Tomás Estrada Palma

Tomás Estrada Palma (1835-1908), Cuban revolutionist and president (1902-1906), born near Bayamo. He joined the Cuban patriot forces in the Ten Years' War (1868-78) and rose to the rank of general. In 1877, after he had been elected president of a Cuban provisional government, he was captured by the Spanish, who imprisoned him for a time. After his release Estrada Palma spent some years in Honduras and then settled in the United States, where he established a school for Latin Americans at Central Valley, New York. In 1895, when a second Cuban revolution began, he was designated minister plenipotentiary for the republic of Cuba in the U.S. He became the head of a revolutionary junta in New York City, which purchased arms and secured American aid for the insurgents. He was elected the first president of the Cuban Republic in 1901 and reelected in 1906, but the opposition charged fraud and forced him to resign in the same year.