On his X account, the president stressed that October 10 “was the sum of longings and purposes, and it was also the first tangible space of freedom, the first piece of land where everyone was for the first time equal in their human condition.”
In another message, Diaz-Canel recalled the words of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, on the centennial of those events.
“October 10, 1868 signifies the onset of the revolution in Cuba, as in Cuba, there has only been one revolution: the one started by Carlos Manuel de Cespedes on October 10, 1868, and that our people are currently carrying out,” the president cited on X.
Cuban authorities further refered on X to the date in the struggle for Cuba’s independence and sovereignty.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez remarked on the same platform that, 156 years later, the Cuban Revolution has enabled the construction of a free and sovereign nation, with the lineage of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes, the firmness of Antonio Maceo, the ideas of Jose Marti and the leadership of Fidel Castro.
On October 10, 1868, in the La Demajagua sugar mill in eastern Manzanillo, the Bayamese lawyer Carlos Manuel de Cespedes set off the struggles for the Cuban independence by leading a group of patriots who wanted to get off the control of Spain.
Cespedes also marked the abolitionist character of the struggle, since he granted freedom to his slaves, whom he summoned to the fight as free men.
A manifesto, read that morning at sunrise, not only endorsed those principles, but also the will to turn Cuba into a great and civilized nation that would extend “a friendly hand and a fraternal heart to all other peoples.”
The revolutionary outbreak of October 10, 1868 was the beginning of the first independence war, which lasted 10 years, showed the maturity of a patriotic national conscience, and forged the Cuban nation.
Although it did not end with the achievements and hopes that drove it, it was the spark that later gave rise to the known Little War (1879-1880) and the Necessary War (1895-1898), the latter organized by the National Hero, Jose Marti.
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