Valentín Cuesta Rendueles

Valentín Cuesta Rendueles (1859-1924)

Born in Asturias, Spain in 1859, settled in Güines. He loved Cuba with passion and worked during his best years in the trade business, later on becoming a journalist, being an honest and courageous newspaperman of shining example, defending all noble causes, even in the most difficult days during the struggle for liberation.

He was the editor of more than eight publications in Güines from 1887 until 1924, among them La Unión (The Union) published from 1887 to 1909. His articles, of a socio-political-economic type, were the object of numerous comments in the Spanish press of that Autonomist era, where Cuesta Rendueles as a journalist in general, reached his highest peak.

La Unión at the time of Cánovas, Sagasta and Maura, was considered in Spain as a Cuban newspaper with liberal leanings, without condemning the home country. Such articles sustained and proclaimed the right of Cuba to the most ample freedoms in its public administration. Cuba had arrived at its adulthood.

He was a close friend by political affinity of Raimundo Cabrera and belonged to that group of Autonomists, illustrious persons, whose political sound judgments or mistakes, would belong only to History to analyze, judge, and assess. He formed a Cuban family that knew how to honor his memory. His son Valentín Cuesta Jiménez, earned, on his own merits, the admiration and respect of his fellow citizens. He died in Güines on May 6, 1924.

Continue to: Renaldo Curbelo Gutiérrez