1852: Eduardo Facciolo Alba, Cuban patriot

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Cuban patriot Eduardo Facciolo Alba was garroted on this date in 1852.

The 23-year-old was the typographer of the magazine La Voz del Pueblo Cubano — subtitle: Organo de la Independencia — a profession for which he had apprenticed with his parents since dropping out of elementary school. As for his political course, the stirring popular sentiment for Cuban independence perhaps catalyzed with the execution of poet Gabriel de la Concepcion Valdes, when Facciolo was all of 15 years old. Within a few years he had found his way into the confidence of radical circles sufficient to recommend him for producing an underground newspaper.

The man was interrupted in the performance of his duties by police officers in the performance of theirs, while running copies of the fourth edition off the printing press.

The publisher Juan Bellido de Luna Guzmán managed to evade authorities and escape to exile in the United States. He’d later write a manifesto of their shared perspective on Cuba’s future upgrading its imperial overlordkl, La anexation de Cuba a los Estados Unidos — which goes some way to explaining the minimal public remembrance this martyr enjoys in present-day Communist Cuba.

Facciolo for his part pridefully accepted “guilt” for the subversion charges he faced and scorned to supplicate the Spanish governor for mercy — “inspired by the noble feelings of dying for my country and my brothers” in the words of a short verse (“A Mi Madre”) allegedly from his hand that circulated posthumously.

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