At one o'clock in the morning on the first Saturday of the full moon, Felipe sent Mariano a horse-drawn carriage to pick him up. It was led by a young mulatto named Mauricio, Felipe's right-hand man. The carriage headed towards Caimito, which was an hour away from the farm where Felipe was hiding.
During the journey, Mauricio told Mariano that the house where they lived for the moment was uninhabited. It had been abandoned after the pandemic; and the peaceful revolutionaries, as Felipe defined himself, had settled there.
"Aren't you afraid that you'll be found and that you'll all be arrested?" asked Mariano.
“They are not going to report us. The owner of the farm has joined us, and no one knows we are here; but we move locations very often so that they don't find us.”
“I see you trust me. I will never betray them,” Mariano said.
“Felipe trusts you blindly, but they could arrest you and make you sing with violent methods. That's why we travel at night, so that you can’t find your way back here.”
“Don't worry, I don't have a great sense of direction. Right now I don't know which direction we're going.”
"Don't worry, we've taken all the precautions," Mauricio said.
“I hope that sooner or later you will be able to end slavery.”
“Let us hope that, thanks to the intelligence, diplomacy, ability to act, and patience of Felipe and all the lawyers who work with him, the independence of Cuba and the abolition of slavery will be obtained, which would lead to many improvements in Cuban society. You have to know that some landowners are already giving freedom to slaves. However, there are others who are still buying them and exploiting them like animals.”
“I admire the pro-independence supporters who don't take up arms.”
Mauricio remained silent, for he feared that sooner or later, protests and lawsuits would end up involving the revolutionaries in fierce battles against the Spaniards. When they were about to arrive, he thought of Céspedes, Felipe's friend and comrade in struggle, who, at first with his peaceful uprising had hoped to reach a free Cuba without shedding blood. In the end he had to arm his followers and form an army; but unfortunately, he fell in battle in 1874.
Felipe received Mariano with affection and joy, hugged him as he did in Havana, patting him on the back. They talked, joked, and treated each other as if they had seen each other the day before, but in fact six years had passed since their last meeting.
At the end of two hours, Olivia, the mulatto woman whom Felipe freed from slavery, entered the room where the two men were sitting in the dark.
It had taken Felipe five years to prepare the plan to obtain Olivia's freedom. He managed to get a trusted woman to join the servants of the hacienda where Olivia was one of the many slaves who collected tobacco leaves. That woman was paving the way for them, but above all they were helped by yellow fever. On that farm, as in those in the neighborhood, there were many deaths, including the farm’s owner. The widow, like her husband, hated anyone who wanted to free the black slaves and it was not easy to come to terms with her.
The widow, rather than having an issue with Felipe, had an aversion to her brother-in-law, the one who gave freedom to the slaves he had inherited from his father. However, due to the economic problems that presented themselves to her after the death of her husband, she gave in to Felipe’s requests. Because she didn't want to see his face, Felipe managed to buy Olivia through an intermediary. From the moment she acquired her freedom, Olivia was so grateful to Felipe that she followed him wherever he went without question, even if her life was in danger.
It was just before sunrise when Olivia disappeared from the living room and went to the kitchen, leaving the two friends alone. Felipe and Mariano spent the rest of the night talking incessantly. Mariano told Felipe about his progress as a partner in the grocery store and the thriving seed trade. Felipe gave him a summary of everything he had done in those five years. He had been studying and presenting petitions to the Spanish government for Cuba to obtain independence and for slavery to be abolished.
Felipe and his collaborators had managed to get the Official Gazette of the Spanish State to issue a law on February 18, 1880, that put an end to the state of slavery in Cuba. However, this law carried a series of conditions that slowed down the effective end of the slavery regime. That is to say, this law did not immediately turn slaves into free people. It transformed them into freedmen, who had to pay a large amount of money to their employers in order to be completely free. An eight-year period of patronage was established for newly freed blacks, during which they had to continue to work for their former masters in conditions very similar to slavery, since corporal punishment was permitted.
“Are you not satisfied with what you have achieved?” asked Mariano.
"We have achieved very little," replied Felipe.
“Something is better than nothing! You will see that sooner or later Spain will have to align itself with the laws of other countries.”
