Carlos Manuel de Céspedes

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes was born into a wealthy landowning family in Bayamo on April 18, 1819. Educated in law in Havana and Barcelona, Céspedes returned to eastern Cuba convinced that freedom required the immediate overthrow of Spanish colonial despotism and the abolition of slavery.

On October 10, 1868, at his sugar mill La Demajagua, he rang the bell, proclaimed the Grito de Yara, and declared his slaves free men, inviting them to fight for Cuba's independence. Serving as the first President of the Republic in Arms, he died bravely in an ambush at San Lorenzo in 1874.