On October 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes (1819-1874), a Cuban landowner, emancipated his slaves and rose against the Spanish regime, thus starting the Cuban war of independence, which lasted ten years and caused havoc among the island's population. This edition gathers the testimonies of two North American women who lived on the island during the first years of the war: Eliza Waring de Luaces and Josephine T. del Risco.
Both women were friends, and both were married to independentist Cubans from the province of Camagüey: the Colonel of the Liberating Army Joaquín Lorenzo Luaces and the physician Don Justo del Risco. Upon arriving in the United States, Eliza Waring de Luaces published her testimony in the New York Tribune, but not Josephine T. del Risco, who finished writing her memoirs in 1889.
In this book both testimonies appear for the first time in their original version, as well as translated into Spanish. Our purpose is to make both texts known, and to highlight the importance of these two women in the conflict.