On 27 November 1871 Spanish colonial authorities executed eight first-year University of Havana medical students and sentenced three-dozen more to jail terms. Their ages ranged from 16 to 19. Newspaper accounts of this mind-numbing tragedy repeated the distorted, rumor-based allegations that resulted in the senseless slaughter of Cuban youths. According to the charges presented at the court-martial, the students had desecrated the burial place of Gonzalo Castañón, newspaper editor and loyalist hero who died defending Spain’s authority over her colonies. Specifically, the prosecution claimed that in an act of deliberate disrespect, they had broken the window of the burial vault and tossed aside a wreath placed next to the coffin. Had the allegations been substantiated, they scarcely warranted so severe a punishment.
Fermín Valdés Domínguez shared the terror of arrest, trial and conviction, but was spared death by firing squad. The court sentenced him to six years of work in...
