University of Pittsburgh Press
  • Militant Heroines and the Consecration of the Patriarchal State:The Glorification of Loyalty, Combat, and National Suicide in the Making of Cuban National Identity
Abstract

The female combatant, a common icon of Cuban nationalism, is found in every historical period from independence through the post-Soviet period. Unlike most other nations, Cubans have eulogized women who have defended their nation with their own lives and with those of their husbands and children. Yet, for all the fanfare these heroines have received in the nationalist discourse, few scholarly treatments of their lives exist. Instead, their heroism has been used to exalt male leaders and to uphold a patriarchal state. Their martyrdom has served as a model of sacrifice unto death for all citizens to follow. This article examines the nature of Cuban combatant iconography that followed the Cuban wars of independence, the Early Republic, and the Cuban Revolution, and connects that iconography to the purposes of state building in each era.

Resumen

La mujer combatiente, ícono tradicional del nacionalismo cubano, se encuentra en cada período histórico desde la independencia hasta la etapa post-soviética. A diferencia de la mayoría de las naciones, los cubanos han alabado a las mujeres que han defendido sus naciones con sus propias vidas y las de sus esposos e hijos. Sin embargo, pese a toda la atención que estas heroínas han recibido en el discurso nacionalista, existen pocos estudios académicos sobre sus vidas. Por el contrario, su heroísmo ha sido utilizado para exaltar a los líderes masculinos y sostener el estado patriarcal. El martirologio ha servido como un modelo de sacrificio hasta la muerte que todos los ciudadanos deben seguir. Este artículo examina la naturaleza de la iconografía combatiente después de las guerras de independencia, los primeros años de la República y la Revolución de 1959, y relaciona esta iconografía a los propósitos de la construcción de la nación en cada período.

Female allegiance to male leadership and la patria, so frequently present in Cuban nationalist discourse, is a cultural artifact that transcends the island's historical periods and ruling ideologies. Women's heroism and sacrifice glorified the brave and recalcitrant Mambí Army,1 condoned the subversives who [End Page 71] eroded President Gerardo Machado's corrupt second term,2 resonated with the guerrillas' daring acts in the Sierra Maestra,3 and today defends Castro's revolution in the post-Soviet world.4 No other symbol so permeates Cuban nationalist lore than that of the stalwart and feminine combatant, willing to sacrifice her home, family, and wealth for her nation and its patriarchal leaders. The ubiquitous image of the female warrior also convinced Spain and the United States of the Cuban resolve to fight to the death, if need be, for its right to be free from foreign control.

Imaging women as patriotic, nationalist symbols is only one aspect of national identity formation, to be sure, but one that achieves a particular logic. The qualities it conveys are loyalty, sacrifice, combativeness, recalcitrance, ingenuity, courage, strength, and the equal distribution of suffering. Women's exceptional suffering on the battlefield has symbolized the torment of a nation constantly at war with colonizers from without and traitors from within. It has represented national resolve to be victorious at all costs. Men's sacrifice and bravery were also exemplary, and they composed the majority of eulogized, national heroes. But loyalty, suffering, and sacrifice of the lives of women and their children have been most effectively conveyed by the deeds of female combatants, because they have equaled men's bravery outside the traditional protection of the home, and they have consecrated the nationalist cause by bringing the home onto the battlefield and transforming the war theatre into a moral arena.

Embedding the image of the female warrior into the national ideal also has a dark side, for it sanctifies insurgency and the highest form of commitment to sovereignty: national suicide. By placing women and children within the heroic struggle, the Cuban myth has glorified heroic sacrifice of its men, and also its women, children, and its future. Cuban nationalists throughout the twentieth century have revered martyrdom in ways that are unique. They have not invoked God, as Mexicans have with their Virgin of Guadalupe, for the consecration of their national cause. The Cuban passion of faith lies in personal martyrdom. The violation of women, which Cubans have made inevitable by literally and figuratively fielding female soldiers, has been the clarion call for the country to unite and fight. By extension, honoring women capable of killing the sons of an enemy has condoned political violence and embedded it in a nationalist consciousness as a potential way of being. Militancy and death have become properties of a civil religion and aspects of national identity.

This article is an inquiry into the nature of combatant iconography that followed the Cuban wars of independence, the Early Republic, and the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Such a study begs to be done if for no other reason than the sheer weight of cultural ephemera that exalts the woman warrior in the post-independence and revolutionary periods. Such evidence calls for an analysis of historical artifacts that projected the female patriot into public consciousness. [End Page 72] The article, then, will comment on the quantity and quality of heroic biographical legends that are embedded in the national consciousness. It will point out similarities and differences in the ways early republican and revolutionary publicists appropriated feminine militancy to authorize patriarchal systems and construct social order. Finally, it will link female soldiering with concepts of martyrdom, national suicide, honor, and militant faithfulness to male family members, national leaders, and the state. That said, the paper does not intend to suggest an essential Cuban political culture, but it will discuss the consequences of public use of heroic biographies for the purpose of state building.

La Mambisa

Leading up to and during the independence campaigns against Spain, Cuban leaders and intellectuals attempted to unify rebels around symbols of patriotism to solidify a nationalist spirit. Heroism took on extraordinary dimensions, with tales of soldiers' brave and cunning deeds and civilians', women's, old people's, and children's endurance of concentration camps, malaria, malnutrition, and battle wounds for "Cuba Libre." Tales and cultural artifacts of legendary female combatants boosted patriotic morale during the wars of insurgency and justified national sovereignty for future generations. The substance of the symbols lay in their subtext. The woman warrior, or rebel, assaulted the barriers of colonial laws just as the Mambi Army wore down Spain's colonial army. To secure nationalist ideals, male publicists created the image of the female warrior and used women's bravery to instruct a nation in new values, such as loyalty and sacrifice to the state. Women warriors a la cubana could fight as men, nurture as women, and stand beside their men in refusing to surrender to the Spanish Crown, all the while asking little for themselves. These women were not remembered for their individual circumstances, ingenuity, philosophical understanding of independence, or female-centered objectives. Mambisas became inspirational fetishes and examples of nationalist will and a modern orientation, but not individuals in their own right.

In their time, women who resisted Spanish colonialism set the patriotic example for the independence campaigns. Between 1807 and 1810, young women cut their long hair, for which they were famous, as a means of distinguishing themselves from the wives and daughters of Spanish colonizers. Already, Cuban women were aligning a militant attitude with nationalism and their bodies with national identity, even as Cuba did nothing to overthrow 309 years of Spanish rule. By mid-century, demonstrations of repudiating of all things Spanish spilled over into sporadic battles and death, extremes for women in any era, when women involved themselves in Narciso López's filibustering campaigns. Marina Manresa became a legend before the first war of independence and stood as an example of sacrifice for the next generation of [End Page 73] women who would be the mambisas. She was remembered for her fidelity both to a free Cuba and her fiancé, who aligned himself with López's 1851 invasion. The lovers had cooperated with the invasion, and José Alonso fought in the weeks' long battle. Both Marina and José were captured, but she was given the opportunity to condemn both the invasion and her fiancé's treasonous act to spare her own life. Marina refused to do either and was executed along with her lover. Perhaps Marina's execution was the first example of female heroism that set the tone for those to follow: women were the ultimate patriots, as they simultaneously sacrificed themselves and their potential offspring for their country and their men.

