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It’s been widely publicized how inadequate teaching of Caribbean and Latino history is in U.S. schools, as well as the right-wing efforts to distort and erase history in states like Florida, especially with Black history. So it should come as no surprise that the name of Lt. General José Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales, most often referred to simply as “Antonio Maceo” and “The Bronze Titan” is not commonly known here.
Within the Cuban American community, however, he is hailed as a hero. He has the same status in Cuba, where on Dec. 7, Cubans commemorate a “National Day of Mourning” on the day of his death. There are also national celebrations on his birthday, a date shared with that of revolutionary Che Guevara.
The irony is that Maceo, a leading anti-slavery, anti-racism advocate and freedom fighter, would harshly reject today’s politics of Cuban Americans who voted for Donald Trump, the anti-Black racism within the Cuban American community, and parallel racism that still exists in Cuba. (I addressed some of these issues here.) It should also come as no surprise that Cuban Americans were the only Latino group with a majority vote for Trump.
So while Cuban Americans in Miami, Florida, relax and enjoy themselves in newly renovated Antonio Maceo Park, one wonders if any of them realize the contradictions of their politics with the park namesake’s history and symbolism.
To be honest, I knew almost nothing about Maceo until 1969. I studied his history after Black Panther Party leaders Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver named their firstborn child Ahmad Maceo after him.
So who exactly was Maceo? Black history researcher Meserette Kentake has a detailed biography:
Antonio Maceo was born in the province of Santiago de Cuba in 1845 (or 1846 or 1848), to a mixed-race Venezuelan-born father, Marco Maceo and an Afro-Cuban mother, Marianna Grajale. Marcos Maceo owned several farms. … Most people, like the Maceo family, were small independent farmers …. Maceo belonged to a family distinguished by a line of brave ancestors. Although free themselves, the family desired still greater freedom for others. In every revolution started on the island for the liberation of Cuba from Spanish control, some member of the Maceo family had participated. The Maceo family viewed Spanish domination as the cause of existing economic hardship, racism and slavery on the island and the entire family was committed to the cause of independence.
[…]
It is said that when he was a young boy working on the plantation of Don Leandro, Maceo saw Leandro ordered a slave driver to strip a female to the waist and brutally beat her that she died. One of the first acts when he had an armed band was to go to Leandro’s mansion and punished him in the same way!
Both Maceo and his brother Jose openly proclaimed themselves as Black and both were active in the battle against discrimination in Cuba. Because of this, Maceo’s race was constantly treated as a political issue. During the wars, the Spaniard capitalized on existing racist attitude among Euro-Cubans and spread malicious rumours about secret ambitions allegedly held by Black leaders such as Maceo to establish a Black Republic. These rumors were a factor in undermining the unity of the Cuban revolutionaries. However, the hopes for racial equality also motivated thousands of Black people (including bi-racial people) to join the Mambi forces.
Rogelio Manuel Diaz Moreno wrote for Havana Times about depictions of Maceo’s Blackness:
Had Antonio Maceo been a white hero, his nickname would merely have been “The Titan”, just as Ignacio Agramonte’s was simply “The Major”, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes’ “The Father of the Homeland” and Jose Marti’s the “Master” or the “Apostle.” All are lofty, admirable and admired figures. Since they were white, their heroic nicknames didn’t include something which was considered natural.
Maceo’s case had to be different in a society where slavery made racial discrimination take root. Of course, stubborn forms of racism haven’t been able to resist the temptation of besmirching the image of this renowned black man some. It is said that, at a certain point in history, some false erudites sought to whiten Maceo, since it was unthinkable for a black man to…well, you get the picture.
At any rate, more than one history textbook shows images of the Bronze Titan that seem to have been dipped in bleach. I think it’s safe to assume that, had Mariana Grajales been white, she would have been proclaimed the “mother of the homeland.” No other woman is as deserving of such a title as she is, to be sure.
