Source: Photograph (2010) by WTL© in front of the Ignacio Agramonte special events hall at the Universidad de La Habana.
Comments: In keeping with the overall style of the University's core buildings, this building is a fine example of twentieth-century Neoclassical architecture. Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz (1841-1873) was a wealthy lawyer who was educated in Spain. His a hero of the first Cuban War of Independence (the Ten Years' War of 1868-1878). Agramonte cut a dashing figure, tall, handsome, intelligent, athletic. His beloved wife joined him in the war, but she was captured while pregnant, and she was exiled to the United States. Among his contributions to the war were being elected a provincial representative; signing the first Cuban emancipation proclamantion for Afro-Cuban slaves; drafting the first Cuban constitution; rising to the rank of major general of the cavalry in the revolutionary army (the Spanish troops called him The Young Bolívar"); leading a daring rescue mission to free his commander; and dying a hero's death in a battle in 1873. Máximo Gómez succeeded Agramonte as principal miliary commander from the Camagüey region. (For a significant reference to Máximo Gómez in Little Havana among the Cuban community in Miami, see: => Calle Ocho #6.)
Humanities question: In your view, how appropriate is it to name this building at the UH after a historical figure such as Agramonte?