Paulina Pedroso

Paulina Pedroso (1845 – 1925) was the most prominent female leader in the Cuban War of Independence. She worked directly with José Martí.

Life Pedroso's parents were born slaves, but she was born free in Pinar del Río in 1845. She married at a very young age, and Pedroso is her married surname. In 1860, she moved with her husband Ruberto to Havana. She was fifteen at the time. In 1892, she moved to Ybor City with her husband. Afterward, they went to Key West, Florida. Pedroso died in 1925, when she was eighty. Her home in Ybor City became a shrine, and her home in Tampa is now a park. After Cuban independence was won in 1898, she eventually returned to Cuba when a 1910 workers' strike in the tobacco factories was underway. The Cuban government honored her service during that time, and in appreciation, Pedroso and her husband lived rent-free in Cuba for the rest of their lives. She was inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame by Governor Lawton Chiles in 1993, and on her first nomination, which is something that is not achieved often.