On November 27th, 1871, the most pitiless act of injustice during the Wars of Cuban Independence took place: the execution of eight young Cubans, all medical students at the University of Havana. They were condemned without evidence, charged with desecrating the tomb of the editor of a newspaper published by the paramilitary Corps of Spanish Volunteers, who had died in Key West, Florida, during a duel at the hands of a Cuban exile whom he had provoked with his anti-Cuban articles.
The charges lacked sufficient merit, one of the eight students was not even physically in Havana on the day of the alleged crime. When a trial did not result in the punishment demanded by the Volunteers, a quickly held trial the next day ordered the eight executions as well as the confinement of thirty more students.
