The roll of the Cuban Liberation Army at the end of the War of Independence: 69,836 soldiers, each with rank, unit, date of entry and, most of the time, the first names of both parents. Beside it is the army's register of its 4,819 confirmed dead. Both come from the book that Inspector General Carlos Roloff compiled and had printed in Havana in 1901.
A roll made to pay an army
The book is a list of who served, made because the army had to be paid and disbanded. Carlos Roloff became Inspector General of the Liberation Army on 4 May 1898. On 12 January 1899 he ordered every corps, division, brigade and regiment to send a register of its chiefs, officers and men: when each man joined, when he won each rank and where he stood "when the war was declared over on 24 August 1898". He warned that no one's pay would be settled without that proof, and that more than two thousand soldiers on the lists had no date of entry at all.
The money came in two rounds. In 1899 every soldier who had been in service by 17 July 1898 and turned in his weapon received 75 dollars, from a fund of three million agreed between the American Governor General and Máximo Gómez; the cutoff date kept out those who joined in the last weeks. From 1902 a commission chaired by Gómez reviewed what each man was owed, paid from 1904 out of a 35-million-dollar loan. The roll was later used again for veterans' pensions.
The war and the book
- 24 February 1895
The rising in Oriente. It is the date the book gives for the start of the war.
- April 1895
José Martí and Máximo Gómez land in eastern Cuba. Martí is named major general on 15 April.
- 19 May 1895
Martí is killed at Dos Ríos. He is in the register of the dead as "Mayor General y Jefe Supremo de la Revolución".
- October 1895 – January 1896
Antonio Maceo and Gómez lead the invasion of the west, from Oriente to Pinar del Río.
- October 1896
Valeriano Weyler orders the reconcentration of the rural population. 1897 is the worst year in the register of the dead.
- 7 December 1896
Maceo is killed at San Pedro, in Havana province.
- April 1898
The United States goes to war with Spain. Enlistments in the roll surge from April to July.
- 24 August 1898
The official end of the war, as the book's title gives it.
- 12 January 1899
Roloff's circular orders the register that became the roll.
- May 1899
The rules for disbanding the army are published: 75 dollars a man.
- 1901
The book is printed in Havana by Rambla y Bouza: 15 preliminary pages, the 1,004-page alphabetical index and a separately numbered 263-page register of deaths.
- 1902 – 1904
A commission under Gómez reviews the army's back pay, which is paid from 1904.
Reading an entry
The roll is in alphabetical order by first surname, one line per man.
The roll
230 · Pedro Abad Burgat · Aniceto · Autonia · Second Sergeant · Departamento Oriental, 1er Cuerpo, 1a División, 1a Brigada, Regimiento de Infantería "Baracoa" · 6 April 1895
- Roll no.
- His number in the book. Numbers follow the alphabet; a few are used twice, and a short appendix adds late names.
- Parents
- First names only: father Aniceto, mother "Autonia", as the transcription reads it, most likely Antonia.
- Rank
- The highest he held at the end of the war. Some were confirmed after it.
- Unit
- From department down to regiment. Read all of it: two regiments are called "Martí".
- Date
- The day he entered the army.
- Surnames
- His father was probably Aniceto Abad, his mother Antonia Burgat, by the Spanish custom of father's surname first and mother's second. It holds more often than not, but not always.
The register of the dead is written as prose, and says far more about each man.
The register of the dead
"Hijo de Felipe y Rafaela, natural de Mayajigua, de 19 años, soltero y de campo, era Soldado del Regimiento de Caballería "Martí" y murió en combate en "Marroquín" (Morón) el 2 de Diciembre del 96."
- Parents
- Felipe and Rafaela, first names again.
- Born
- Mayajigua, in Las Villas.
- Age, state, trade
- 19, single, a field worker.
- Service
- A private of the "Martí" cavalry regiment.
- Death
- In combat at Marroquín, near Morón, on 2 December 1896.