As the first of three wars of independence opened in 1868, two women in particular inspired the notice of patriots. Mariana Grajales Cuello, the mulatta mother of eleven sons, one of whom was the great commander General Antonio Maceo, was memorialized in her day by José Martí for her willingness to sacrifice her children and herself for Cuba. She taught her sons how to use the machete as a fighting weapon, and she instilled in them dreams of an independent Cuba devoid of slavery. As the legend goes, with all but her youngest son on the war front, she received news of the death of her oldest, Miguel. Reportedly, she turned to the youngest and said, "Y tú, muchacho, empíñate, que ya es la hora de que pelees por tu patria" (And now, son, stand tall, for it is time for you to fight for your country). Mariana Grajales embodied all that was Cuba at that moment. She was a woman of color who symbolized that Cuba would be a nation of racial harmony. She was willing to sacrifice all that was most dear, the flesh of her flesh, for her nation. Cubans would never surrender. No sacrifice was too great, not even the prospect of genocidal wars or, by extension, national suicide.

Mariana Grajales became the mother of Cuban independence.5 She was recognized by José Martí as La Leona. Her example, along with the bravery of many other Cuban women, prompted his praise: "With women such as these, it is easy to be heroes."

Ana Betancourt de Mora, who failed in her attempt to secure citizenship for women under the revolutionary government that met to write the "Bases de revolución" in 1869, nevertheless raised the awareness of women's contributions to independence and the inevitability of full rights for women under a democratic government.6 Attending the constitutional congress in the place of her ailing husband, Ignacio, Ana pointed out that Cubans had declared that the Negro was the Cuban's brother and that slavery had no place in a new republic. She concluded that women had made the same sacrifices as men and so they too should be considered full citizens in the emerging nation.

Women's work in revolutionary clubs, both within Cuba and in foreign countries, stoked the independence flame through periods between the wars, [End Page 74] and during conflict itself women fought in the armies, working as spies, gun runners, money raisers, propagandists, conspirators, and saboteurs. Their efforts were recognized and added urgency to the campaigns and morality to the cause. All subsequent governments found in the mambisa the soul of their own political challenges.

The Early Republic: Creating Mambisa Legends

As the republican era opened, commemorating independence heroines fell to publicists, playwrights, composers, sculptors, and politicians, all of whom dedicated themselves to formulating a national identity. Their work began at the dawn of a new century when modern nations were confronting the question of citizenship: could women be citizens with rights and responsibilities equal to those of men? The fighting traditions of the mambisas answered that question in the affirmative and formed the basis for women's demands for expanded constitutional rights that placed a commitment to social justice at the heart of national objectives. The female combatant, then, was an integral part of the consecration and enactment of national ideals and social justice.

Along the Malecón in Havana, European-inspired statues from the Romantic era were erected to glorify Cuba's nationalist champions and martyrs. The monument to the medical students who were executed by the Spanish for raising the cause of independence takes a central site on Havana's coastal drive. Generals Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo are honored with statues along the Malecón, but Gómez does not stand alone in his defiance of Spain and march toward independent statehood. Sculptures of intrepid women standing with Mambí soldiers and protecting Cuba's children and the nation grace the podium of Gómez's monument to remind the onlooker that the three wars of independence were fought by all Cubans. In El Vedado, on 23rd Street and F, a heavily traveled street only two hundred yards south of the Malecón, a more modest park is dedicated to Mariana Grajales, the mother of Cuban independence. Her effigy kneels by a boy and points the way to battle and freedom. And in Santo Suárez, a suburb of Havana, another park statue commemorates Emilia Córdoba y Rubio, a soldier and exile, who returned to Cuba after independence to become the first female federal employee.

Music was composed and legends were embellished to accompany the newly erected statuary. La Bayamesa, a serenata, or romantic song, designed to inspire nationalist pride was based upon the life of Adriana del Castillo Vázquez. She had been a conspirator for the rebel forces during the Ten Years' War and had died of distress when she saw the carnage wrecked upon the guerrilla fighters. Composed by Antonio Gumersindo Garay García, the serenata was a nostalgic reminder of the cost of independence. A woman is distressed beyond [End Page 75] endurance for her country, which she blesses with the purity of her heart and all of her virtues. But no matter how the battle will break her, independence is her only belief and her only religion:

Lleva en su alma la bayamesatristes recuerdos de tradicionescuando contempla sus verdes llanoslágrimas vierte por sus pasiones

Ella es sencilla, le brinda al hombrevirtudes todas, y el corazónpero si se siente de la patria el grito,todo lo deja, todo lo quema,ése es su lema, su religión.7

(In her soul, the Bayamo woman carriessad memories of old traditionsWhen she looks at her green pasturestears well up in her eyes

She is simple, she offers mankindall virtues and her heartBut if she hears her homeland's cryshe leaves everything, she burns everythingThat is her life, her religion.)

Daily newspapers and weekly magazines created a collective memory about the mambisas. Bohemia and Diario de la Marina, the most popular weekly magazine and daily newspaper, respectively, compromised objective reporting by writing legendary vignettes about the heroines of Cuban independence. Passionate testimonies and nationalist sagas of extraordinary bravery filled their pages, making Cubans mindful of their heritage. Emphasis upon female heroism, loyalty, and sacrifice rang out against humiliation at the hands of the United States and the limitations on sovereignty set by the occupation forces. By demonstrating a collective will to fight to the death for independence, publicists restored some national self-respect and reminded Cubans that they were capable of an unyielding militancy, if only they would refer to the past.

One of the first popular press articles about martyred women was the publication of a letter from General Máximo Gómez to his daughter that recounted her mother's flight from a hidden farm only a few weeks after her birth during the Ten Years' War (1868-78).8 The Spanish Army had spies who knew where Bernarda Toro Pelegrín de Gómez was convalescing, and they knew that the General had moved on with the patriot army, leaving Bernarda in the care of her brother. A squadron attacked the tiny ranch where she was staying, which [End Page 76] was defended by only her brother, two other men, and a soldier who happened along at the moment of the attack. The General's account is about the unspeakable tragedy of a postpartum mother running barefoot ahead of armed Spanish soldiers who wanted to capture her and the child so as to compromise Máximo Gómez's leadership. They ruthlessly killed three of Bernarda's defenders, and she wandered for several days in the dry interior with neither water nor food. Her brother tracked her and finally rescued the mother and child. The tone of the letter exalts the mother's bravery and the extreme cruelty of the Spanish. It also praises the bravery of the men who defended Bernarda. Gómez names them and commemorates their deeds, since they were his daughter's benefactors, the ones who saved her life. Bernarda's tenacity and strength, even in her weakened condition, bespeaks the defiance of Cuban patriots framed within the realm of the feminine world. Bermarda was a mother protecting her daughter, her husband, and her country. Men were glorified also. They gave their lives to protect the Gómez family and their nation. Gómez concluded his letter with heroic hubris, declaring that no sacrifice, including the bloody martyrdom of the men under his command, his family, and possibly himself was too great for independence. The epistle was also a self-declaration of honor. Gómez's authority rested on the commitment of many women and men who were willing to die for his vision of Cuba Libre. One of his greatest defenders was his wife, and her story glorified his honor.

Similarly, Enrique Ubieta's series on women and independence memorialized María Cabrales, the wife of General Antonio Maceo, for her determination to save her wounded husband's life in August 1897.9 Maceo had been fatally wounded when he led a charge through one of the lines of a Spanish ambush. For ten days, the Spanish and patriot forces had continued the clash, for the sheer purpose of capturing the moribund Maceo. María never left her husband's side, and with the help of Maceo's brother José, she established a mobile hospital bed and mounted an armed defense of it against Spanish horsemen.

