Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading: A compendium of valuable information and wise suggestions that will inspire noble effort at the hands of every race-loving man, woman, and child.
History
Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading: A compendium of valuable information and wise suggestions that will inspire noble effort at the hands of every race-loving man, woman, and child.
African Americans
In the death of Gen. Maceo Cuba loses a man who was without fear, a
man of rare intellect, an honest man, and a genuine patriot, whose
death will doubtless be avenged by his faithful followers. By Maceo's
death Cuba loses one of the most valiant defenders she ever had. After
his participation in the ten years' war and his exile to Jamaica, at
its unsuccessful termination, his subsequent career has been told in
the following interesting sketch:
"Early in 1879 a brown-skinned, weather-beaten man arrived in New York
on one of the Jamaica steamers. For a month or more he lived alone,
without other companionship than that of books. It was Maceo, and the
fire of liberty, still smoldering in his breast, was only seeking a
favorable opportunity to burst into flame. In a few months he made his
way to West Point, where he obtained employment as a hostler. Nobody
in the academy dreamed for a moment that the broad-shouldered,
dark-browed man who handled the horses so easily had ever smelled the
smoke of battle or heard the song of rifle bullets. Day after day on
the parade grounds the taciturn man watched the evolutions of the
cadets, listened to the commands of the officers, studied the
discipline of the place, pored over volumes of military tactics that
he had managed to borrow, and added to his natural genius the
knowledge of other great generals. Then the dark-skinned hostler, who
was regarded as book mad, gave up his position and returned to New
York. From New York he went to Costa Rica, taking a hundred or more
weighty volumes with him. Some wealthy Cubans had settled in Costa
Rica during the war, and they now offered Maceo a tract of land on
which to colonize his brave followers. Here for ten years the exiled
Cuban worked and studied and dreamed and instructed his
fellow-veterans in the modern theories of war. At times he would
lecture them; at other times he would give them practical lessons in
drilling and in cavalry evolutions. With each day, each week, month,
and year his dream of the freedom of Cuba was brighter than before.
Never for a moment did he seem to forget the points of his purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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