- Name
- Felipe Abascal.
How many mambises?
No two counts of the Liberation Army agree, because they count different things: everyone ever enrolled, the men present when the war ended, the men who were paid.
- 69,836Entries in the roll in this collection
- 69,718The last number in Roloff's book
- 53,574Men in the pay commission's summary, July 1903
- ~50,000Under arms when the army was disbanded, half of them without weapons
- 44,932Reported by the Cuban Assembly to President McKinley, February 1899
- ~34,000Paid 75 dollars in 1899 ($2,554,750 divided by 75)
The roll is the widest count: it names men who died, deserted or were discharged, and those who joined late. Our count is a little above the book's last number because some numbers are used twice and a short appendix adds late names.
The register of the dead
The second part of the book is the Defunciones del Ejército Libertador, the army's register of its confirmed dead, transcribed page by page into this collection. An entry gives the man's parents, birthplace, age, marital state and trade, his unit and rank, and how, where and when he died, and the collection can be filtered by year of death. The register is candid about its limits: "no son todas las que ocurrieron durante la campaña, pues la mayoría permanecen todavía ignoradas", not all the deaths of the campaign, most of which remain unknown. A total of 10,665 mambí dead is often cited; the 4,819 here are under half of it.
Searching the roll
- Try both surnamesRoloff's own advice: if a man is not under his first surname, look under the second, and swap letters that sound alike, B and V, C and S, G and J.
- Mayor General is not MajorA mayor general was a major general, the highest rank. A major was a comandante.
- The rank is the last oneA man listed as captain may have joined as a private. Some promotions were confirmed after the war.
- AbbreviationsGiven names are often shortened ("José M.", "Fco." for Francisco) and common second surnames reduced to an initial.
- The dead are in both booksA man who died may appear in the roll and again in the register, and the register gives far more about him.
- If he is not hereThe pay commission's own files, about 49,700 of them, are at the Archivo Nacional de Cuba, as are the 1918 pension records.
Where the records come from
Because so much was transcribed, some errors are inevitable. Check an entry against the original book wherever accuracy matters.
- The book, 1901Yndice alfabético y defunciones del Ejército Libertador de Cuba. Guerra de Yndependencia, iniciada el 24 de febrero de 1895 y terminada oficialmente el 24 de agosto de 1898. Compiled by Carlos Roloff Mialofsky with Gerardo Forrest y Vélez for the Inspección General, published officially by order of General Leonard Wood. Havana: Imprenta de Rambla y Bouza, 1901. Held by the Digital Library of the Caribbean and HathiTrust; Library of Congress F1786.C95; FamilySearch microfilm 1844674.
- CubaGenWeb, 2000–2003The first transcription of the roll, proposed by María de la Torre and coordinated with Ed Elizondo; 34 volunteers transcribed 69,770 names between April 2000 and April 2003. The CubaGenWeb Mambí database.
- López Mir, 2020Elizabeth López Mir, "El ejército libertador cubano: ni tan pobres, ni tan olvidados. Su licenciamiento y pago de haberes entre 1899 y 1903", Trocadero 32: 135–151. Roloff's circular, the 1899 and 1902–1904 payments and the counts of the army, from the Archivo Nacional de Cuba. Article.
- Díaz MartínezYolanda Díaz Martínez, Revista Complutense de Historia de América: how the army was divided into two departments and six corps. Article.
- Archivo Nacional de CubaThe files of the Comisión Revisora y Liquidadora de los Haberes del Ejército Libertador, and the fondo Gobierno de la Revolución de 1895 with unit lists and requests for rank.
- Spanish military archivesFor the other side: officers' files at the Archivo General Militar de Segovia, rank-and-file files at Guadalajara, and the Capitanía General de Cuba papers in Madrid.
The Cuba Research Project thanks CubaGenWeb and its volunteers, who first turned these records into a database.