Ubieta also reported on other female combatants, of Afro-Cuban and white backgrounds, and from all classes. One story is both humorous and heroic. Inés Morillo, a resident of Villa Clara, manufactured independence flags and hat insignia and ran messages for the rebels. Turned in by another Cuban, she stood trial in the infamous and informal Spanish courts for captured patriots, and she was condemned to death by firing squad. Her family's connections with a Spanish general spared her life, but she was sentenced to life imprisonment in Havana's Women's Prison. Her family then arranged for her to travel to her Havana prison in an elegant coach rather than in the railroad car for political prisoners. As her cortege took several days to reach Havana, word went out of her arrest, and supporters flocked to the road to accompany her carriage into Havana. When she was placed in a cell with common criminals, her family [End Page 77] once again protested and gained improved living quarters for her. Inés Morillo was released from prison during a general amnesty in 1877 after serving nearly two years for her efforts on behalf of Cuban independence.10

Table 1. Characteristics of Iconographic Artifacts about the Mambisas, 1900-1958
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Table 1.

Characteristics of Iconographic Artifacts about the Mambisas, 1900-1958

When Mercedes Varona, the mother of Cuban educator and philosopher Enrique José Varona and a recognized independence patriot, died in 1911 in New York, her life was remembered in Havana in published statements written by Cuban military and political leaders alike. In her name, all mambisas were honored for their contributions to nationalism. Enrique José Varona dedicated a memorial to her and to all Cuban women who had fought in the Ten Years' War:

The bravery of Cuban men during the Ten Years' War was heroic, but the valor of Cuban women was stupendous. The word heroism does not adequately express their soulful courage that was put to the test. It is more appropriate to call their bravery patriotic stoicism. Everything was denied them all at once, in the blush of their youth, as they were falling in love, they turned their attention to war and they endured all fearlessly. [End Page 78] They faced the orphaning of their children, widowhood, misery, and they were the tearful companions to their husbands. Yet reproaches never escaped their lips. They accepted sacrifice in silence, they elevated it, they consecrated it, as an obligation to the liberation of their country.

H. Lincoln de Zayas, a commander in the Liberation Army, Epifanio Alvira, Alvaro Llona, and F. Gonzalo Marín also wrote poetry about Mercedes Varona's imprisonment and exile for her faithful support of the independence campaign.11

A review of the literature, iconic statuary, and other cultural ephemera offers a profile of women's lives and of how male publicists, artists, and myth-makers perceived their valor. More than one hundred heroines were immortalized in published records, and the more famous were also represented in song, poetry, music, statuary, and photographs, which underscores the ubiquity of the female icon in patriotic lore. The telling and retelling of independence sagas reveals the style and content of national myths. National heroines were revered for their daring, intelligence, recalcitrance, defiance, loyalty, and willingness to suffer alongside their men. Table 1 presents a content analysis of the heroic qualities of these women as represented by male mythmakers. The significance of these stories lies not in their veracity, but in the values propagandists projected for a Cuban public about national identity. Most revered was the patriot mother who violated all prescribed decorum for women and braved the male domain of brute strength, combat to the death, and vile barbarism to defend the nation. In essence, the mambisa symbolized Cuban determination to sacrifice all that was decent and beautiful to resist colonization. For women to send their children to the war front, to suffer exile and imprisonment, to become conspirators or international public speakers, or to place themselves squarely before Spanish fire was a commitment to either Cuba Libre or death.

The Making of Early Republican Heroines

Images of the female combatant served as a rhetorical means of marking connections between the noble past (independence), an uncertain present, and a desired future (democracy, prosperity, and social justice). During the Early Republic, however, the manigua ceased to be the battleground and nationalist militancy moved to the streets. Accordingly, the icons of female warriors had been transformed by 1914 to portrayals of female nationalists who dedicated their lives and resources to modernization, national defense, social justice, and a more inclusive democracy. Popular depictions of patriotic women included the wives of public officials, educators, and philanthropists. Counterheroines, who were no less prominent representatives of patriotism, included feminists, labor activists, and student insurrectionists. While some might argue that the [End Page 79] modern women of the Early Republic lost the soldier identity, I maintain that the female warrior was reincarnated as a militant bourgeois nationalist or a mobilized political activist. Both sets of women were aware of or engaged in some level of heroic militancy that addressed the inadequacies of the present in order to gain a more perfect statehood.

Perhaps the most notable deviation from the mambisa legacy was the slightly reduced degree to which early-twentieth-century feminists pledged allegiance to a patriarchal leadership. Through militancy, feminists demanded women's rights, even though Cuban feminism rarely foresaw the demise of the patriarchy. All other groups pledged their loyalty to a male directorate. Most women who were in the public eye retained some aspect of nationalist militancy and were loyal to the male leadership of their political factions. Only the feminists altered, without destroying, women's reverence for the patriarchy.

Popular photojournalism recorded the activities of women who committed themselves to the construction of the new state. Associated with powerful men, white, elite women involved themselves in public works, education, health, and international affairs. Their work was no less romanticized in the popular press than the sacrifices of the mambisas who had preceded them. Themes of independence, sacrifice, loyalty to husband and country, philanthropy, and elite bearing, for example, converged in the person of Marta Abreu. The heiress of a sugar refinery near Santa Clara, Marta had involved herself in the independence movement as early as 1885 by building an electric plant for her city without the assistance or permission of Spain. Bringing light to the colonial town was understood by the citizens and the Spanish mayor to be a sign of Cuban self-reliance and of Marta's personal support for national sovereignty. When hostilities broke out in the War of 1895, Marta and her husband Luís Estévez y Romero traveled to Europe and the United States, where they conspired with the government-in-exile and helped fund the patriot army. When the war ended, the couple returned to Santa Clara, where Marta initiated and funded public works. Luís Estévez was tapped for public service, and his first appointment was as Justice Secretary under the occupational administration of General Leonard Wood. Estévez served only four months because he disagreed with the foreign command. When the United States recalled its military government and Cubans began selecting their own national leaders, Estévez ran as Tomás Estrada Palma's vice-president and served the first four-year term. When Estrada Palma's government was charged with corruption in 1905, Estévez urged the president to step down and separate himself from corrupt members of the government and U.S. control. Estrada Palma refused to take Estévez's advice, so the vice-president resigned in March 1905.

Marta Abreu was a reluctant political wife, but she made it clear that she would leave her beloved Santa Clara because she supported her husband and [End Page 80] her country. She was above all a faithful wife to a noble patriot. Marta was most comfortable in Santa Clara, so their return in 1905 afforded her the opportunity to raise her family and restore her city. Her patriotic philanthropy included building a public library and a school for the arts and vocations. Her contributions to civic life were viewed by the citizens of Villa Clara and the entire island as a public covenant, a sacred act, that advanced the hope of democracy in a new nation.

Marta Abreu was an exemplary wife, nationalist, patriot, and philanthropist. She was white, educated, and self-sacrificing for husband and country. She was widely acclaimed by the nation and publicists.12 Straddling, as her life did, the independence and republican periods, she was both a legendary and contemporary heroine. She was tested during independence, and she tried to build a sovereign nation during the Republic. Yet her voice was rarely recorded, and she did not participate in the many biographical accounts that extolled her feminine patriotism. Through benign neglect, she cooperated with her own iconization, since hagiographic tales beatified an ideal, not the real, republican lady of high society.

Accounts of María Luisa Dolz's life fall somewhere between heroic biography and accurate journalistic reports.13 Cuban publicists and educators of the Early Republic extolled her girls' school, founded during the colonial period, for its modern curriculum and teaching excellence. Her voice was also recorded for posterity, since she made speeches on behalf of women's education and national independence, but the militancy of her message was preserved mostly by feminists, not the popular press or mythmakers. What was missing from this popular literature was her insistence that national democracy would be invalid so long as women remained outside the voting polity, and that women's education was fundamental for universal suffrage. Thus, women's education, feminism, democracy, and nationalism were a systematic whole in Dolz's way of thinking. Dolz attended and spoke at the First and Second National Women's Conferences held in 1923 and 1925, respectively.14 Her efforts were to educate and liberate, and therefore women were the ones who were eulogized as heroic contributions to the nation. But for the general public, feminism went too far and threatened the patriarchy, a violation women could not commit and be good Cubans.

