María Cabrales

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Cabrales and the second or maternal family name is Fernández.
María Cabrales
Born20 March 1842
San Agustín, San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, Spanish Cuba
Died28 July 1905 (aged 63)
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
Burial placeSanta Ifigenia Cemetery, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba
OccupationsIndependence activist, revolutionary and nurse
MovementCuban independence:
Ten Years' War
Cuban War of Independence
SpouseAntonio Maceo (m. 1866, died 1896)
Children2 (disputed)
RelativesMariana Grajales Cuello (mother-in-law)
José Maceo (brother-in-law)

María Magdalena Cabrales Fernández (20 March 1842 – 28 July 1905) was a Cuban independence activist, revolutionary and nurse.

Biography

Cabrales was born 20 March 1842 on her family farm in San Agustín, San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, Spanish Cuba.[1][2][3] Her family were free small landowners of African descent.[1] She was the youngest daughter of her parents Ramón Cabrales and Antonia Fernández and had four elder siblings, Fabián, Santiago, Caridad and Dolores.[3] Little is known about her education, but Cabrales was literate, which was uncommon for a women of her status in Cuban society at the time.[3]

Cabrales married Antonio Maceo on 16 February 1866 and they lived together on the La Esperanza Estate.[3] They both supported Cuban independence.[3] Some historians have claimed that she had two children who died in infancy,[4][5][6] while others have said that there is no evidence that Cabrales and her husband had children.[1]

During the Ten Years War (1868–1878) against the Spanish rule of Cuba, Cabrales joined the insurrection and lived in the forests with independence fighters.[1] Her husband became Major General of the Cuban Liberation Army[1] and Cabrales came to "symbolize the revolutionary compañera (companion)."[7][8] She worked as a nurse in field hospitals and treated wounded patriot soldiers, using knowledge of medicinal herbs,[9] alongside her mother-in-law Mariana Grajales Cuello and Bernanda Toro [es].[10][11] José Martí, after witnessing Grajales and Cabrales enter the battlefield to rescue wounded Antonio with only cover fire from his brother José Maceo, said: "Fáciles son los heroes con tales mujeres" (It is easy to be heroes with women such as these).[12][13] Cabrales also provided provisions for soldiers.[14]

Cabrales rejected the Pact of Zanjón and seconded the Baragua Protest [es].[10] In 1889, Cabrales and her husband were expelled from Cuba.[1]

Cabrales went into exile with her husband and they lived among the Cuban émigré communities in Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica and the United States (New Orleans and Key West).[1][15] While living in Jamaica, she and her husband survived by cultivating a tobacco and fruit plantation.[1] While living in Costa Rica, Cabrales founded the El Club de las Mujeres Cubanas de Costa Rica (The Cuban Women's Club of Costa Rica) to help raise funds for independence movement in Cuba.[16]

Her husband returned to Cuba and died in combat in 1896 at Punta Brava. After her husband's death, Cabrales retired to San Agustin.[2] She was financially supported in her widowhood by a monthly pension of two pesos in gold, which was awarded to her by Cienfuegos municipal councillors.[17] Politically, she was disappointed that Cubans of African descent became politically marginalised in the late 1890s.[1]

Cabrales died on 28 July 1905 in Santiago de Cuba, aged 63.[1][10][16] She is buried in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, Santiago de Cuba.[2][18]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Prados-Torreira, Teresa (2016), Gates Jr., Henry Louis; Knight, Franklin W. (eds.), "Cabrales, María", Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199935796.001.0001/acref-9780199935796-e-361, ISBN 978-0-19-993579-6, retrieved 19 August 2025
  2. ^ a b c Duliet, Martha Martínez (20 March 2025). "María Cabrales Fernández, protagonists of the struggles for the independence of Cuba" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 23 July 2025. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e Vega, C. Abel Aguilera (20 March 2023). "María Cabrales: Una mujer con historia propia" [María Cabrales: A woman with her own story]. Cubadebate (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 20 July 2023. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
  4. ^ Stoner, Lynn K.; Pérez, Luís Hipólito Serrano (2000). Cuban and Cuban-American Women: An Annotated Bibliography. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-8420-2643-7.
  5. ^ Pando, Magdalena (1980). Cuba's Freedom Fighter, Antonio Maceo, 1845-1896. Felicity Press. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-9603846-0-0.
  6. ^ Shepherd, Verene; Brereton, Bridget; Bailey, Barbara, eds. (30 April 2016). Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective. Springer. p. 306. ISBN 978-1-137-07302-0.
  7. ^ Davies, Catherine (1997). A Place in the Sun: Women Writers in Twentieth-Century Cuba. Zed Books. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-85649-542-4.
  8. ^ Elers, Damaris A. Torres (20 April 2016). "María Cabrales: Una mujer con historia propia". Anales de la Academia de Ciencias de Cuba (in Spanish). ISSN 2304-0106.
  9. ^ Cuba Review. Cuba Resource Center. 1974. p. 19.
  10. ^ a b c "María Cabrales: la gran mujer detrás del titán". Cubanet (in Spanish). 20 March 2023. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
  11. ^ Shaffer, Kirwin (13 June 2022). A Transnational History of the Modern Caribbean: Popular Resistance across Borders. Springer Nature. p. 81. ISBN 978-3-030-93012-7.
  12. ^ Stoner, K. Lynn (1991). From the house to the streets: the Cuban woman's movement for legal reform, 1898-1940. Durham: Duke University Press. p. 20. ISBN 978-0-8223-1149-2.
  13. ^ Volo, Lorraine Bayard de (February 2018). Women and the Cuban Insurrection: How Gender Shaped Castro's Victory. Cambridge University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-107-17802-1.
  14. ^ Navarro, Marysa; Korrol, Virginia Sánchez; Ali, Kecia (22 June 1999). Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Restoring Women to History. Indiana University Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-253-21307-5.
  15. ^ Scott, Rebecca J. (30 June 2009). Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery. Harvard University Press. p. 296. ISBN 978-0-674-04339-8.
  16. ^ a b "María Cabrales, una cubana que dejó huella en la historia". Alas Tensas (in Spanish). 20 March 2022. Archived from the original on 9 July 2025. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
  17. ^ Utset, Marial Iglesias (30 May 2011). A Cultural History of Cuba during the U.S. Occupation, 1898-1902. UNC Press Books. p. 146. ISBN 978-0-8078-7784-5.
  18. ^ Gigiel, Terisa E. (13 May 2022). The Tombstone Tourist in Cuba. FriesenPress. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-0391-2614-5.
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