Cuban patriot Maria Magdalena Cabrales Fernandez came into the world on March 20, 1842 in the farm of San Agustin, in the current province of Santiago de Cuba; as a young woman she joined her life to that of Major General Antonio Maceo Grajales, with whom she shared her passion for freedom, followed him to the battlefield and after the war of 1868 in his pilgrimage through Jamaica, Honduras and Panama, until settling in Costa Rica.
Of extraordinary natural intelligence, María Cabrales suffered all the hardships of the war without complaining; she shared with Maceo the rebel attempts, the persecutions, the war, the mountains and the exile; together with Mariana Grajales, she visited the camps of the Cuban patriots to cure the wounded after the combats, or to bring them food and clothes.
The history of Cuba contemplates her as a woman of great values that, while José Martí, from the United States, forged the Necessary War that would break out in February 1895, she founded in Costa Rica the Sisters of María Maceo club to help in the collection of the essential money for the coming war.
After the fall in combat of her husband and companion in combat, which occurred on December 7, 1896, María Cabrales did not sink into sadness, but continued fighting from her revolutionary position; after the end of the war she returned to Cuba on May 13, 1899 and here she was linked to various patriotic and humanitarian tasks such as the direction of the asylum for orphans of the homeland.
María Magdalena Cabrales Fernández died on July 28, 1905, in the San Agustín farm, property of the family, and her remains were transferred to the Hero City, where they were given the deserved honors; and they rest today in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery of Santiago de Cuba.
