fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory:

Mariana Grajales Coello (d. 1893) was an Afro-Cuban revolutionary and the mother of renowned Cuban patriot Antonio Maceo Grajales. Born in Santiago de Cuba of Dominican parents, Mariana and her sons played pivotal roles in Cuba’s various independence wars of the late nineteenth century. She encouraged her sons’ patriotism and worked providing medical care alongside her daughters for those wounded in battle. She died in exile in Jamaica, where she had moved after the end of the Ten Years’ War in 1878. Most of her sons, including Antonio, died in combat. She was highly praised in print by José Marti. Today one of Cuba’s airports is named after her and she is the subject of two different monuments on the island.

(via fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory)

fuckyeahlatinamericanhistory:

The national flag of Cuba hangs alongside the Cuban coat of arms and the revolutionary flag of Yara (also known as the flag of La Demajagua) inside the Cuban National Assembly. Created in the mid-nineteenth century by the Venezuelan Narciso López, who led a few unsuccessful attempts to liberate the island from Spanish rule, the current flag of Cuba was adopted as the nation’s national emblem upon independence in the first decade of the twentieth century. The flag of Yara was created by Cuban revolutionary Carlos Manuel de Céspedes during the Ten Years War (1868-1878), and is named after the Grito de Yara (Cry of Yara), Céspedes’ proclamation of Cuban independence in the town of Yara in 1868.