Mariana Sava de Menocal, the wife of Cuba's third president Mario Menocal, revived the image of militant patriotism in a most unexpected way. Her two terms as the first lady of Cuba began inauspiciously enough. She was an advocate of personal acts of charity in a nation that was on its knees economically. She organized women's charitable activities throughout her husband's two presidential terms. For her, democracy a la cubana meant providing for the poor through philanthropy, so she opened orphanages, girls' schools, and hospitals, [End Page 81] and she distributed toys and candy to indigent children.15 Rather than campaigning for federally funded social programs, she felt that setting an example of compassion and charity was the way to achieve social altruism, a value ingrained in Cubans through their national saint, La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (the Copper Virgin of Charity). As the incarnation of charity and goodness, Mrs. Menocal was the perfect complement to the patriarchal head of state.

World War I and Cuba's membership in the Allied Nations transformed Mrs. Menocal's charity into a national war campaign and kept Cuban female militancy alive. The war interrupted Cuba's evolution into a modern state by threatening trade agreements with the United States. The Great War also provided an opportunity for Cuba to join the Allies in the deadliest of all modern wars to date. European hostilities were a test for the young nation, and the greatest public standard bearer for Cuba was Mrs. Menocal.

Mrs. Menocal recast her domestic philanthropy projects into a visible war effort as she led high-society women into Red Cross cadres. The press lavishly reported her efforts and photographed her and the Red Cross ladies in their uniforms.16 Their job was to pack bandages and medical supplies and to knit socks and scarves for the Allied soldiers. Mrs. Menocal assisted the Allies, and through her efforts Cuba proved it belonged with the victorious allies in the War to End All Wars. When many intellectuals clucked their disapproval in newspapers and journals for the horror of the war and the failure of world leaders to avert global carnage, Mrs. Menocal took a public stand for the Allies. She was Cuba's doughboy. Once victorious, Cuban jurists (all male) signed the Treaty of Versailles, a privilege earned by Cuba's declaration of war, of course, but physically warranted by Mrs. Menocal's passionate efforts.

Ofelia Domínguez Navarro,17 Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta,18 and Mariblanca Sabas Alomá,19 among others, countered personalistic and at times self-serving models of charity and fidelity to the patriarchy when they equated democracy with women's right to suffrage, sexual expression, self-definition, the exalting of motherhood, and equal rights with men. They engaged in militant acts, as the mambisas had, but they included in their campaign the rights of women. All three women were radicals and ardent critics of the leading families. They were feminists and single women, unattached to individual men or male leaders. They were members of the avant-garde that destabilized the very lifestyle and national image that Mrs. Menocal projected. They organized feminist, labor, and student demonstrations, and they professed variant forms of socialism. All were journalists, all had more than one lover, and none ever married. Ofelia Domínguez Navarro was jailed for her radical activities as a labor organizer and legal defense lawyer for arrested labor and student activists. While they were not generally accepted as national heroines, they were acclaimed as exemplary women within radical and intellectual circles-groups that had extraordinary authority in the 1930s. Perhaps they were antiheroines, who inverted female [End Page 82] standards by taking strong stands and who suffered harsh consequences not so much for defending women's rights as for living without men.

Ofelia Domínguez Navarro was the daughter of the independence activist Florentino Domínguez, who was twice arrested by the Spanish and finally exiled to Mexico. Ofelia and her mother lived briefly in one of the horrendous concentration camps where many Cubans perished for lack of food and medicine. The young Ofelia remembered the refusal of her parents to bend to Spanish demands, even when their lives and those of their children were at risk. As a young woman, she began her professional life as a grade-school teacher in Jorobada, a small rural village outside Aguas Bonitas in Las Villas. Her classroom was a single-room shack, and she had to jury-rig the seats and tables. In the rural setting, she learned a great deal about the folkways that limited peasants' access to health, education, power and self-determination. She observed how parents expected girls to leave school sooner than boys. She served as a reader for an illiterate community, so that the citizens might understand how issues were decided that influenced their livelihood. She also witnessed the arbitrary arrest and torture of rural people by the rural police force.

Ofelia's father supported her desire to seek an advanced degree, but he favored pharmacy, then an approved female occupation. But Ofelia chose law. She was driven from a young age to defend the unfortunate. Many of her clients were criminals, to be sure, but they were people she believed had been brought to crime by their desperate circumstances. The women she defended were, by and large, prostitutes and petty thieves.

When she moved her law office to Havana in 1924, she quickly joined the emergent feminist movement, but in 1928 she broke with the powerful Alianza Nacional Feminista over issues of workers' rights and the rights of illegitimate children. In 1930 she formed her own organization, the Unión Laborista de Mujeres, and became absorbed in the radical overthrow of President Gerardo Machado. In the midst of the 1933 revolution, she served the interests of the students and workers and formed a strong, personal alliance with Julio Antonio Mella, the founder of the Cuban Communist Party.

Between 1931 and 1933 Ofelia was jailed twice, and in 1933 she became a refugee in Mexico. She returned to Cuba in 1934, but was jailed two more times by Fulgencio Batista, and in 1935 she once again sought refuge in Mexico. While in jail in Cuba, she lived among the women she had previously defended, and she wrote brilliantly about conditions in the Guanabacoa Women's Prison during the 1930s. Under both the Machado and Batista military governments (1934-40), Ofelia witnessed the torture of political prisoners and saw the desperation, drug addictions, diseases, and superstitions of poor common criminals. In Mexico, she lived with radical Cuban expatriates, a virtual colony at the time, who found comfort in President Lázaro Cárdenas's prolabor government. When Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico by an avid Marxist-Leninist, [End Page 83] Ofelia formed part of the murderer's defense team. Yet, in 1939, when she returned to Cuba, she immediately participated in the preparation of the democratic 1940 Constitution, the most progressive in the Western Hemisphere.

Ofelia Domínguez Navarro was a committed feminist, socialist, and activist. Her picture appeared in newspapers and weekly journals during the 1930s, as did printed records of her speeches and arrests. She also wrote for mainstream weeklies, and she regularly submitted columns for the more radical paper ¡Alerta! She was present at most commemorations of radical heroes, and she nearly always delivered speeches or organized demonstrations that drew attention to social injustices of the time. Few in Cuba, literate or illiterate, did not know her name.

Mariblanca Sabas Alomá presented her activism through the popular press. She belonged to the most influential intellectual group, El Grupo Minorista, and she wrote regular columns in Social and Carteles, two leftist but widely read periodicals. Her consistent social views focused most on liberating women from patriarchal domination through divorce and employment, supporting women's own sexuality, and freeing illegitimate children from social prejudice. Some referred to her as "The Red Feminist" because of her socialist inclinations, a label she bore with some pride. Mariblanca did not carry her activism to the streets; rather, she lived more of a bohemian life in which she practiced her interest in free love and avant-garde literature.

Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta, a journalist and novelist, wrote a regular column in Cuba's best-known weekly journal, Bohemia. She engaged the public in the debate about women's rights since her readers often responded to her positions, and their letters were printed in her column. Rodríguez Acosta largely agreed with Mariblanca and sympathized with Ofelia Domínguez, but she was also a philosophical thinker. Her most famous novel, La vida manda, which was acclaimed when it was released, was pessimistic about women's ability to find happiness and self-expression in Cuban society. Male dominance permeated all aspects of life, including even a woman's ability to be a mother. She finally left Cuba in the 1950s to live out her life in Mexico. She, like her two contemporaries, commanded audiences in Cuba, and together they projected an example of a female intelligentsia, a querulous avant-garde, an intellectual militancy, and even street violence and arrest, molding them into the Cuban sense of self.

