Mariana Grajales Coello, Mother of the Homeland.

Havana, July 12 (RHC) -- Cuba commemorates on Wednesday the 208th anniversary of the birth of Mariana Grajales Coello, an exemplary woman considered Mother of the Homeland not only for begetting heroes, but also for her contribution to the independence of the Caribbean nation.

A symbol of limitless dedication to the redemptive cause against the Spanish metropolis, Mariana Grajales transcends to our times for her nobility and conviction to educate her children to serve the homeland even at the price of their lives.

Tender and kind, but inflexible in discipline, this is how this Cuban woman, born in Santiago de Cuba in 1815, who did not hesitate to send her 14 children to the call to take up arms made by the patriot Carlos Manuel de Céspedes in La Demajagua, in 1868, is described.

Daughter of Dominicans, she had four children from her first marriage and another nine from her later union with Marcos Maceo. By the end of the independence struggle, only four had survived.

After the beginning of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) Mariana left at the age of 53 to contribute to the hospitals of the manigua; from there, after the signing of the Zanjón Pact, she was forced to go into exile in Jamaica, where she died on November 27, 1893.

When commemorating today the anniversary of her birth, Cubans evoke Mariana Grajales Coello, as a symbol of the Cuban woman. Of her wrote in the newspaper Patria on January 6, 1894, the National Hero of Cuba, José Martí:

"What there was in that woman, what epic and mystery there was in that humble woman, what sanctity and unction there was in her mother's womb, what decorum and greatness there was in her simple life, that when one writes of her it is like from the root of the soul, with the softness of a son, and as of endearing affection." (Source:PL)