José Francisco Lemus
José Francisco Lemus | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | José Francisco Lemus y Escámez[1] |
| Born | Havana, Captaincy General of Cuba, Spanish Empire |
| Allegiance |  Cuba Gran Colombia |
| Rank | Colonel |
José Francisco Lemus was a Cuban revolutionary and businessman who led one of the earliest secret societies advocating for Cuban independence and sought to align with Bolivar's revolutionary efforts in Latin America.
Biography
[edit]Early life
[edit]José Francisco Lemus y Escámez was born in Havana, Spanish Cuba, in the late 18th century. He was of Creole descent and the son of a Spanish naval officer.[2]
Suns and Rays of Bolívar
[edit]Lemus left Havana in the mid-1810s for the United States. In Philadelphia, he established contact with Simon Bolívar's envoys and was given the rank of colonel in Bolívar's Colombian Army of Independence.[3] He returned to Cuba in the early 1820s.[4] In 1821, Lemus founded the secret society, Suns and Rays of Bolívar (Spanish: Soles y Rayos de Bolívar), alongside José Fernández Madrid, José María Heredia y Heredia, and Sévère Courtois.[5] They planned an uprising that would proclaim Cuba as the independent Republic of "Cubanacán" and sought to abolish slavery.[6] The conspirators planned to invade Cuba by coordinating the combined action of Columbian troops loyal to Simón Bolívar with the movement in Cuba. Lemus spread the conspiracy through Cuban masonic lodges, including the Rational Knights of Matanzas and the Triangular Chain of Camagüey (Spanish: Cadena Triangular de Camagüey).[7] By the summer of 1823, government spies working for Francisco Dionisio Vives had suppressed the separatist plot just before the uprising, leading the Captain General to issue arrest orders for the conspirators.[8] On August 19, 1823, Lemus was detained in Guanabacoa, Havana, as some co-conspirators fled abroad, and he was later exiled and sent to Spain.
Upon escaping Spain, Lemus took refuge in Mexico and aligned with the Cuban Liberty Promotion Board (Spanish: Junta Promotora de la Libertad Cubana), founded on July 4, 1825, in Mexico City.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ Revista Cubana. (n.d.). (n.p.): (n.p.).
- ^ The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples. (2013). United Kingdom: University of Chicago Press.
- ^ Cuba, a Country Study. (1987). United States: Headquarters, Department of the Army.
- ^ Simons, G. (1996). Cuba: From Conquistador to Castro. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
- ^ Gibson, C. (2014). Empire's Crossroads: A History of the Caribbean from Columbus to the Present Day. United Kingdom: Grove Atlantic.
- ^ Pérez, L. A. (n.d.). Cuba: between reform and revolution (5th ed). Oxford University Press.
- ^ "Vindication of Suns and Rays of Bolívar - Crimson Publishers" (PDF). crimsonpublishers.com. Retrieved 2024-07-25.
- ^ Free Cuba: Her Oppression and Struggles for Liberty. History and Description of the Island .... (1898). United States: Publisher's Union.
- ^ Varela, F., Piqueras Arenas, J. A. (2007). Félix Varela y la prosperidad de la patria criolla. Spain: Fundación MAPFRE.