Mariana Grajales Cuello

Mariana Grajales Cuello (July 12, 1815 – November 28, 1893) was a Cuban patriot and icon of the women's rights and the fight for Cuba's independence and abolition of slavery.

Service to country Mariana Grajales was born in Santiago de Cuba on July 12, 1815, to Teresa Cuello Zayas and José Grajales Matos, Dominican parents of mulato race. She married in 1851. She bore thirteen children, nine with Maceo, including Antonio Maceo Grajales, José Maceo, , , , , Marcos Maceo Grajales, Dominga Maceo and Baldomera Maceo, giving birth to her last child at the age of 52. Mariana, along with her family, lived in the refuge of La Delicia in the barrio Majaguabo of San Luis, Santiago de Cuba, later running a mountain settlement and improvised bush hospital.

Mariana and her family served in the Ten Years' War, Little War (1868–78) and the War of 1895.

José Martí, after witnessing Mariana Grajales and Antonio Maceo's wife, , enter the battlefield to rescue the wounded Antonio, remarked: "Fáciles son los heroes con tales mujeres" (It is easy to be heroes with women such as these). For the next 15 years, she continued to fight for Cuban independence from Spain by organizing groups of Cuban exiles in Jamaica.

Posthumous recognition

In 1957, the Mayor of Havana, Justo Luis Pozo del Puerto, officially declared Doña Mariana Grajales de Maceo the "Mother of Cuba".

The Mariana Grajales Airport and Antonio Maceo Airport were dedicated to the memory of Mariana and her sons' contributions to the Cuban struggle.