Images of the female nationalist diversified during the Early Republic. While the mambisa retained her sacred place as an historical icon that unified a nation, new images of female militancy presented new ideals. Most repeated allegiance to state and patriarchy with examples of self-sacrifice. But the republican woman's military combativeness was muted, and her new modes of dedication spanned the spectrum from political wife to educator, philanthropist, feminist, journalist, worker, student, and political radical. All nationalist heroines and antiheroines claimed loyalty to the state, and all wished to mold [End Page 84] the national character to their concept of state and society. The feminists were the only women to question whether undaunted loyalty to the patriarchy was a necessary element of patriotism. By 1930, all were recognized as protagonists and shapers of public opinion.

Table 2. Comparison of Early Republican and Revolutionary Mambisa Iconography
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Table 2.

Comparison of Early Republican and Revolutionary Mambisa Iconography

The Insurgency Period: The Making of Guerrilla Heroines

Early republican leaders, with U.S. support, subdued revolutionaries for nearly fifty years without entirely extinguishing the flames of nationalist rage that smoldered and occasionally flared in public demonstrations and protests. When Fulgencio Batista vacated constitutional law in 1952 and became a dictator president, seasoned radicals formed revolutionary resistance groups determined to overthrow him and restore the 1940 constitution. Violence, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare were their weapons of choice and among the cadres were women.

Between 1953 and 1958 a small number of women adopted violence as a means of returning the nation to Martí's promises of sovereignty and social justice, and, like their mambisa grandmothers, they pledged allegiance to male leaders. Resistance groups varied in their political orientation and tactics, but [End Page 85] women served as conspirators, messengers, intelligence gathers, strategists, saboteurs, and armed guerrillas in all of them. Female militancy was a well-known fact that had a romantic currency. Thus, women revolutionaries were captured, tortured, and killed by Batista's secret police with little leniency given because of gender.

On 26 July 1953, a young rebel, Fidel Castro, led a band of angry revolutionaries in an attack on Santiago de Cuba's Moncada Barracks. His purpose was to announce an insurrection against the dictatorship of President Fulgencio Batista and to mobilize dissidents behind his leadership. Among the rebels were several women, the most famous of whom were Haydeé Santamaría20 and Melba Hernández.21 Both women were outfitted and received orders on a ranch just outside of Cuba's second largest city, and they rode into combat with one of the columns directed to take the barracks. Haydeé's brother Abel was an ardent supporter of Fidel Castro, and the brother and sister had worked with the underground to prepare for the attack. Melba was drawn to the insurrection along with her boyfriend.

The plan of attack included storming the barracks, taking the radio station, announcing the existence of the insurrection, and then receding into the Sierra Maestra to launch a guerrilla campaign. Breaching the walls of the barracks cost many rebel lives, as those who were not shot in combat were captured, tortured, and either jailed or executed. Some rebels, including Fidel Castro, never made it into the barracks, but Haydeé and Melba did. They were captured in Moncada's hospital, along with Abel and the rest of the men who had penetrated the military quarters. Haydeé and Melba were subjected to interrogation and torture, and Haydeé was presented with her brother's eyeballs as a means of breaking her will to keep silent. She was reputed to have replied that since Abel had never given information, she could not capitulate to such inhumanity. Both women were imprisoned for their participation in the attack, and both were released in the 1956 general amnesty. In November 1956, when Castro gathered his revolutionary troops to invade Cuba's southern coast, both women worked in the underground that supported him, and Haydeé went into the mountains to fight as a guerrilla soldier.

In the Sierra Maestra, Fidel Castro amassed a guerrilla army, and a group of women volunteered for battle duty. As the legend goes, Castro refused to place women on the battlefield, using the same excuse as Rosa La Bayamesa's commander had used nearly a century before: women did not have guns, and so they could not go to war. Castro pointed out that his male guerrillas had scant supplies and arms, so it was impossible to arm the women. The Sierra Maestra women took his argument to its logical conclusion and pledged to capture their own arms with which they would fight.

Approximately thirty women supplied their own guns and ammunition, [End Page 86] most of which they captured in surprise attacks on Batista's military rural guards in Oriente province. Once armed, they participated in hostilities and fought with the second and third divisions of the Twenty-Sixth of July Army. On 31 December 1958, Fulgencio Batista boarded a plane and left Cuba to the revolutionaries. As Fidel Castro organized his cavalcade to march from Santiago to Havana in the first week of January 1959, he invited the female combatants to join him. These women rode atop tanks and trucks beside their compañeros, their faces lit with hope for the country and love for their countrymen. The sight of the victorious youth, men and women, taking over a nation long subjected to the control of a bourgeois elite and foreign interests ignited national pride and consecrated the Revolution. Triumphant female soldiers enshrined militancy as a national trait. Fidel Castro, once circumspect about female combatants, glorified their importance to the Revolution and used the new icon to keep Cubans on perpetual military alert and politically loyal.22 In a gallant gesture of gratitude and respect, Castro benighted them by awarding them a permanent ceremonial position in military reviews. Since 1959, the Pelotón Mariana Grajales has led military parades and been the first squadron to present arms to their comandante en jefe. In this single act, female soldiers were seen by an entire nation as a beloved symbol of loyalty, militancy, and sacrifice to a male leader and a nation. Conversely, for their loyalty, militancy, and sacrifice, Fidel Castro honored and recognized them symbolically, but without surrendering power, autonomy, or authority to them.

Revolutionary Symbols: Appropriation of the Mambisa

Resurrecting the mambisa figure and linking her to the Revolution was one of the first acts of revolutionary mythmakers. Their mission was to root the 1959 Revolution in an authentic past. The remains of famous independence fighters were transferred to tombs of honor in the Colón Cemetery in Havana. New biographies of old heroines appeared, this time emphasizing their militancy and combativeness, traits that had not been remembered during the Early Republic (see Table 2 for a comparison of revolutionary depictions of the mambisas with those of the Early Republic). After the Revolution, new representations of the mambisas furnished a historical legacy to the actions of the Pelotón and female soldiers. In some cases, biographies of the mambisas were retold with a new emphasis on militancy and violence. In other cases, new research uncovered material and testimony about the mambisas and their soldiering activities. In still other cases, post-1959 biographies transferred attention from women's revolutionary club work to stories of physical danger and defiance of colonial authority. Whereas early republican propagandists had softened the picture of the combatant with images of conspirators and militant educators, [End Page 87] revolutionary mythmakers emphasized physical danger and battlefield action. Both sets of propagandists eulogized women martyred by the enemy and praised them as loyal wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of patriots. In fact, during the Early Republic, mambisas were mostly praised for their kinship with patriots. Most interesting is the comparative interpretation of exile by revolutionary narrators. Despite living in the context in which only traitors left the Island, they considered going into exile during the independence period to have been a major sacrifice for the nation.

Both generations of Cuban nationals appropriated the example of the mambisas as antecedents to the installed governments. During both periods, memorializing the mambisa constituted a rhetorical means of making links between the past, present, and future. Neither set of mythmakers devoted themselves to validating information about the independence combatants, but instead used their presumed actions in a rhetoric of national unification and credibility for the incumbent governments.

