Manuel Márquez Sterling

Manuel Márquez Sterling

Manuel Márquez Sterling (born August 28, 1872 in Lima , Peru , † December 9, 1934 in Washington, DC ) was a Cuban journalist , writer , diplomat and politician . He was President of the Republic of Cuba from 6:10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on January 18, 1934.

The less than six-hour presidency of Manuel Márquez Sterling is one of the curiosities of Cuban history, but also reflects the turbulent conditions of an era in which, after the overthrow of the dictator Gerardo Machado, the new army chief Fulgencio Batista had real political power while he was in the dispute with the parties and organizations involved in the overthrow of Machado and the US Ambassador Jefferson Caffery was anxious to enforce a president he liked in front of parliament and the Cuban people.

Manuel Márquez Sterling was born in Lima, Peru. His father was a representative of the Cuban independence movement in Peru. At the age of 16 he was already writing articles for various Cuban newspapers under the name Manuel Márquez Mola (his mother's name was Belén Loret de Mola). He made the acquaintance of José Martí , the Cuban poet and freedom fighter. In 1895, at the beginning of Cuba's War of Independence against Spain , he publicly endorsed the struggle for independence on a trip to Spain. After returning to Havana , he was arrested for his separatist attitude. He left Cuba and first went to Mexico , then to the USA , where he worked as secretary for the representative of the Cuban independence movement Gonzalo de Quesada in Washington.

He joined the resistance against Machado's dictatorship and became Parliamentary State Secretary under President Carlos Hevia . When Hevia resigned his presidency after only two days under pressure from Batista, Manuel Márquez Sterling agreed to take over the presidency until Carlos Mendieta y Montefur took office, as provided for in the constitution.

Manuel Márquez Sterling wrote 15 books on a wide variety of subjects such as literature, chess and history.

As Cuban ambassador, Márquez Sterling signed the agreement in Washington, DC on May 29, 1934, with which the Platt Amendment , through which the United States had secured a military right to intervene in Cuba, lost its validity and could be removed from the Cuban constitution.

Works

• Los últimos días del Presidente Madero , Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1985
• La muerte de Madero y Pino Suárez: Gestión diplomática del Señor Ministro de Cuba en México (with Modesto Barrios), tip. El Norte, 1923

Web links

• Manuel Márquez Sterling in the Cuban online encyclopedia EcuRed (Spanish)
• Marquez Sterling. La biografía , Juventud Rebelde from June 15, 2013, (Spanish)
• Manuel Márquez Sterling: la pluma como espada , revista Librínsula (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Manuel Márquez Sterling: Contra la Injerencia Extraña ( Memento of February 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (Spanish)