Full Vindication of the Students Shot in Cuba in 1871.—Butchered by Militia.
—A Subscription for a Monument to Be Raised in New York.
The city of Havana has in the last few days been the scene of memorable events. La Lucha, the enterprising Havana paper to which a large measure of credit is due for the defence of justice to the Cubans, publishes an account of the dramatic incidents which have led to a vindication of the innocence of the eight medical students who were officially murdered sixteen years ago.
These eight students, from sixteen to twenty-one years old, were, after a mock trial held under mob pressure, put to death amid frantic applause, and thirty-one more were sent to the State Prison for the supposed crime of having profaned the sepulchre of Gonzalo Castañon, an ill advised journalist who, in consequence of a dispute with the friends of the revolutionists, had met his death in Key West some months before. The vault showed not a single trace of profanation, and a line made long before in the crystal covering the flower offerings was all that could have been attributed (had it not been full of moisture at the date of the event) to a disrespectful hand.
Only the Cubans guilty
The Spaniards among the students were set at liberty. One of the students shot was not even in the cemetery on the date of the alleged profanation. Only Federico[2] Capdevila, a noble officer of the army, charged with the task of defending the students, had the courage to utter in the trial a few brave words, for which he barely escaped paying with his life at the hands of the mob, ill disposed to countenance any but a sanguinary termination.
It has been said by General Crespo, who was the head of the government and signed the sentence of death while convinced of its infamy, that “to find an appropriate comparison for the proposals made to him by some of the leaders of the mob it was necessary to go back to the darkest days of the French Revolution”. It is, indeed, the language of the General that is here used. Thousand of armed men filled the streets day and night, surrounded the prison, packed the corridors of the General’s palace, yelled continuously for the death of the students and succeeded in bringing the government to yield to their demand under the cover of a trial by court martial which held sessions at the point of the bayonets of the lawbreakers.
It was the son of one of the fiercest among these, a boy of sixteen, who had picked a rose in the garden of the cemetery, that was first selected to be shot, and that, too, with the very rifles to the buying of which his own wealthy father had largely contributed. Four of his classmates, who had been playing with a wheelbarrow, followed immediately after. It is said that the unworthy tribunal had compromised with the mob for the death of eight of the prisoners, and that the three additional victims required were chosen by lot. The unfortunate boys met death courageously—not a knee trembled. Some were shot in the head, some in the heart. “The eight corpses”, says La Lucha in a pathetic description of the affair, “were laid without a name, a cross or a stone, under the earth, four northward, four southward” La Lucha has published the portraits of the unhappy young men.
A Popular Testimonial
But justice has her ways, and through the courage of Fermin Valdes-Dominguez, one of the surviving classmates who was sent to prison, the innocence of his friends has been so fully strikingly demonstrated that the affair is to-day the talk of the island. A subscription to erect a monument to the students is being quickly raised by Spaniards and Cubans alike, in Cuba, in Spain and in New York. The moderation of the Cubans under provocation has lent dignity to their sorrow, and a public atonement for the crime on the part of those who are now regarded as accomplices to it would be a proper offering to those who died unjustly at their hands, as well as an act that could not fail to bring to a better understanding the two hostile sections in which the war for independence left the island divided.
Face to Face
It was a dramatic scene when Valdes-Dominguez, regardless of the danger in which his action might place him, advanced, trembling with emotion, toward the coffin of Castañon, which the latter’s son, accompanied by his friends, was having removed from its temporary vault to be sent to its final place of rest in Spain, and, raising his hand above the untouched coffin solemnly asked the son, a youth of twenty, to declare that the remains of his father had not been disturbed by the students. The son of Castañon publicly acknowledged that no profane hand had touched his father’s remains. Dominguez himself was allowed to open the coffin where lay the man who caused, this time unconsciously, so many deaths.
Young Castañon confirmed in a dignified letter his acknowledgment. Permission from all concerned was accorded to Valdes-Dominguez to recover, if possible, the remains of the students from the secluded spot where they were buried, and after himself working incessantly for two days with his bare arms, aided by a friend and the negro gravediggers, at last discovered all that was left on earth of his dead friends —eight skeletons lying side by side, the skulls and ribs bent by the missiles of the shooting party. A silk cravat, some collar buttons and a few silver buckles were all that could be found to identify the victims of this historic crime.
These pathetic scenes and their bearing on the affairs of the country are at present occupying public attention in the Island of Cuba. The joy of the Cubans at this triumphant vindication of the students has not been marred by any excesses on their part or disrespect from those who in darker days were the authors of the evil deed. Words of peace are spoken over the remains of those who fell victims to the furies of war, and the just acknowledgment of the blamelessness of the innocent, is likely to contribute more to the general good than even punishment of the guilty.
The New York Herald, Saturday, April 9, 1887.
Tomado de José Martí: Obras completas. Edición crítica, La Habana, Centro de Estudios Martianos, 2015, t. 25, pp. 343-345.
Notas:
Véase Abreviaturas y siglas
[1] Véanse las traducciones de Enrique H. Moreno Plá y del Centro de Estudios Martianos tituladas “Sangre de inocentes” (Anuario Martiano, La Habana, Sala Martí de la Biblioteca Nacional, 1969, no. 1, pp. 225-228) y “La sangre de los inocentes” (OCEC, t. 25, pp. 346-348), respectivamente.
[2] Errata en The New York Herald: “Fernando”.