MIAMI, United States. — On May 28, 1848, the Cuban writer, soldier and patriot Enrique Collazo y Tejada was born in Santiago de Cuba, a relevant figure in the independence struggles and a compiler of essential historical events and archives.
Collazo fought in the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878) and in the Necessary War (1895-1898). He was also an exceptional witness to important events and one of the main chroniclers of the independence struggles.
In New York he collaborated in the newspaper Homeland. He accompanied José Martí and Máximo Gómez to Santo Domingo. When the Necessary War broke out, he disembarked as an expeditionary and reached the rank of brigadier general.
Enrique Collazo, however, was opposed to US intervention and wrote several books expressing his strong opposition to such intervention. He was also a fierce critic of Tomás Estrada Palma, whom he accused of “handing over the country to the Americans.”
He was a member of the Havana patriotic junta, founded on October 10, 1907 to oppose the annexationist current that during the second US military intervention advocated that Cuba become a protectorate of the United States.
From 1909 to 1911 he was a representative to the Chamber for the province of Havana. He was intendant general of the republic until May 1913, being replaced by orders of President Mario García Menocal.
Founding member of the Academy of History of Cuba (1910), from which he narrated the Cuban wars of independence, he was the author of From Yara to Zanjón, independent cuba, heroic Cuba, Americans in Cuba, intervened Cuba and The war in CubaPosthumously published.
Enrique Collazo died in Havana on March 13, 1921. He was 72 years old when he died.
