Venezuela gave the struggling Spanish American colonies Bolivar, who was
their liberator and their savior. In the same country was born, at the
end of the eighteenth century, in 1798 or 1799, a child who fifty years
later was to lay down his life on the altar of freedom for Cuba. This
boy, like Bolivar, was of a wealthy and respected family. His father was
the proprietor of a large estate which was stocked with cattle and
horses and live stock of every kind. His mother had gentle and even
aristocratic blood in her veins and she endeavored to bring up her
children with high ideals of truth and honor. Narciso Lopez, who was to
fight so valiantly for enslaved Cuba, is reported to have been a boy who
was born to command. He roamed the plains with the men from his father's
ranch and they recognised him as a leader. He was a fine shot, a
fearless rider, brave, energetic, resolute and tireless.
[Illustration: NARCISO LOPEZ]
When he was a boy of fourteen or fifteen his family moved to Caracas.
His father had been stripped of his property by the wars by which
Venezuela was torn at that time, and consequently entered into
commercial life, and soon established a business with many nourishing
branches. Narciso must have been a lad of exceptional perspicuity and
judgment, for his father placed him in charge of a branch establishment
at Valencia. But a quiet commercial life, as quiet as the times would
permit, did not please a boy who had the instincts and tastes of a
soldier. Besides it probably would have been difficult for anyone with
any spirit to keep out of the turmoil which was threatening to engulf
Valencia at that time. For the place was armed and garrisoned against
the Spaniards, who under General Boves were advancing to attempt to take
it. The natural leader of the Venezuelans was Bolivar, and although he
had been routed, and had retired to reorganize his forces, he succeeded
in getting word through to Valencia to hold the town at any cost. The
Valencians were only too eager to obey these instructions, because they
well knew the devastation that inevitably followed in the wake of the
Spanish army. They could not view with equanimity the picture of their
town destroyed, their women ravished, little children killed, and men
massacred or led away into captivity, and so they laid plans for a brave
resistance. All of the valuable property was collected from the houses
into the public square. The town had no walls, so that the best that
could be done was to barricade the approaches to this square and strive
to defend it.
The house where Lopez lived was situated in one corner of the square,
and he soon found himself not only in the centre of the preparations,
but, because of his resourcefulness and initiative, a recognized leader
in the defensive operations. The elder Lopez was in town at the time,
but while he did his part in preparing for the siege, it was the son who
took command and who issued the orders to the father. For three weeks
the little band of patriots held off the Spanish forces, sending runners
through, whenever this could be done, with messages asking Bolivar to
hasten to their aid, and each day praying that help might reach them.
But Bolivar was unable to do anything for them. Indeed his army was in
such straits that it was a relief to him to have the Spanish leader turn
his attention to the attack on Valencia and give an opportunity to rally
his own forces. At the end of the third week the victorious Spaniards
entered the town in triumph. The men were separated from the women, and
were marked for a general slaughter that night while the decree went
forth that the women were to be allowed to remain alive a little longer
so that they might serve the pleasure of their conquerors. Narciso was
not taken prisoner, because he was clever enough to hide himself with
some negroes, who it was expected would be taken away into captivity by
the Spaniards. Narciso was separated from his father, and was much
concerned for the latter's safety, for the son readily pictured the
horrible fate that might befall him; and finally his fears grew so
unbearable that he felt that anything rather than uncertainty would be
welcome. He therefore stole forth to reconnoiter and to see what he
could discover. With him he took two old colored men who had been family
servants. All night he searched, crawling from house to house, under
cover of the darkness, taking advantage of every bit of cover, lying
close to some friendly shelter to listen to the conversation of passing
soldiers in the hope that he might gather some news. He was later to
learn that his father had effected his escape, and that his own
fruitless search through the dark watches of that interminable night was
after all his own salvation. The next morning, when, worn out with
exhaustion and half dead with fatigue, he and his companions dragged
themselves back to the place where the slaves had been huddled, a
ghastly sight met their eyes. The Spaniards for once had been false to
their traditions. Perhaps they knew that these slaves had imbibed from
their masters too much of the spirit of liberty to make good Spanish
servants. At any rate there they lay upon the ground, eighty-seven of
them, each with his throat slit from ear to ear.
