On May 14, 1869, Sergeant Marcos Evangelista Maceo Joglar, the father of the heroic Mambi fighters Maceo Grajales, was seriously wounded. He was born in Santiago de Cuba on April 21, 1808 and since 1826 he served in the grenadier company of the Provisional Infantry Battalion in that city.
Widower of his first marriage he joined Mariana Grajales and being a man of libertarian principles and of a comfortable economic situation, he educated his descendants with rectitude and transmitted to his children his military experiences such as the handling of firearms and the machete, besides being good horsemen.
The father of the Maceo Grajales joined the war of independence from the conspiratorial stage in the Junta of Majaguabo, when he was 60 years old and for his revolutionary activities, in 1869 the Spanish authorities condemned him to death for the crime of infidelity and decreed the confiscation of his possessions.
During the Ten Years War he participated in several combat actions where he reached the rank of sergeant and when he was wounded in combat he was fighting under the orders of his son, the lieutenant colonel Antonio Maceo, action that took place in the town of San Agustín de Aguarás, belonging to the current municipality of Calixto García, in the province of Holguín.
The last words he said shortly before his death, according to eyewitnesses, implied his love for his wife and the independence of Cuba: «Tell Mariana that I fulfilled my duty to her and to the homeland».