The two periods produced different interpretations of the mambisas, however. During the Early Republic, publicists used them as symbols of pride, sacrifice, and devotion. Few believed that women in Cuba Libre should continue with the same kind of sacrifice, but the hope was that the heirs of independence would be grateful to their mothers and understand that all Cubans, including women, were capable of such militancy should the nation be threatened. Since independence heroines' loyalty to family and country distinguished their actions and enriched popular passion for the state, citizens, both female and male, embraced the notion of fidelity and took emotional stands for patriarchal leadership. A by-product of mambisa history was the use of familial association as a means of ascending to higher circles of national society.

Revolutionary memorializing consolidated the image of the mambisa into a means of bringing a living definition to the state-that is, a model worthy of emulation in daily life in revolutionary Cuba. The fighting tradition of otherwise innocent young women and their complete loyalty to their men and country were reincarnated into a socialist image of revolutionary citizenship. Through the past, Cuban leaders applied revolutionary principles of unwavering loyalty to Fidel Castro, exemplary sacrifice, combat readiness, and exceptional fighting ability. The connection between the mambisas, the Pelotón Mariana Grajales, and the daily lucha of nearly all Cuban women has been to encourage the common woman to accept austerity and constant struggle as part of the nationalist state of being. By militarizing many aspects of life, Castro has made heroines out of all women and consecrated the Revolution by making the least militaristic members of society the greatest revolutionaries. Thus, he has succeeded in framing Cuba as a nation in constant struggle, in a constant state of rebellion, and never in a posture of orderly development or secure sovereignty. [End Page 88]

Revolutionary Symbols: Las Guerrilleras

Once Castro assumed power, revolutionary iconography became a cottage industry, and artifacts appeared in the form of pins, posters, songs, funeral services, biographies, stamps, and banners presented to national and international observers of the Revolution. Romantic revolutionary songs performed by Nueva Trova, Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, Sara González, and El Grupo Moncada exalted the female revolutionary, referring to her as a compañera in tender as well as political tones.23

In addition, all aspects of life were militarized, and each mission involved female combatants. Women, for instance, participated in literacy brigades, housing-construction brigades, agricultural work fronts, healthcare campaigns, and voluntary labor brigades, in addition to the Cuban Armed Forces, Rapid Response Squads, and militias. Women went to Angola and Central America as nurses, doctors, and teachers in the midst of open warfare to prove Cuba's alliance with revolutionary societies throughout the world. They also lent credence to Cuba's commitment to the humane treatment of combatants, even captured enemy troops. The female militante embodied militancy, the Revolution, and the idealization of Fidel Castro. It is instructive, then, to examine how the Revolution presented legendary stories of women who fought and died for the Cuban Revolution.

Unlike the immortalizing of the mambisas during early republican period, the militantes had a hand in writing their own histories, and their actions have served as living examples of how to be "good Cubans" or "good revolutionaries." Celia Sánchez24 and Haydeé Santamaría became the grandes dames of the Revolution. Celia was Fidel's administrative advisor and constant companion until her death from cancer in 1980. Haydeé Santamaría married Armando Hart, the Minister of Culture, and she directed Cuba's prestigious Casa de las Américas until her suicide in 1981.Vilma Espín, the former wife of Raúl Castro and the first lady of Cuba, is the president of the Federation of Cuban Women. Public testimonials about their bravery have come in the form of articles in news magazines and newspapers, popular biographies, speeches, and eulogies. Fidel Castro himself spoke at both Celia's and Haydeé's funerals, lauding these two intelligent and unyielding revolutionaries whose devotion to him was beyond doubt. Biographical information appears primarily in the magazines Mujeres and Muchachas, through interviews with the revolutionary heroines about their roles in the overthrow of the Batista regime. In short, the powerful women of the Revolution have not released their papers for lengthy biographical study, and they have controlled the flow of information about themselves. Only Fidel Castro independently contributes information for public consumption. Besides Tiffany Thomas's work on this issue, no sophisticated biography [End Page 89] has been written about these women, and their papers are classified and not readily available to biographers.

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Characteristics Conveyed by Iconographic Literature on Revolutionary Women, 1953-1959

The members of the Pelotón Mariana Grajales have had limited authority in recording their war histories. To be sure, articles about them have been written by men and women and have appeared in national newspapers such as Granma, Trabajadores, and Joven Rebelde for political purposes. But the documents of greatest value are the as yet unpublished interviews that reside in the FMC Archive and that will be the primary documents for scholarly biographies.

The stories of some of the first martyrs of the Revolution have been made into popular histories by the leadership, particularly when these women have fit the image of the dedicated and sacrificial heroine. Clodomira Acosta Ferrals and Lidia Doce, both of peasant backgrounds from Oriente province, ran messages for Fidel Castro's guerrilla army and fought with the Pelotón Mariana Grajales. Clodomira was captured by Batista's secret police, tortured, and then executed without revealing important information about the clandestine operations of the Twenty-Sixth of July Movement. Lidia Doce, an armed combatant and messenger for the guerrilla forces, died in an ambush while on a combat mission. Che Guevara offered Clodomira's eulogy, and the Cuban Communist Party published pamphlet-length biographies of the two women.25 The authors' intentions were to disseminate patriotic passion, revolutionary ideology, and examples of total loyalty to the revolutionary experiment.

According to a statistical review of iconography (presented in Table 3), the greatest contribution women made to the revolutionary guerrilla campaign was [End Page 90] as combatants, and the second was as conspirators. Whether these women were related to male revolutionaries was not given as much prominence as in the independence period. What was always noteworthy was their unshrinking devotion to Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara, or the Twenty-Sixth of July Movement. Women's support roles as messengers, spies, fundraisers, and conspirators were less important, even though the women were vital to gun running, creating an underground with safe houses, supplying and provisioning the troops, and raising funds. No revolutionary praise or pity went to women who exiled themselves. Instead, such women must endure the epithet gusanos (worms), and worse.

Despite efforts to preserve the voices of revolutionary heroines, most attention has been focused on their war heroics, to the exclusion of personal introspection, uncertainty, serendipity, romance-in short, the subjective aspects of these women's lives. So, the women of the Sierra Maestra and the underground movement share a similar militant sainthood with their Mambí grandmothers, because they are more icons than real women. They are projected, perhaps even more than the mambisas, as examples of the ultimate compañeras-women willing to die not only for their own compañeros, but for the comandante en jefe and the Revolution.

Interpretation of the Iconography of Female Combatants in the Formation of Cuban National Identity

Throughout the twentieth century Cubans have used the iconic figure of the female combatant as a means of generating intense national identification. The method has been effective because it has unified souls behind the tragic/heroic figure of the female soldier by mixing psychological identification with nationalist pride. It has also portrayed the unspeakable violation of the most helpless and yet most defiant members of society.

Violence has its allure in national identify formation. It inspires unity against an enemy and stories of bravery in the face of a superior force that go directly to the heart. The citizenry can identify with female combatants, because they recognize in them their own vulnerability and they admire their refusal to surrender. This collective compassion and admiration initiate a social awareness of nation. The lived, moral experiences of the combatants in both the Early Republic and the Revolution, but especially during the Revolution, has taken on the public role of a religion. It has given a moral purpose to civic society that asks citizens to transcend individual necessity for the good of the whole. It is the example of a people willing to commit national suicide by risking the lives of young women for sovereignty. Female combatant imagery has become an aesthetic, a moral precept, and a ritualization of values.