Now we come to a period of Lopez's career which it is difficult to
harmonize with the whole story of his after life. The only plausible
explanation seems to be that he was only a boy, and that Bolivar's army
was suffering such reverses that the only way in which Lopez could save
his own life was by joining forces with the Spaniards, which he did. One
would have thought that after the valiant part he played in the defense
of Valencia, he would cast his lot with the insurgents. No writer of the
period gives us any real explanation of his course. But whatever the
motive, Lopez became a Spanish soldier, a fact which later was to be of
tremendous value to him, because it enabled him to visit Spain, to rise
high in the service, to hold exalted positions in the Spanish court, and
to obtain an insight into the cruelties and injustices perpetrated by
the men who were the oppressors of the country which he was to adopt as
his own, and the salvation of which he was to make his life work, which
he could have gained in no other way. His action may have been
precipitated by the fact that the people of Valencia did not understand
the straits in which Bolivar found himself, but felt that he had
deliberately deserted them.
Through the long struggle which ended in the evacuation of Caracas by
Spain in 1823, Lopez fought with the Spaniards. So brilliant was his
service that he was at the age of twenty-three given the rank of major.
The story is told that early in the war, when he was a mere private, in
an attack against a position which was defended by field works, the
Spanish forces were divided, in an effort to take two bastions upon the
capture of which victory depended. But there was not sufficient
ammunition, and that of one of the divisions became exhausted, so that
it was necessary to obtain a fresh supply from the other division. This
information was signaled, and the leader of that portion of the
attackers which must now supply the other, called for volunteers. In
order to get the relief through it was necessary to lead three mules,
which were tied together Spanish fashion, the head of the second mule to
the tail of the first one, and the head of the third to the tail of the
second, past a position where they were exposed to the hot fire of the
opposing army. Lopez volunteered. When he reached the most dangerous
part of his course, the mule in the center was struck by the enemy's
fire and fell dead. Lopez did not hesitate, but with the bullets singing
about him--the insurgents in that party must have been singularly bad
marksmen, or perhaps their guns were not of an efficient pattern--he cut
out the dead animal and, tying the two remaining mules together, safely
reached his destination and delivered the ammunition to the commander.
He was not injured, but his gun had been broken by a chance shot, his
clothes were riddled with bullets, one of which had passed through his
hat within an inch of his head, and both of his mules were so severely
wounded that they had to be shot. His action gave the victory to the
Spanish. This exploit won for Lopez the offer of an officer's
commission, but he was modest in his estimate of his own ability, and he
felt that he was too young for the honor, and so he refused, with the
request that he might be taken from the infantry and placed in the
cavalry. So, in spite of his disposition to make light of his own
achievements, and almost against his own will, he found himself at
nineteen the commander of a squadron of horsemen. It was a force of
picked men, most of them older than Lopez, and it had the reputation of
never having shown its back to the enemy. From the command of this
company, Lopez was elevated to the rank of major.
Now Lopez had made many friends in the Spanish army. All through his
career he had the ability to make men believe in him, love him and be
ready to follow wherever he led. The high honors which had fallen to his
lot seemed not to have incited jealousy among his companions; indeed on
the other hand he was urged by his friends to apply for the cross of San
Fernando, to which they believed he was entitled. Again that curious
quality in Lopez which did not make him shrink from deeds of bravery,
but which did make him draw back from demanding their reward, asserted
itself. The cross of San Fernando was a very great honor, and it was not
bestowed as a free gift, but when a man performed some action of unusual
courage he might publicly demand it, and anyone in the army who cared to
do so was free to enter their opposition, by proving, or trying to
prove, that the deed for which the cross was demanded was not of such a
character as to merit such a reward. In the whole Spanish army in Cuba
at that time, only one individual had succeeded in obtaining the cross
of San Fernando. While Lopez hesitated, his commander in chief, General
Morillo, had the application drawn up and personally insisted that Lopez
sign it. After a rigid inquiry into the merits of this petition, which
was backed up by the endorsement of his comrades and of Morillo himself,
the cross was granted.
