Máximo Gómez Báez

Relocation to Cuba After the Spanish forces were defeated and fled the newly-independent Dominican Republic in 1865 by the order of Queen Isabela II to Cuba and Puerto Rico, many supporters of the Annexionist cause left with them. Gómez did not initially wish to leave his home country, but was later convinced by his mother, who warned that he would be killed by patriots if he stayed (due to his allegiance to the Spanish).

Change of allegiance Gómez retired from the Spanish Army and soon took up the rebel cause in 1868, helping transform the Cuban Army's military tactics and strategy from the conventional approach, favored by Thomas Jordan and others. He gave the Cuban mambises their most feared tactic, the "machete charge."

Cuban Wars of Independence

On October 25, 1868, during the Battle of Pino de Baire, Gómez led a machete charge on foot, ambushing a Spanish column and obliterating it; the Spanish suffered 233 casualties. The Spanish Army was terrified of the charges because most were infantry troops, mainly conscripts, who were fearful of being cut down by the machetes. Because the Cuban Army always lacked sufficient munitions, the usual combat technique was to shoot once and then charge the Spanish.

In 1871, Gómez led a campaign to clear Guantánamo from forces loyal to Spain, particularly the rich coffee growers, who were mostly of French descent and whose ancestors had fled from Haiti after the Haitians had slaughtered the French. Gómez carried out a bloody but successful campaign, and most of his officers went on to become high-ranking officers, including Antonio and José Maceo, Adolfo Flor Crombet, Policarpo Pineda "Rustán."

After the death in combat of Major General Ignacio Agramonte y Loynáz in May 1873, Gómez assumed the command of the military district of the province of Camaguey and its famed Cavalry Corps. Upon first inspecting the corps, he concluded that they were the best trained and disciplined in the nascent indigenous Cuban Army, and they would significantly contribute to the war for independence.

On February 19, 1874, Gómez and 700 other rebels marched westward from their eastern base and defeated 2,000 Spanish troops at El Naranjo. The Spaniards lost 100 killed in action, 200 wounded in action; the rebels incurred 150 casualties.

In early 1875, with fewer than 2,000 men, Gómez crossed the Trocha—a string of Spanish military fortifications—and burned 83 plantations around Sancti Spíritus and freed their slaves. However, the conservative Revolutionary leaders feared the consequences of these actions and diverted troops away from Gómez' army, causing the campaign to fizzle. The British alternative rock band Maxïmo Park, in turn, named itself after the park. Gómez's portrait is portrayed on Cuban currency on the 10 peso bill. A major avenue in the city of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, is named after him. A secondary school is named after him in his hometown of Baní, Dominican Republic. A provincial university was named in his honor: Universidad Máximo Gómez Báez de Ciego de Ávila, in Cuba . The current Dominican Senator for Peravia Province, Wilton Guerrero, has proposed changing the name of the province to "Máximo Gómez Province."