Narciso López

Narciso López de Urriola (* 1797 in Caracas, Venezuela, † September 1, 1851 in Havana, Cuba) was of great importance for the development of the Cuban independence movement against the Spanish colonial power in the 19th century.

As Annexationist and filibustero he had to incorporate the plan Cuba as other state in the United States of America.

Life

Narciso López came from a rich family and joined the Venezuelan independence movement against Spain. He later switched sides and joined the Spanish military service. With the 1821 withdrawing Spanish troops from Venezuela López went first to Cuba, then to Spain, where he participated in the First Carlist War.

In 1836 he was promoted to brigadier general, 1839 was appointed major general and should be governor of Valencia. As 1841 Jerónimo Valdés was appointed governor-general of Cuba, he took López there, the key under his leadership positions in the colonial administration took over ( governor of Matanzas and Trinidad, as well as Chairman of the Military Commission ).

The subsequent governor-general of Cuba, Leopoldo O'Donnell, López relieved of his office, whereupon he retired to civilian life.

He married the daughter of an influential landowner and slaveholder Pozos Dulces y Yznaga.

Obviously López took the political objectives of the landowner to own that existed in the demand for free trade and continued existence of slavery. Under Spanish rule, a free trade Cuba was not possible because the interest of the Spanish crown in particular was the customs revenue from the Cuban trade. Another state in the U.S., the Cuban landowners would have had both a large market for their products, particularly sugar, on the other hand, found also in the southern United States guaranteed the continued existence of slavery in Cuba. From these interests, the annexation of the large landowners of the Cuban West, so the desire of joining the U.S. developed.

In 1848, Lopez joined a revolutionary group and had to flee in 1849 to New York. There was under his involvement a Cuban Interests Section, which operated the separation of Cuba from Spain with political, economic and military means and its importance until 1898 lost with the withdrawal of Spain from Cuba.

To finance his military plans López won the U.S. " Railway King, " Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The first plans to ferry from the U.S. with an invading army to Cuba failed because the northern states, in contrast to the southern United States had no interest in adding another slave -holding state in the confederation.

On May 19, 1850 finally landed Narciso López at the top of a choir expedition with 600 men, whom he had each U.S. $ 1,000 and 64 acres of land promised in Cárdenas ( Matanzas Province ) in Cuba. Already after one day this effort failed and Narciso López prepared now of New Orleans from another attack.

Bahia Honda expedition

On August 3, 1851 López left with 453 mercenaries, including numerous Germans and Hungarians, with the steamer Pampero New Orleans and ended on August 12, at Bahia Honda in the province of Pinar del Río. López had chosen the landfall because of deliberately disseminated false information of the Cuban Captain-General.

The expedition was a disaster, as López ' rearguard under William S. Crittenden was wiped out by the Spanish General Manuel Enna. Then grabbed Enna López on August 14 at Los Pozos to, whereupon the filibuster retreated into the surrounding mountains. On August 31, López was arrested and sentenced in Havana as a traitor to death by the garrote. He died on 1 September 1851. Participants of the expedition was, inter alia, Major Louis Schlesinger, who with William Walker later participated Filibusterexpeditionen to Nicaragua.

Importance for the history of Cuba

The current flag of Cuba is the same, the Narciso López 1850 mitführte in his expedition to Cárdenas. This shows the importance of his undertakings had later for the Cuban independence movement against Spain. During the October 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes began the fight against the Spanish colonial rule for a sovereign Cuban state with a completely different flag, the flag of the annexation Narciso López prevailed in the following discussions in the Parliament of Guaimaro against Céspedes. The reason for this was evident in the fears of the slave-holding landowners of the Cuban West front of a slave revolt. While the Creole elite of eastern Cuba ( Oriente ) in slavery saw no economic benefit, the Zuckerbourgoisie of the West ( Occidente ) would be a new protective power, which could save instead of the former colonial power, their interests militarily. This new protective power they saw in the U.S..

With the growing Cuban national identity, the role of Narciso López in Cuban historiography has been seen increasingly critical in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.