The heroic female combatant also links the honor of male rebel leadership [End Page 91] with the honor of a nation. In Cuban society, prerevolutionary and revolutionary, honor is the cornerstone of social consciousness. Male leaders depend upon public adulation and uncontested loyalty. Glenn Dealy argues that Latin American male honor depends upon individual male status within a group of potential competitors.26 He is especially recommended by the adoration of women, which he cultivates for public display, which indicates his domination of all other potential contenders. The absolute loyalty of women who are willing to die for nation and the male leadership is a strong symbol of the worthiness and honor of both. Female loyalists stand between the honor and shame of a nation as well as the male leadership. Their example also justifies bloodletting and violent resistance to immoral and cruel foreign domination. The integrity of women recommended and recommends the honor of men and country. The sacrifice of the mambisas themselves and their witnessing of the deaths of members of their families without surrendering to the cruelty of the Spanish army was a source of humiliation for the Spanish and an endorsement of the honor of the nationalist leadership. The resilience of the women of the Pelotón to Batista's armed forces and even to Castro's prejudice against fielding them in battle diminished Batista's honor and exalted Castro's, for the women were willing to die, even for a man and a revolution that did not understand their worth. The continuing sacrifice of Cuban women on the domestic and international fronts constitutes one of the strongest foundations upon which Fidel Castro relies to remain in power.

The female soldier has given definition to Cuba's national character. Female sacrifice and loyalty to the nation and patriarchy have caused Cubans to transcend colonialism and truncated sovereignty by exalting national will, female heroism, and male honor. It has constructed what Dirkheim calls "the sacredness of the whole," a pious sentiment and not a reality. The sacredness of national identity has been used in both periods to humiliate foreign enemies and exclude Cubans unwilling to commit to the same cause. Ironically, the female warrior icon has also become a symbol of intolerance, exclusion, violence, and even struggle unto death-a war without limits.

K. Lynn Stoner

K. Lynn Stoner is associate professor of history at Arizona State University. She has published a monograph, From the House to the Streets: The Cuban Woman's Movement for Legal Reform, 1898-1940. She has made her research sources available to other scholars in the Stoner Collection, a microfilm collection of journals and papers of Cuban women's organizations during the Early Republic. In 2000, in conjunction with the Cuban History Institute in Havana, she coedited, with Luis H. Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women: An Annotated Interdisciplinary Bibliography.

Acknowledgment

Lesbia O. Varona aided the research of this paper by producing information on the Cuban national anthem and the opera "Patria." Uva de Aragón directed my attention to the distinction between early republican and revolutionary interpretations of the female combatant. Both women are colleagues and friends who guide, criticize, and sustain me en un ambiente de cubanía femenina. Funding for this project was provided by the Rockefeller Fellow-in-Residence Grant, furnished through Florida International University in 1998.

Notes

1. For bibliographic citations about the nineteenth-century struggle for national independence, see Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, Bibliografía cubana (Havana: Instituto del Libro, 1968); Biblioteca Nacional José Martí, Bibliografía de bibliografías cubanas (Havana: Editorial [End Page 92] Organismos, 1973); and K. Lynn Stoner and Luís H. Serrano, eds, Cuban and Cuban American Women: An Annotated Bibliography (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000).

2. Déborah Betancourt Milanés and Maricela Molina Piñeiro, La lucha de la mujer por sus derechos: Indice temático (1941-1945) (Havana: University of Havana, 1987); Dania de la Cruz, Movimiento femenino cubano: Bibliografía (Havana: Editora Política, 1980); Instituto de Literature y Lingüistica de la Academia de Ciencias de Cuba, Diccionario de la literatura cubana (Havana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1984); Lucila Quinteiro Pacheco and Zunilda Rodríguez Santiago, "Procesamento y automatización del fondo: Club Femenino de Cuba," Escuela Nacional de Técnicos de Bibliotecas, Centro Nacional de Escuelas de Arte, Ministerio de Cultura, Havana, 1993; Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women.

3. Louis A. Pérez, "Women in the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1953-1959: A Bibliography," Science and Society 39, no. 1 (Spring 1975): 104-8; Nelson P. Valdés, "A Bibliography on Cuban Women in the Twentieth Century," Cuban Studies 4, no. 2 (1974): 1-31; Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women.

4. Teresita de Barbieri, "El feminismo y la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas," Fem 4, no. 15 (July-August 1980): 65-69; Tomás Fernández Robaina, Bibliografía de la mujer cubana (Havana: Ministerio de Cultura, 1985); Araceli García-Carranza, "Homenaje: XV aniversario de la Federación de Mujeres Cubanas, nuestra bibliografía sobre la mujer," Revista de la Biblioteca Nacional José Martí 18, no. 1 (January-April 1976): 91; Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women. For commemorations of heroines of the Cuban Revolution, the magazines Bohemia, Mujeres, and Muchachas frequently run special articles on individual women who sacrificed in some extraordinary way for the Revolution. See also speeches made by Vilma Espín, president of the Federation of Cuban Women.

5. Victoria de Carturla Brú, La mujer en la independencia de América (Havana: Jesús Montero, 1945); Matilde Delfina Rodríguez Danger, Mariana Grajales (Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente, 1977); Nydia Sarabia, Historia de una familia mambisa: Mariana Grajales (Havana: Instituto Cubano del Libro, Editorial Orbe, 1975); Nydia Sarabia, Mariana Grajales (Havana: Editorial Gente Nuevo, 1976).

6. Nydia Sarabia, Ana Betancourt (Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales,) 1970; Mirta Aguirre, Influencia de la mujer en Iberoamérica: Ensayo (Havana: Imprenta P. Fernández y Cía., 1947).

7. Robert Solera, "Tres eran . . . las tres bayamesas," 16 September 2002, http://sites.net scape.net/robertsolera/bayamesa.html.

8. Enrique Ubieta, "La mujer en la revolución cubana: La familia del General Máximo Gómez," parts 1-3, Bohemia 1, no. 30 (26 November 1910): 347; no. 31 (3 December 1910): 359; no. 32 (10 December 1910): 370.

9. Enrique Ubieta, "La mujer en la revolución cubana: Mariana Grajales, viuda de Maceo," Bohemia 1, no. 33 (17 December 1910): 383.

10. Enrique Ubieta, "La mujer en la revolución cubana: Inés Morilla Sánchez," Bohemia 2, no. 9 (26 February 1911): 506.

11. Enrique Ubieta, "La mujer cubana en la revolución: Mercedes Varona," Bohemia 2, no. 20 (14 May 1911): 146.

12. Aguirre, Influencia de la mujer en Iberoamérica; Mirta Aguirre, "Marta Abreu, (1845-1909)," Mujeres cubanas 13 (November-December 1951): 5; Panfilo D. Camacho, Marta Abreu: Una mujer comprendida (Havana: Editorial Trópico, 1947); Juan José Casasús, La inmigración cubana y la independencia de la patria: Primer premio en el concurso de la Asociación de Emigrados: Comenoración del Centenario de Martí (Havana: Talleres Tipográficos de Editorial Lex, 1953); José Alvarez Conde, "Marta Abreu, El Naturalista y Villacara," Magazine Social 4 (April 1951): 8-9, 28-29; Manuel García Garofalo y Mesa, Marta Abreu Arengibia y Dr. Luis Estévez y Romero (Havana: Imprenta y Librería La Moderna Poesía, 1925); Elena Mederos de González [End Page 93] , "Women of the Americas: IV. Marta Abreu, Cuba," Pan American Bulletin 76, no. 1 (1942): 32-35; Vicentina Elsa Rodríguez de Cuesta, Patriotas cubanas (Pinar del Río: Talleres "Heraldo Pinareño," 1952); José A. Rodríguez García, De la revolución y de las cubanas en la época revolucionaria (Havana: Imprenta El Siglo XX, 1930); Emilia Romero, Mujeres de América (Mexico: Secretaría de Educación Pública, 1948); Antonio J. Vidaurreta Casanova, "Marta Abreu de Estévez: 3 facetas de una vida extraordinaria," in Un año de periodismo, ed. Mirta Aguirre (Santa Clara: Ediciones Culturales Publicidad, 1952), 12-24.