“Freedom now has an economic price, and that cannot be. We are struggling with the Overseas Ministry Department to put an end to this ridiculous system of Freedmen.”
"You're going to make it, Felipe.”
“I'm a little tired, and Olivia and I still have to hide. When I get slavery abolished for good, I can die peacefully.”
“Don't say that Felipe, you are going to improve the current law of abolition of slavery and perhaps make Cuba free without shedding blood.”
“That will be difficult. I trust José Martí, as I trusted Céspedes, but historical memory tells me that peaceful resistance in the end leads to arms. I also admired Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. In addition to being a rich and handsome man who had lived in Europe and spoke several languages, he was a cultured and sensitive person, a poet with very noble ideals, and capable of keeping up to date with scientific and technical advances, philosophical doctrines as well as artistic and literary movements. In the republic he wished to found, he wanted a law that would organize universal primary education, black and white together, with itinerant teachers and schools with workshops. He was a friend to me, but I didn't follow him when he took up arms and joined more aggressive separatists.”
“However, the uprising of Céspedes was the fuse that ignited the battle to obtain the abolition of slavery, right?” asked Mariano.
“Yes, but at a very expensive price. Slaves enlisted in the ranks of the rebel army voluntarily or forcibly. Blacks were cannon fodder, and there was a lot of racial discrimination in the troops, despite whites and blacks fighting on the same side for ten years,” Felipe said.
“It is said that on both sides there were more than 100,000 deaths, including those killed in battles and due to tropical diseases. Many young soldiers of the Spanish army who had recently arrived in Cuba fell ill and died without actually participating in battle.”
“Yes, it was a real massacre.” Felipe was silent for a few seconds and then he resumed speaking. “I remember that Céspedes wrote: ‘Among the sacrifices that the Revolution has imposed on me, the most painful for me has been the sacrifice of my character’ I am not going to sacrifice myself, freedom must be achieved without shedding blood. If José Martí declares war on Spain, I will withdraw from the organization.”
“I admire you, but you've been running away for too many years, maybe it's time to think more about you and Olivia.”
“I will try. I don't know when I’ll be able to see you again, Mariano. I promise you that as soon as things get better, I'll look for you,” Felipe told Mariano.
At dawn, they said goodbye and Mauricio accompanied him back to Havana.
At the end of 1880, Angel Hernández, owner of a hacienda in Pinar del Rio, showed up at the store of the three brothers. “I've been told that a certain Mariano Defaus works for you.”
"I'm going to look for him, he's in the back room," said Pedro as he pulled back the curtain and called Mariano. "You have a visitor," he said.
“Good morning, I'm Angel Hernandez, I've been told that you are a great expert on grain seeds.”
"I can help a little,” Mariano replied, happy to hear that he had a good reputation in the community.
"I don't know anything about grains. Since I was born I've seen only tobacco around me," said the landowner, smiling.
Angel continued to ask him other questions and finally said, “I want to plant wheat on the land I inherited from my father and remove the tobacco plants. I need you to work with me on my farm.”
At the age of twenty, Angel had told his father that he wanted to study in Spain. His father did not approve of his heir going so far but, being an intelligent person, in the end he gave his consent and paid for his son’s medical studies. His brother, on the other hand, stayed on the hacienda to take care of the tobacco plantation.
he first day Angel attended an autopsy he fainted as the blood made him dizzy. He thought he was going to get used to it; however, over time his discomfort did not improve. He accepted that he did not have the skills to be a doctor, but he finished his degree so as not to quit halfway. In Madrid, one afternoon he went to the neighborhood of Lavapiés to buy a pitcher and he met Nieves Herrera. Nieves belonged to a family of potters, they molded pieces and sold them in the store. When Angel entered the pottery, he was captivated by the sight of the potter's daughter, who was mending the clay pieces on the shelves. From then on, Angel went to see Nieves every afternoon and one day he declared his love for her. Nieves was eighteen and Angel was twenty-two when they married. They lived in Madrid for a few months, because soon after Angel had to return to Cuba with his wife after the death of his parents and his only brother due to yellow fever. That day, Angel also told Mariano that he had good foremen and good day laborers, he just needed a grain specialist.
“I am offering you a good job and if we see that everything is going well and that we understand each other, we could be partners.”
