On the ANPP’s X account, the Cuban parliamentary leader described the historic event that took place in the early hours of this day in 1869 in that city of Oriente province as heroic and symbolic.

Lazo quoted National Hero José Martí, who considered that the burning of Bayamo served “more to greet with a dignified torch the birth of the free homeland than to burn the asylum of the nearby troops of (Spanish General Blas de Villate y la Hera) Valmaseda”.

According to Cuban history, the Bayamese people gathered in the City Hall and decided to set the first capital of the Republic of Cuba in Arms on fire rather than surrender it to the oppressors.

The decision was adopted after three days of intense combats against stronger enemy forces and before imminent falling of the city into the Spaniards’ hands.

The historic event is one of the most moving passages in the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878), which demonstrated the Cubans’ courage, decision and patriotism of Cubans to fight against the Spanish rule and achieve their independence.

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