Showing 7545 results

This is a collection of “bandos” (edicts), “Reales Ordenes” and official forms (1896-1898) published during the governments of Valeriano Weyler and Ramón Blanco, Captain Generals of the island of Cuba. Weyler was a central figure in Cuba's War of Independence against Spain.

It was Don Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, who in the Spanish Congress of March 8, 1895, inspired the attitude of Spain against the Cuban rebellion: it was necessary to find the harshest and most despised general to lead a war to the death between the metropolis and the colony. General Valeriano Weyler was the man chosen to complete this task.

Weyler, following his acts perpetrated during Cuba's Ten Years War, was already manifesting a policy of proceeding with great energy and without contemplations. After the battles of Coliseo and Peralejo and the advance of Cuban troops into Pinar del Río, Weyler did not vary the general Spanish attitude. Spain showed its vehement desire to retain the beautiful island of Cuba.

It was the general support of the Spanish people that kept the assassin and torturer of 1868 as interpreter of the sentiments of those who wanted to maintain the Cuban people subjected to the oppressive authority of the Spanish government. Weyler carried out a war of extermination against the Cuban people and came to symbolize that terrible time in which ignorance, rage, and blind stubbornness governed the attitude of Spain.

As a result of the barbaric repression of Weyler, thousands of civilians were killed, hundreds of revolutionary patriots were assassinated, and thousands of political prisoners filled the prisons of La Cabaña, El Moro, and La Cárcel. Despite the overwhelming support of the Spanish government, the time came when exasperated with defeats, Spanish leaders branded Weyler as careless and inefficient. In 1897, Weyler was replaced by Captain General Ramón Blanco.

During his government, Weyler dictated many “bandos” (edicts) to be carried out by the Cuban people. One of the most censored was the one related to the “concentración.” The punishment for not following the “bandos” was execution by firing squad.

Dr. Moravia Capó was born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. A school teacher, she left Cuba in 1967 for Nicaragua, teaching physics and mathematics. Capó arrived in Miami in 1974, where she taught at St. Thomas University and Baldor School.

Dr. Capó retired after more than 50 years of teaching. She was involved in various civic organizations, including the Municipios de Cuba en el Exilio and the Cuban Women's Club, focusing her work on the issue of human rights in Cuba until her death in September 2007.

Enrique Caravia Montenegro (1905-1992) was a Cuban artist active in the mid-1900s. Born in Havana, Caravia studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes "San Alejandro" in Havana and the Academia Española de Bellas Artes in Rome in the 1920s.

He worked in various mediums, including oil painting, drawing and watercolor, and had various solo and group exhibitions from the 1920s to the 1990s. His work was featured in "Primer Salón de Humoristas" at the Academia de Ciencias de Cuba (1921); an exhibition at the Lyceum of Havana (1933); the Bienal Hispanoamericana de Madrid (1951); "Grabados de Enrique Caravia Montenegro" at the Museo Histórico Plaza in Havana (1987); and "Estampas cubanas de tres siglos" at the Museo Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá (posthumous, 1996).

Caravia won the first prize at the Exposición Interamericana in Seville (1929); the silver at the XVIII Salón de Bellas Artes hosted by Havana's Círculo de Bellas Artes (1936); and the gold at both the XXVI and XXXVII Salones de Bellas Artes (1944 and 1955, respectively).

Caravia died in Havana in 1992 at the age of 87.

Joe Cardona was born of Cuban parents in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on November 1, 1967. He has directed 11 feature length documentaries, mostly dealing with issues of cultural identity and Cuban history: Adios Patria, Café con Leche, The Flight of Pedro Pan, José Martí: Legacy of Freedom, Havana: Portrait of Yesteryear, Honey Girl, White Elephant, and Celia the Queen. Cardona has also directed, produced and written two feature films, Water, Mud and Factoriesand Bro.

Joe holds a degree in Mass Communications from Florida International University.

University of Miami Professor Emeritus Michael L. Carlebach’s (1945-2023) photojournalism career began in New York and Washington, D.C. Upon coming to Florida, he worked briefly as a staff photographer for the Miami Herald. In 1973, he began teaching at the University of Miami, which launched a thirty-year career in higher education. While working at University of Miami, Dr. Carlebach had taught photojournalism at the School of Communication, reestablished the program in American Studies, and chaired the Department of Art & Art History.

Throughout his life, he remained a sought-after photojournalist with a discerning eye for the subtleties of the human condition and the comic aspects of everyday life. His photographs have been published in Time, People, The Miami Herald, The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, and The New York Times. Most of his published books include thorough scholarly histories of photography, such as The Origins of Photojournalism in America and American Photojournalism Comes of Age, both published by Smithsonian Institution Press, while Sunny Land showcases his startling, humorous black and white images of the lesser documented “margins” of South Florida society. He remained active as a photographer, scholar, and writer for most of his life and was especially interested in illuminating the lives of people outside the glare of contemporary media and finding and memorializing extraordinary moments that would otherwise be lost.