13. Alfredo Miguel Aguayo, María Luisa Dolz, educadora de la mujer cubana (Havana: Imprenta Cultural, 1937); Pastor del Río, María Luisa Dolz: El maestro y su apostado (Havana: Imprenta de "El Fígaro," 1929); Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, "La muerte de una gran patriota," Social 10 (July 1925): 7; Dora Jiménez, Las revoluciones del feminismo (Havana: Molina, 1930); Juan Manuel Planas and Manuel J. Mesa, La liberación de la mujer cubana por la educación (Havana: Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad, 1955); María Luisa Dolz y Arango, La liberación de la mujer cubana por la educación: Homenaje de la Ciudad de la Habana en el centenario de su nacimiento, 1854-1954 (Havana: Oficina del Historiador de la Ciudad, 1954); María Luisa Dolz y Arango, "Las precusoras," Mujer Moderna 1, no. 1 (November 1925): 21-24; "Colegio María Luisa Dolz," El Hogar 7 (27 March 1904): 4-6.

14. Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba, Memoria del Primer Congreso Nacional de Mujeres: Abril 1-7, 1923 (Havana: Imprenta de la Universal, 1923); Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba, Memoria del Primer Congreso Nacional de Mujeres (Havana: Imprenta La Universal, 1924); Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba, Memoria del Segundo Congreso Nacional de Mujeres organizado por la Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas, Abril 12-18, 1925 (Havana, 1927); Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba, Memoria del Segundo Congreso Nacional de Mujeres, Abril 12-18, 1925 (Havana, 1925); Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba, Primera serie de conferencias de divulgación cívica (Havana: Talleres Gráficas Cuba Intelectual, 1927); Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba, Programa oficial del Segundo Congreso Nacional de Mujeres organizado por la Federación Nacional de Asociaciones Femeninas de Cuba (Havana, 1925).

15. The popular press covered Marianita Sava de Menocal's work on at least a weekly basis. Social columns, frontpage stories, and current events are the sections of Bohemia, Social, and Diario de la Marina that were reliable sources of information about the political leadership. The following citation is but one example of such reporting: "Actualidades," Bohemia 5, no. 28 (12 July 1914): 333.

16. For extensive coverage of Mrs. Menocal's war effort, see Conde Kostia, "Marianita Seva de Menocal," Social (May 1916): 23-25, 36-37.

17. For a brief biographical sketch on Domínguez Navarro, see K. Lynn Stoner, "Ofelia Domínguez Navarro: The Making of a Cuban Socialist Feminist," in The Human Tradition in Latin America, ed. William Beezley and Judith Ewell, 119-40 (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1990). See also K. Lynn Stoner, From the House to the Streets: The Cuban Woman's Movement for Legal Reform, 1898-1940 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991). Domínguez Navarro's personal papers are in the Cuban History Institute in Havana, Cuba. Domínguez Navarro published frequently in the press. For many of her references, see Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women. Domínguez Navarro also published two autobiographical books: De seis a seis: La vida en las prisiones cubanas (Mexico City, 1937), and Cinquenta años de una vida (Havana: Institute Cubana del Libro, 1971).

18. Ofelia Rodríguez Acosta wrote a regular column on Cuban feminism for Bohemia between 1927 and 1932. A listing of some of her more outstanding essays may be found in Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women, 92-95. She was also a novelist and short-story [End Page 94] writer, and her literary works are also listed in the above bibliography. She suffered from mental instability in her last years and died in Mexico. For a brief treatment of her life, see Stoner, "The Feminist Journalists," From the House to the Streets, 87-107.

19. Mariblanca Sabas Alomá, known as the Red Feminist for her socialist feminist views, wrote regularly for Social and Carteles. She was a member of the Grupo Minorista, an intellectual group of writers and artists who had enormous influence over radical perceptions of national identity during the 1920s and 1930s. She wrote one novel, La Remora (Havana: Imprenta El Siglo XX, 1921). Many of her best articles on feminism appear in Feminismo: Cuestiones sociales-Crítica literaria (Havana: Editorial Hermes, 1930). For a more extensive, although not complete, listing of her essays, see Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women, 96-98.

20. See biographical files in the Federation of Cuban Women's Archives. Celia Sánchez's file contains recorded conversations between Haydeé Santamaría, Celia Sánchez, Vilma Espín, Melba Hernández, and Fidel Castro about their activities in the clandestine movement. See also Graziella Méndez, "Mujeres de la Revolución," Mujeres 4, no. 7 (July 1964): 48; Graziella Méndez, Mujeres ejemplares (Havana: Editorial Orbe, 1977); Graziella Méndez, Mujeres en revolución (Havana: Sección de Historia de la Dirección Política de las FAR, 1974); Iris Dávila, "Compañeras," Mujeres 13, no. 7 (July 1973): 4; Vilma Espín, "Habla de Haydeé y Celia," Bohemia 73, no. 10 (6 March 1981): 36-39. Haydeé Santamaría's personal papers are not available for public use. Some messages from the period of the insurrection can be found in Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women.

21. The Federation of Cuban Women houses a file on Melba Hernández that consists of two short articles. Besides the articles on Haydeé Santamaría that frequently mention Melba, see Carol Robb and Alice Hageman, " 'Let Them Be Examples' . . . ," Cuba Review 4, no. 2 (1974): 19-21.

22. The Federation of Cuban Women has created an extensive archive on the Pelotón, which includes transcribed individual and group interviews. It also contains files on the individual women who participated in the Sierra Maestra revolutionary army. The only published account of the Pelotón is found in a 1960 publication entitled Las mujeres en la Revolución Cubana, found in the History Institute Library. For an extensive listing of references, see Stoner and Serrano, Cuban and Cuban American Women, 185.

23. An example of the romanticization of the revolutionary woman is Silvio Rodríguez's song "Mujeres," which exalts the woman who sends her children into combat, referring to Mariana Grajales. Rodríguez worships the other mother who marches toward the star, referring to Bernarda Toro de Gómez, who kept the star of Máximo Gómez's uniform with her. These women, he sings, buried their men with their own hands. He trembles before the woman who confronted the caudillo (Weyler), who always lurked in the shadows, by spreading fire in his path. He shivers before the woman who is willing to leave her home on the ferocious continent and come to live in another house (perhaps referring to women willing to change from capitalism to socialism or women leaving the United States to live in Cuba). He is in awe of many women, women of fire and of snow. He trembles before women who are recognized in history and those who have been forgotten, for no book is large enough to contain their stories. Rodríguez collapses the independence past into the revolutionary present, and he dares the historian to gather their names.

24. Celia Sánchez was Fidel Castro's confidant and aide-de-camp during the guerrilla period and administrative advisor after he assumed power. She died in 1980 of cancer. Some of her records are with the Federation of Cuban Women, and an entire archive is devoted to her papers.

25. Gaspar González-Launaza Rodríguez, Clodomira Acosta Ferrals (Havana: Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, 1983); Departamento de Orientación Revolucionaria del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, Presencia de Lidia Doce (Havana: Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba, 1974).

26. Glen Claudill Dealy, The Latin Americans: Spirit and Ethos (Boulder, Colo.: Westview [End Page 95] Press, 1992); and Glen Claudill Dealy, The Public Man: An Interpretation of Latin American and Other Catholic Countries (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977). For a general treatment of the use of honor, shame, and humiliation as forces in identity construction, see William Ian Miller, Humiliation and Other Essays on Honor, Social Discomfort, and Violence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993). [End Page 96]

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