From Bayamo to the Nation: The Birth and Endurance of Cuba’s Anthem - teleSUR English

From Bayamo to the Nation: The Birth and Endurance of Cuba’s Anthem - teleSUR English

On an October morning in 1868, amidst the clatter of a newly rebellious populace, a melody rose from the streets of Bayamo that would outlive empires and regimes. The cry that became the Cuban national anthem — “Hymn of Bayamo” or “La Bayamesa” — was written by Perucho Figueredo following the Battle of Bayamo and sung by the city’s freed inhabitants as an instant emblem of defiance and hope. Myth has it that he scribbled it ‘on the saddle of his…