But it was no more than common justice that Morillo should take this
stand, for far better than anyone else had he cause to be grateful for
the bravery of this twenty-three year old boy. The larger part of the
Spanish army at this time was infantry, while the army of the insurgents
was largely cavalry. The natives knew the country, and were able to
carry on a successful guerrilla warfare, without allowing the Spaniards
to engage them in open battle. This harassed the Spaniards, wore down
their morale, and slowly but surely decimated their forces. Morillo,
well knowing this, was pursuing the insurgents, in a vain attempt to
join them in conflict. Lopez at this time was in charge of his cavalry
company, which had been almost exterminated in a conflict that morning.
Only a little band of thirty-eight men remained. Morillo was not aware
of the catastrophe which had overtaken Lopez's command, and did not know
how greatly it had been reduced in numbers. He therefore issued orders
that it gallop forward to attack the enemy in the rear, with an idea of
forcing them to face about and give battle. The engagement took place on
the plains, and the handful of men could be plainly discerned by the
enemy as they rode to obey their commanding officer. General Paez, who
was in command of the Venezuelans, sent a corps of 300 men to repel the
thirty-eight cavalrymen. Neither Lopez nor his men faltered, for they
must live up to their traditions. Lopez ordered them to dismount and
engage the advancing enemy on foot, using lances and carbines in the
attack. Morillo soon discovered what was in progress and sent
reinforcements, and Lopez's men held their position until aid reached
them.
When this war was over and freedom had been won an extraordinary thing
happened. The patriot government invited this young man, who had fought
against them, to enter their service with the same rank which he had
held in the Spanish army. This he declined, and when evacuation took
place he retired with the Spanish army to Cuba, in 1823.
Lopez married a very charming Cuban, adopted Cuba as his native land,
and gave up his position in the army. Perhaps the cruelty of the Spanish
government in Cuba may have awakened him to the nature of the
organization which he was serving. He was at heart a man who loved
freedom, who was impatient of unjust restraint, who loved his fellow men
and could not bear to see them suffer injustice. Spain was afraid that
her officers might be led away by the spirit of democracy which was
creating such havoc in her possessions in America. When absolutism was
again restored in Spain, and the constitution of 1812 was for the second
time overthrown, she required her officers in Cuba publicly to adjure
liberalism, and to take an oath to stand by the Spanish rule in the
colony. This Lopez could not bring himself to do, and so he remained in
retirement.
Affairs in Spain underwent a change, for King Ferdinand died and
immediately a contest for the control of the government was on between
his widow, Maria Cristina, as regent for her infant daughter, Isabel,
and Don Carlos, who was the brother of the deceased king, and who
declared that under the Salic law the crown belonged to him. War between
the two factions seemed imminent, and the Spanish people were war weary,
when the Queen regent conceived a brilliant plan. She felt sure that the
will of the people was with her, since she represented the liberal party
as against Don Carlos who was at the head of the absolutists and whose
accession of power would mean new oppressions. Maria Cristina therefore
issued a proclamation calling on the people, if they loved their country
and wished to save her from civil war, to join in disarming the
absolutists. This movement was well organized and a day was set for the
disarmament to take place all over the kingdom. It seems almost
incredible, but it was successful, and from one end of Spain to the
other there were over six hundred thousand stacks of arms taken from the
Carlists by the people of the liberal party.
