Guillermon Moncada: the General of the three wars.
With a remarkable participation in the three battles that the Liberation Army orchestrated against Spanish colonialism, José Guillermo Moncada Veranes became one of the most outstanding precursors of the emancipation of the largest of the Antilles.
With a remarkable participation in the three battles that the Liberation Army orchestrated against Spanish colonialism, Jose Guillermo Moncada Veranes became one of the most outstanding precursors of patriotism and the emancipation of the largest of the Antilles.
Born on June 25th, 1840 in the Los Hoyos neighborhood of Santiago de Cuba and despite the poverty of his birthplace, he learned to read and write from a very young age and found in the carpentry trade a great incentive to earn his living.
Moncada Veranes was one of the first to join the insurrectionist gesture promoted by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in 1868 and, just as he managed to extend the war to the Guantanamo territory, he was part of the group of brave men who, together with Maceo, refuted the Zanjón Pact in Baraguá.
In the same way, he maintained the combative forge during the so-called Chiquita War, taking command of the forces of the center and south of the Oriente province, with the rank of Major General and participating in the hopeful plan between the Bronze Titan and the Generalissimo, as well as in the so-called Conspiracy of the Peace of Manganese.
Scenarios such as Mayarí, Santo Domingo, Jarahueca, Caimanera, El Purial, Duaba and Las Cañas, among others, witnessed his courage on the battlefield and, thanks to his skill with the machete and his great physical strength and stature, he was baptized with the nickname of «Guillermón» by his fellow mambises.
Knowing Marti’s work to materialize the Necessary War and in spite of the complications due to tuberculosis that he contracted when he was imprisoned, he rose up in Alto Songo at dawn on February 24th, 1895 and, later, when he noticed the advance of the illness, he entrusted the leadership of the eastern region to Major General Bartolomé Masó and the forces subordinated to the General Staff, to Colonel Victoriano Garzón.
Sadly, Guillermon Moncada died on April 5th, 1895 in the Joturito camp, in Mucaral, Santiago de Cuba and, 129 years after his death, the Antillean people remember him as one of the greatest exponents of heroism and resistance to oppression, celebrating his excessive courage and military intransigence, always at the service of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination of our homeland.
Written by Yadiel Barbón Salgado.