Historian Griffin Black wrote for Scientific American on injustice even surrounding Maceo’s death:
Antonio Maceo deserved his title, “the Bronze Titan.” He achieved the rank of major general, and fought in hundreds of military engagements against Spanish colonial authorities and refused to be slowed by the many wounds he suffered in the field. Maceo’s parents were classified as “pardos libres,” meaning they were free (not enslaved) and mixed-race. Given his Afro-Cuban parentage, Maceo took pride in his position as a public symbol of the potential for racial equality in Cuba. He led multiracial militias and famously rejected the terms of the 1878 Pact of Zanjón for not guaranteeing independence and the total abolition of slavery. Maceo was killed in battle on December 7, 1896, and came to symbolize the collective struggle of a multiracial Cuban population and a national future free from past racial injustices.
In September of 1899, his body was exhumed by Cuban authorities to reinter him at a monument in his honor. In an act that would have been unthinkable had he been white, his bones were measured and analyzed by an anthropological commission to see if he had been more European or African, more white than Black. Historian Marial Iglesias Utset details how the examination “combined, in a splendidly paradoxical way, the ‘patriotic’ motivation to glorify the memory of the independence hero with the application of techniques developed by … defenders of ‘scientific racism.’”
Henry Louis Gates covered Maceo in his “Black in Latin America” PBS series.
We should not overlook the story of Maceo’s mother, Mariana Grajales Cuello, also a fighter for Cuba’s liberation, shown here in this post from American Studies Professor Christina Proenza-Coles:
Back in 2018, The Root posted this short bio Maceo’s mother:
Luis Escamilla wrote this bio of her for Black Past:
Born on June 26, 1808 in the city of Santiago de Cuba, Mariana Grajales Cuello is best known for the role she played in her country’s struggle for independence against Spain. Referred to as the “Mother of Cuba,” Cuello’s promotion of national pride and patriotic sacrifice helped rally her people in a military campaign that would ultimately end Spanish rule in her country.
A mixed-race (Spanish and African) daughter of Dominican parents, Cuello was raised in the eastern region of Cuba known for its racial fluidity and concentration of middle-class Afro-Cubans. As her parents were landowners, Mariana grew up in an environment that allowed her to become astute in business affairs. During her youth, she was exposed to notions of liberalism and became deeply religious; these two facets of her belief system would eventually be incorporated into her own children’s lives.
The Womanica podcast featured her:
From the transcript:
She grew up in Santiago de Cuba. Her parents were originally from the Dominican Republic, but after the Haitan revolution they fled to Cuba to avoid the violence spreading through the region. In Cuba, Mariana was seen as a parda libre — a free woman of color.
That freedom had its limits. Santiago’s school for free Black people required tuition, which Mariana’s parents couldn’t afford. So, Mariana didn’t receive a formal education. But living in Santiago helped her develop a keen understanding of the oppressive forces in colonial Cuba.
[…]
In the struggle for independence, Mariana lost her husband, nine of her thirteen children, and two of her grandchildren. But even in the midst of this intense adversity, Mariana kept a cheerful and hopeful demeanor, offering words of encouragement to every soldier who crossed her path. She remained committed to the vision of an independent Cuba, free from slavery – and she helped others believe in that vision, too. The Cuban writer José Martí later wrote about Mariana: “If one trembled when he came face to face with the enemy of his country, he saw [Mariana], white kerchief on her head, and he ceased trembling!”
In 1878, Spanish forces offered insurgent leaders a pact, which would end the war without freeing Cuba or abolishing slavery. Mariana’s son Antonio rejected this pact. Instead of signing on, he, Mariana, and their remaining family fled to Kingston, Jamaica.
I was looking at this photo of the bust of Maceo in the park named for him in Miami.
One would never think of him as a Black man, viewing this depiction, crafted by noted Cuban exile sculptor Tony Lopez. From my perception, this is how Black history gets erased.
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