Home › The Record of Desolation and Despair › The Record of Desolation and Despair: Marianao

The Record of Desolation and Despair: Marianao

The mayor of Wajay, near Marianao, April 18, accompanied by a policeman, was held up on the Arango estate by a rebel band, under Juan Delgado. The horses they rode and four others, taken from citizens for the government service, were seized. All receipts from taxes and town money already collected were taken from the mayor, who was then released. The Arango estate was burned. A party of insurgents caught the mail carrier between Bainoa and Caraballo, took his letters from him, and then made him assist in the work of demolishing fortifications erected on the Loteria estate. The Carahatas correspondent of the New York Herald writes: "The town is left in absolute darkness, except for the fires started by the rebels on neighboring estates. There is no kerosene in the town. Poverty is general, and there is no money even to send a schooner to Havana for food and merchandise. The rebels burned yesterday a bridge on the road from Carahatas to Ramona station, and four houses on the Sabanilla estate. The torch is applied everywhere."

A despatch from Havana, dated in March, gives these particulars of the way the work of destruction was going on then: