuban protagonist of a novel of the 19th century. Elpidio Valdes was intended to strengthen among Cuban children and youth a particular state view of an alleged authentic expression of the characters of the Cuban nationality. Elpidio Valdés was born in the 1870s, in a field of battle during the Ten Years' War . He
253-452: The Cuban population. The prospect of these conditions pushed many families, including the women and children, into joining the independence movement. The best known mambí woman is Mariana Grajales Cuello , who was Antonio Maceo Grajales ’s mother. Mariana and all of her sons participated in all three of the wars of independence. Prior to the Ten Years' War , private ownership of weapons was allowed but, considering that at this time many of
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#1732776086694276-481: The Liberation Army. During the 1895 War , 96 armed expeditions landed in Cuba. Despite this interference, and having only originally started with a small number of weapons, the mambises were able to build up a significant arsenal by conducting raids on the Spanish troops and strongholds. Elpidio Valdés is a notable cartoon character within Cuban culture in comics, television, and movies. Created in 1970, he
299-556: The Spanish Army and Maria Dolores Márquez Sterling y Loret de Mola, the sister of Cuban President Manuel Márquez Sterling who also served as Cuba's Ambassador to the United States for a short time in 1934. He married twice, first Silvia Dominguez y O'Mahony and then Uva Hernandez Cata. He had two sons, Carlos and Manuel Marquez Sterling y Dominguez. Márquez Sterling was an attorney and professor of law and economics at
322-424: The Spanish. The freeing of slaves to help fight was started by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes . At the end of the war, even though independence from Spain was not achieved, Spain agreed to honor the freeing of the slaves who had fought against them. The mambí forces were made up of volunteers who mostly had no military training and banded together in loose groups who acted independently to attack the Spanish troops during
345-595: The Ten Years' War. It is estimated that 8,000 poorly armed and underfed mambises inflicted close to 20,000 casualties on the well-trained Spanish soldiers during the Ten Years' War. Similarly, by the end of the War of Independence the National Army of Liberation numbered nearly 50,000 of which only about 25,000 were armed. The leaders, having learnt from previous mistakes, had organized the army into “6 corps with 14 divisions, 34 brigades, 50 regiments of infantry and 34 cavalry.” Even though, once again, they were limited on resources, they possibly inflicted 71,000 casualties out of
368-413: The black were still slaves, most of the men who became mambises did not have firearms. Following the war, Spain prohibited ownership of firearms in an effort to prevent another uprising. In both cases, the lack of firearms forced the mambises into using what they had: machetes and sometimes horses. At the start of the Ten Years' War, Máximo Gómez , who had been a cavalry officer in the Spanish Army, taught
391-524: The government of Fidel Castro placed him under house arrest. He then went into exile. He taught at Columbia University and at C.W. Post College on Long Island . In 1979, he moved to Miami and taught at Biscayne College (now St. Thomas University ) and gave conferences at Florida International University . He also wrote opinion columns for the Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas . He authored more than twenty books, including
414-519: The men the "machete charge". This became the mambises' most useful and feared tactic in both wars. These methods resulted in Guerrilla type warfare that favored them due to the element of surprise and their knowledge of the terrain and environment. Knowing additional weapons were needed, numerous attempts were made to procure arms from outside the country. During both wars of independence, many expeditions were funded to bring equipment and volunteers for
437-485: The same name. He was created in 1970 by cartoonist and Cuban filmmaker Juan Padrón , considered the father of Cuban film animation and director of the first three animated feature films produced by the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry . Elpidio Valdes is a mambí colonel fighting for the liberation of their homeland from Spanish colonialism , commanding a squadron of cavalry, and represents
460-513: The second film and the second and third series of short films is Daniel Longrés. Cuban actor Frank Gonzalez voiced Elpidio and several other characters. Other voices were provided by Tony Gonzalez, Manuel Marin, Eddy Vidal, Maria Eugenia Garcia, Irela Bravo , Juan Julio Alfonso, Teresita Rúa and Erdwin Fernández. The comic strip appeared in 1970 in the Pionero magazine. During the 1980s, it
483-488: The three-party coalition that had supported him, he was forced to resign in February 1937 following a 101 to 28 vote of no confidence. He also served as Minister of State and Minister of Education. In 1940, he was the president of the constitutional assembly that over six months wrote the 1940 Constitution of Cuba . President Fulgencio Batista named him Secretary of Labor in his first cabinet in 1941. He resigned after
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#1732776086694506-577: Was funded by the government and had all of the troops, horses, and weapons for the film supplied by the military. Carlos M%C3%A1rquez Sterling Dr. Carlos Márquez Sterling y Guiral (September 8, 1898 – May 3, 1991) was a Cuban lawyer, writer, politician and diplomat. Born Carlos Guiral y Márquez Sterling on September 8, 1898, in Camagüey , Cuba, Márquez Sterling was the son of Captain Guillermo Guiral Dominguez of
529-514: Was son of a rebel army officer and a peasant woman. In 1895, he joined the Liberation Army in the beginning of the War of Independence . His father caught in an ambush at the beginning of the war, in which his mother continued to work in exile. He reaches the rank of colonel and survives the end of the war and during the Republic. He married in full battle with his girlfriend Maria Silvia with whom he has
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