Coooome, Paaaancho!

There is more to what abuelo endured but I've been wanting to put these stories that I heard - mainly as a child - in context, to have more details (I am learning a bit of Cuban history as I go along). So when the Spanish had abuelo Vicente in their hands, what were the events swirling around them?

The war between the Mambis and the Spanish was officially declared in Feb 22. By Jan 22, 1896 the Mambis (rebels) had succeeded in sweeping down the island from the east to west. The Spanish removed General Campos and replaced him with General Weyler - typical move of the side losing the war.

Mambi Soldiers Calvary of Gen. Gomez' Army, Remedios, Cuba

Weyler "reacted to these successes [of the Mambis] by introducing terror methods: periodic executions, mass exile, destruction of farms and crops. Weyler's methods reached their height on October 21, 1896, when he ordered people moved into the re-concentration camps: fortified cities and towns.

Spanish soldiers in Cuba War of 95

So what happened to abuelo is that, in the midst of the starvation, the soldiers would sit him at a table and put a lot of food in front of him. Then, while others watched the show, a soldier would smack the butt of his rifle on the ground menacingly while saying: Come, Pancho! [Eat, Pancho! - Pancho was used as a generic name] and he would have to cram the food down. If he started faltering or slowing down, the soldier would menace him again with the rifle and bellow Come, Pancho!. He would push it down until finally he would throw it all up. It was a refined, well-considered torture: a starving child, lots of food; because he vomits it all up, he ate food but also he didn't and he is still starved. Forcing him to eat fast with no chewing was essential so that there was little chance of digesting any of it.

Abuelo would tell this story himself. But before now, I never put into context the other story, the one rarely mentioned about how the soldiers would throw the babies and small children up in the air and impale them with the bayonets as they came down. The one time I heard him tell it, his usual booming voice went down almost to a whisper and there was a look of horror in his face. Now I understand what abuelo must have been thinking and feeling every time the soldier smacked down the butt of his rifle on the ground and bellowed Coooome, Paaaancho! .

He experienced other awful things but I never heard what they were because they were so awful and ugly, he refused to talk about it, they were unmentionable. It boggles the mind what tops this.

Abuelo

Vicente was mi abuelo, my grandfather born in ~1892. He was a handsome, very tall man (over 6 ft tall) with grey-green eyes and the typical beaked nose of the family. He was very strong probably because he had been a farmer.

This is abuelo in his 80's being careful where he steps as he comes into our apartment in Ft. Lauderdale with abuela behind him circa 1974. There he is sited with mamita and me behind him.

When we lived in Habana and he was in his early 70's, he would carry the large containers of water (5 gallons) slung over his shoulder up 3 flights of stairs as if it was a feather pillow and make several trips this way without breaking a sweat. He could wrestle with 3-5 of the medical students who lived with him and Isabel and fling them around like puppets.

I admired abuelo for his strength and because he was a quiet, hardworking, gentle man. All he wanted out of life was his tacita de cafe. (The cups are very tiny but he liked to drink them often. Here's Newt having a cup as an example).

One thing about abuelo is that, when he sat to eat, he liked to see a very full table. When I visited them en Calle I sometimes I got to help abuela serve him lunch. The large table would be half covered with dishes just for him. A typical almuerzo would be a dish brimming with rice, a large bowl of black beans, a dish full of fried plantains, another full of yucca, several fried eggs, maybe meat or fish, platter of sliced tomatoes and cukes (or whatever there was) and a whole flan. I could not believe how much he ate! Being a child, I asked how he could eat so much. I was told that, when he had been in prison as a 5 year old he had starved and that, afterwards, he had always needed to see a lot of food.

When I researched it yesterday, I found out that the "prison" he had been in was the infamous Weyler "re-concentration" camps and these are photos of the results of Weyler's genocide. Abuelo survived the Cuban Holocaust but not his mother, Indalecia. About a quarter million Cubans died of starvation and plagues behind barbed wire in an 18 month period in 1896-97. Pobre abuelo que perdió a su madre! Gracias a Dios que sobrevivió!

Caibarien

As to Caibarien, I found out today that the town was founded in 1832 next to the port that supplied Remedios. I guess there was not any longer pirate activity to worry about. This small town is currently about a 20 min. drive from Remedios.

My mother Olga talked about Caibarien and how she would walk along the sea shore as a child scooping up crabs into her bucket. You had to go at the right time of day to find the crabs as they were headed in/out of the water (can't remember which). Her face would light up remembering how much fun it was and how she got to eat them. I think that eating the crabs was the one time she could be really well fed and full. At the time, she lived with Braulio (the brother of her mother, Isabel) and Jacinta and they treated (mistreated seems a better term) her as a servant.

I met Braulio and he looked like a shorter version of tio Orestes or abuelo Vicente. Braulio was married to Jacinta and they had 2 kids: Octavio and Maricusa (Maricusa lived for a long time in Venezuela but maybe moved to Miami when Chavez took over). According to my mother Olga and my grandmother Isabel, Jacinta was a nasty demanding woman who was always complaining about her health. Isabel did not like Jacinta but she adored her brother Braulio. Olga, on the other hand, had very bitter memories of him as she did of Jacinta - of his exploitation of her while staying in his house as both a servant and nanny of Octavio. Olga also resented how Braulio had treated his own mother as a servant, her grandmother Angela whom Olga worshiped.

Vivijaguas and pirates

My mother talked in very colorful ways: different words and phrases from the other Habaneros. She used to make people laugh with her way of talking and people liked her a lot. Frequently, she would call a "vivijagua" a person, particularly a child, that was very active. Today I learned that a vivijagua is an ant in the Taino language.

She came from the Remedios-Caibarien area of Cuba. I learnt today also that there used to be a lot of pirate activity around Remedios which is why they ended up moving inland away from the sea side (link here) around 1578.

"La Villa de San Juan de los Remedios fue fundada en 1578. En 1545 el pueblo remediano contaba ya con ayuntamiento y así continuó creciendo a través del tiempo hasta que en 1843 se le confirió al creciente poblado el título de Ciudad. Es sabido que en los principios de la época colonial Remedios sufrió ataques de corsarios y piratas de todas las naciones enemigas de España, como era usual en la región caribeña. Ello conllevó a que el poblado se alejara de las costas."

That little tid bit is really interesting. You see, one of the ancestors of my grandmother (born ~1902) was a Dutch pirate. I think it was her grandfather or great-grandfather but she would get angry when one asked about the pirate ancestor and would not talk about it. But others in the family knew about the Dutch. The story was that he was very poor and had hoped to make his fortune in the Americas. So he had enlisted in a corsair/pirate ship. The Caribbean was a hot spot of pirate activity so this is not surprising.