“And why do you want to replace tobacco plantations with wheat fields?”
“Everyone tells me that I'm crazy, that you earn much more with tobacco, but I have already consulted with agricultural experts, who have told me that my land is good for grains and that crop rotation would be good for it, because for too many years it has been planted only with tobacco plants. The poor land can't take it anymore, and that's why I want to make a radical change in the farm. Also, I abhor slavery and don't want to make a living by inhumanely exploiting black people. Chance has led me to own a farm that was meant for my brother. I am grateful for my destiny, but I want to change it. I have given freedom to all the slaves, but many of them have stayed to work with me, collecting a salary. Nieves, my wife, supports me in this project that seems a bit far-fetched.”
“I'm going to think about it. Thank you for your offer,” Mariano replied, unable to say anything more than how excited he was.
“If you accept my proposal, you will have a good salary and also a percentage of the income from the harvest. Ah! I forgot, there's a little house for you next to ours.”
ariano liked this humble landowner, who was nothing like the owners of the surrounding farms. He couldn't believe that he would offer him so much knowing so little about him. Mariano didn't like the idea of accepting the job and leaving the three brothers behind. He had become so accustomed to them that he was embarrassed to leave. Pablo, the eldest, had already recovered from the stroke he suffered months ago and was able to place orders and keep the accounts.
After several days of reflection, he told them about the offer that Angel Hernández had given him and proposed the following: "I will continue to be your partner, but I will give you an assistant that I will pay for, and every two or three months I will return to Havana to help you.”
“You run more after businesses than women. I would be calmer if you ran away after a mulatta,” Pedro told him laughing.
“We are happy that you are being sought after for such an important hacienda. It is a great opportunity for you and I am very proud of how you have moved forward,” said Pepe, the reserved middle brother.
“We will miss you! Thank you for everything you have done for me,” Pablo said slowly, for it was still difficult for him to speak with a lopsided mouth from his stroke.
“Let's see if in Pinar de Río you can find the wife you dream of so much.”
“Don't make fun of me, Pedro. I'll have a lot of work and little time for women. Take care of each other and don't get into trouble,” Mariano told them, hugging them.
On February 4, 1881, Mariano sat in a wagon, waiting for the locomotive to set off for San Cristóbal. Mariano, like his father, José Defaus Ballesté, was punctual; he used to go to the station an hour before the train left. As he looked out the window at the comings and goings of people on the platforms, he thought of his first train trip to Barcelona, in 1872. "How many turns has my life taken since then," he said to himself.
Mariano was excited and impatient to move to Angel Hernandez's farm. However, he felt a slight pain in his stomach, the same one he noticed the day he left his hometown of Malgrat. He blamed this slight discomfort on the fact that he was moving away from Havana, from the port where he had so often imagined he would set sail to return to his homeland. He continued to Pinar del Rio in a horse-drawn stagecoach, as the construction of this railway section had not yet been completed, and would not be inaugurated until 1894.
Mariano arrived in Pinar del Rio at dusk, where a horse-drawn carriage was waiting for him, guided by a coachman who took him to Angel Hernández's farm, called Esperanza, located between Las Ovas and Puerta de Golpe, a few kilometers from Pinar del Rio. “Esperanza (Hope) will be my home. I like that name," he said to himself, seeing it written on the entrance railing.
Angel and his wife were waiting for him. They welcomed him as if he were one of the family and gave him the key to the little house where he was going to live.
The first thing Mariano did in the new abode was to write a letter to Isabel.
Finca Esperanza-Las Ovas, February 4, 1881
Dear Isabel,
I'm sending you my new address so you can write to me. I don't live in Havana anymore. I was offered a good job on a farm called Esperanza, which is a few kilometers from Pinar del Rio . . .
Things are going well for me. However, I am sorry to have left you and I feel the emptiness of your absence. I regret my indecisiveness. Maria, tired of waiting for me, married the widower Valls and now, you see, I'm left alone. The owners of Hacienda Esperanza are very good to me. I've been lucky.
How are you? And your aunt? It's been a long time since I've received a letter from you. Maybe you can't find someone to write it for you? I hope you find a man who loves and respects you, you deserve it.
A hug from your sincere friend,
Mariano Defaus Moragas
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento