The History of Cuba, vol. 5

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

Even with the removal of the capital far into the interior, the peacefully inclined citizens were not free from molestation and unwelcome visits. During the middle of the seventeenth century, the famous English corsair, Henry Morgan, afterwards Governor of Jamaica, paid his respects to several Cuban cities, including Puerto Principe. In 1668 he crossed the Caribbean with twelve boats and seven hundred English followers, intending to attack Havana. He afterward changed his mind, however, and landing in the Bay of Santa Maria began his march on the capital of Camaguey.

The inhabitants made a desperate resistance, the Mayor and many of his followers being killed, but the town was finally compelled to surrender and submit to being sacked, during which process many women and children were burned to death in a church behind whose barred doors they had taken refuge. Morgan finally retired from Puerto Principe with his booty of $50,000 and five hundred head of cattle.

During the Ten Years’ War the province of Camaguey became the center of active military operations. The inhabitants of this section had descended from the best families of Spain, who had emigrated from the Mother Country centuries before. They were men of refinement and education, men whose prosperity and contact with the outside world had made life impossible under the oppressive laws of the Spanish monarchy.

Ignacio Agramonte, a scion of one of the best known families of Camaguey, was a born leader of men, and soon found himself in command of the Cuban forces. The struggle was an ill advised one, because the odds in numbers were too great, and the resources of the Cubans were so limited that success was impossible. The effort of General Agramonte and his followers, all men of note and social standing, was a brave one, and the sacrifice of the women, the mothers, sisters and daughters, of that period, were not surpassed by any country in its fight for liberty.

But the unfortunate death of General Agramonte, and the long uphill struggle, brought about the inevitable. The treaty of Zanjon in 1878 was ultimately forced upon the revolutionists, many of whom afterwards emigrated with their families to the United States, where some have remained as permanent citizens of that Republic; among others, Doctor Enrique Agramonte, a brother of Ignacio, who after fighting through the ten tiresome years, left his country, never to return.

In the more recent struggles for Cuban liberty, known as the War of Independence, Camaguey again took a prominent part and General Maximo Gomez, who had succeeded Agramonte at his death, and General Antonio Maceo, had the satisfaction of carrying the campaign of the Occident, from Oriente, across Camaguey, where they defeated the Spanish forces in several battles, and in the winter of 1896 led their victorious troops in three parallel invading columns, to the extreme western end of the Island. Thus the revolution was carried for the first time in history beyond the Jucaro and Moron Trocha, or fortified ditch, near the western border of Camaguey.

Narrow crooked streets still prevail in some parts of Camaguey and the erection of modern buildings, that has become so common in Havana, has not reached this quiet old municipality of the plains which still lives and breathes an atmosphere smacking of centuries past.

Topographically, although the surface of Camaguey, in altitude and contour, varies much, it is, as a whole, far more level than any other province in the Island. Great fertile savannas and grass covered plains predominate in almost every part. The potreros, or grazing lands, of Camaguey, have made it famous as the breeding place par excellence for horses and cattle, and its equal is not found anywhere in the West Indies.

In spite of the comparatively level nature of the country, with the exception of the low, heavily covered forest belt that sweeps along the entire southern coast, extending back from ten to twenty-five miles, the rest of the province partakes more of the character of an elevated plateau, interspersed with low ranges of mountains and foothills, which give pleasing diversity to the general aspect of the country.

The longest range in Camaguey is a continuation of the great central chain, that follows the trend of the Island. It begins with a prominent peak known as the Loma Cunagua, which rises abruptly from the low level savannas ten miles east of the town of Moron in the northwestern corner of the Province. A little further southeast, the range again appears and finally develops into the Sierra de Cubitas, which follows the direction of the north coast, terminating finally in the picturesque peak of Tubaque, on the Maximo River.