Now while this action was being planned and executed, Lopez happened to
be in Spain. He had gone to the court at Madrid with his wife to
endeavor to have restitution made to her of large sums of money which
the government of Cuba had unjustly taken from her family. Unfortunately
there are no records which disclose whether his diplomacy was great
enough to persuade Spain to return any money which had once gotten into
her coffers. However, Lopez had grown to understand Cuban affairs by
this time well enough to know that if the liberals were successful it
might mean the reestablishment of the constitution of 1812, and the dawn
of better days for Cuba; but on the other hand, should the Carlists
triumph, Cuba was bound to be more fiercely ground beneath the heel of
tyranny and oppressions. Lopez loved his adopted country, and so he at
once took command of a body of liberals who were being hard pressed by a
company of the national guard, part of which had sided with Don Carlos.
He rallied the little band, filled them with new courage and enthusiasm,
and all day he worked with them, sometimes in company with other men and
often alone, driving before him companies of Carlists, forcing them to
go to the guardhouse of the liberals and surrender their weapons. When
news of this conduct reached royal ears, Lopez was made first
aide-de-camp to General Valdez, who was commander in chief of the
liberal forces, that same Valdez who was destined later to become
Captain-General of Cuba. A strong friendship sprang up between the two
men, a bond which was never broken, and which Lopez respected so much
that he later deferred action against the Spanish government in Cuba
until after Valdez had relinquished the office of Captain-General.
Indeed, it was through the influence of Lopez at the court of Spain that
Valdez became Captain-General.
Valdez had many reasons for being grateful to Lopez, for during the war
which followed between the forces of the queen and those of Carlos, at
one crisis--a surprise attack when the troops were about to flee--Lopez
placed himself in command and led them to victory. On another occasion
Valdez, who had his headquarters in the little village of Durango, had
dispatched the main portion of his army against the forces of the enemy,
retaining with him only a few picked men. Suddenly he found himself
almost surrounded by the Carlists, who had seized the hills by which the
village was enclosed. It was necessary that someone carry news of the
situation to the main army and obtain relief. Lopez, who was then a
colonel, signified his willingness to undertake the task, and indeed
claimed that it was his right as first aide-de-camp to command the
rescuing party which he intended to bring back with him. Valdez was
loath to let him go, for he felt that success was problematic, and that
the expedition meant almost certain death for his friend. But there was
no alternative, and so at last he consented. Lopez set forth on
horseback with one servant attending him. When they approached the
enemy, they signalled that they were deserters, with valuable
information to impart. They were allowed to approach without being fired
on, and when they came abreast of the opposing forces, they set spurs to
their horses, ran the gauntlet of a shower of bullets, and escaped
unhurt, bearing the news of Valdez's perilous position to his main army.
So great was Lopez's valor and fearlessness, and so high a reputation
had he for honor and fair dealing, that he was respected by the Carlists
as well as by his own party. At the end of this struggle he was accorded
the rank of General in the Spanish army, and was loaded with honors,
having the crosses of Isabella Catolica and St. Hermengilda bestowed
upon him, and being appointed commander in chief of the National Guard
of Spain. He stood high in the regard of the Queen Regent, but he grew
to know her as she was, a cold, selfish plotter, and when she was
finally expelled from the regency Lopez regarded it as a cause for
rejoicing, even though his own career might be expected to suffer. But
the regard in which he was held was too great for this to come to pass,
and after the insurrection which deposed Maria Cristina he was offered
and accepted the post of Governor of Madrid.
Lopez also served Spain as a senator from the city of Seville. He was
present in the Cortes when the Cuban delegates who were elected during
the conflict of wills between General Lorenzo and Captain-General Tacon,
and who escaped to Spain and attempted to claim their seats in the
Cortes, were rejected. Perhaps more than anything else in his career,
Lopez's service as senator opened his eyes to the vile condition of
Spanish politics, and the methods which were used in ruling the
colonies. He was always on the side of the oppressed, he hated
injustice, and so, then and there, the love of liberty which had always
been a part of his character took concrete form in a resolve to be the
liberator of Cuba.
