Carlos Manuel de Céspedes freed his slaves and called them to joint the fight for the independence of Cuba on October 10th, 1868 at his sugar mill La Demajagua. Ever since, and during the three wars against the Spanish colonialism (The Ten-Year War, The Little War, and The 1895 War), the Cuban who decided to join the wars had no other choice than to go to the manigua (the bush, to the forest, to mountains) to organize the fight and at the same time to stop the Spanish colonial army to find them.
So, the manigua was where mambises found protection against persecution and where they were able to conceive and organize the war.
