Cuban Studies Institute

A Creole cattle farmer and lawyer, and leader in the Ten Years’ War.  For the first five years after 1868 he led the revolt in his native Camagüey, participated in drafting the Guáimaro Constitution, and carried out many brave military feats against the government forces.  The best known of these was the daring rescue of […]

Cuban mulatto patriot and hero of the Independence War of 1895-1898.  Born near Santiago de Cuba, June 14, son of Marcos Maceo, a Venezuelan mulatto émigré, and a free Cuban Black, Mariana Grajales.  His childhood was passed on the small family farm, where he was privately educated, and in making occasional trips to sell its

Physician and epidemiologist, discoverer of the mosquito vector of yellow fever.  Born in Camagüey on December 3rd, of a Scots father and a French Creole mother from Trinidad, he grew up on his father’s coffee plantation, but was sent to school in France and England.  He then went to Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, graduating

Cuba’s greatest hero and most influential writer.  Revolutionary, poet, journalist, and the principal organizer of the Independence War of 1895-1898, he was the apostle of Cuba’s independence.  Born in Havana, January 28, of a Valencian father and “isleño” mother, he spent his early years as an eager student.  His environment and teachers aroused in him a devotion to the cause

Havana-born philosopher, Father Varela studied at the Colegio y Seminario de San Carlos, where he became a priest and professor of philosophy as the protégé of Bishop Díaz de Espada.  Many of his students, including José Antonio Saco and José de la Luz y Caballero, achieved intellectual distinction.  He favored modern doctrines and pioneered explicative