When Valdez set forth to take over the command in Cuba, he had
earnestly requested that Lopez be allowed to accompany him, but on the
plea that there was important work for him to do in Spain, Lopez was not
allowed to depart. It may be that in spite of the fight which he had
made to maintain the unity of the Spanish kingdom, the astute and crafty
Spanish statesmen suspected his loyalty, for it was reported that during
Tacon's administration in Cuba, Lopez had entered into a conspiracy to
obtain freedom for the island, and had publicly toasted "free Cuba" at a
banquet. This seems more like a story which might have been born of
Tacon's mean jealousy and fear for his own power, and nurtured by his
vivid imagination when he sought to harm an enemy. It does not seem
credible that Lopez, who had not yet openly thrown in his fortunes with
the liberals in Cuba, would have been so foolish as to expose himself to
the vengeance of a Captain-General who he had good reason to know would
let nothing stand in his way when he sought to tear a rival in court
favor from a high place. Be this as it may, the story was current in
Spain, and while it seems not to have harmed Lopez's popularity with the
people or with the court, it did prevent his accompanying Valdez to Cuba
at this time. Lopez's ability to make friends, however, a little later
stood him in good stead. He had won the liking and indeed the warm
affection of Espartero, the leader at this time of the liberal party in
Spain, and the influence of Espartero finally made it possible for Lopez
to return to Havana, in 1839.
The friendship between Valdez and Lopez remained warm, and Valdez
appointed Lopez President of the Military Commission, Governor of
Trinidad, and Commander-in-chief of the Central Department of the
Island. Now rumors that a revolution was imminent began to be generally
circulated. No one could tell the source from which they sprang, but
they seemed to be in the atmosphere, and were the constant subject of
whispered conversations in the cafes and restaurants and in the houses
of the liberals.
When Valdez relinquished the Captain-Generalship, and O'Donnell began
his infamous rule, Lopez felt himself released from all obligations to
the government. Every particle of Spanish sympathy had long since been
purged from his heart, and his honors from such a source had become
irksome. He had refrained from actively plotting against Spain while
Valdez was ruling over Cuba, his friendship for Valdez making him
unwilling to embarrass him. This curb removed, Lopez gladly relinquished
his offices and retired to his own estates. He was not nearly so
successful as a business man as he was as a soldier, and the business
enterprises which he undertook proved to be failures. But he took over
the management of some copper mines and these were used as bases for the
organization of the attempt to free Cuba which was now beginning to take
form and shape in his mind. He mingled with the people quietly and
endeavored, successfully, to win their esteem and liking. The district
in which the mines were located was settled mainly by men who were
always in the saddle. Now Lopez was a fine horseman. There were no deeds
of horsemanship which they might perform which he could not duplicate or
improve upon. He thus soon won a popular following, and this curiously
enough without attracting the particular attention of the
Captain-General or his spies, and became a hero to the men among whom he
dwelt. They were all indebted to him for deeds of kindness, for no man
in difficulties ever appealed to Lopez's purse in vain. Thus he
acquired an influence which made him confident that should he speak the
word the countryside would rally with him under the banner of revolt
against Spain.
Now Lopez was not particularly interested in the emancipation of the
slaves. He thought that they were necessary for the successful
cultivation of the island, and he could not successfully visualize a
free black population. He felt that a Cuba unbound by any ties to any
other nation meant free blacks. He therefore favored annexation to the
United States. He took the American Consul at Havana, Robert Campbell,
into his confidence, and asked his advice. Campbell was in favor of
annexation by the United States and expressed his opinion that the
majority of the American people, especially those in the southern
states, were heartily in favor of the United States taking over Cuba;
but he also called Lopez's attention to the numerous treaty obligations
binding the United States and Spain together, and assured him that
whatever secret support he might hope to gain from that country, he
(Campbell) certainly would not officially come out and sanction any
movement to free Cuba from Spain. He felt that if Lopez by revolution
could perform the operation and sever the bonds which bound Cuba to
Spain, the United States might reasonably be expected not to refuse the
gift of the island were it offered to her.
Lopez at once began actively to outline his plans for a revolution, and
secret headquarters were established at Cienfuegos, while the
organization was extended to other parts of the island.