The Surrender Tree

 

 

      

  Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

 Margarita Engle

Henry Holt and Company

New York

For Curtis, Victor, and Nicole, with love

  AND

in memory of my maternal great-grandparents, Cuban

guajiros
who survived the turmoil described in this book:

PEDRO EULOGIO SALUSTIANO URÍA Y TRUJILLO

      (1859–1915)

ANA DOMINGA DE LA PEÑA Y MARRERO

        DE TRUJILLO

      (1872–1965)

Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Publishers since
1866

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New York, New York 10010

www.HenryHoltKids.com

Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright © 2008 by Margarita Engle

All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Engle, Margarita.

The surrender tree / Margarita Engle.

p.        cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-8674-4

ISBN-10: 0-8050-8674-9

1. Cuba—History—1810–1899—Juvenile poetry.   2.  Children's poetry, American.   I.  Title.

PS3555.N4254S87 2008   8II'.54—dc22    2007027591

First Edition—2008

Book designed by Lilian Rosenstreich

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper. ∞

10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

 

 

a handful of Cuban plantation owners freed their slaves and declared independence from Spain. Throughout the next three decades of war, nurses hid in jungle caves, healing the wounded with medicines made from wild plants.

On February 16, 1896, Cuban peasants were ordered to leave their farms and villages. They were given eight days to reach “reconcentration camps”near fortified cities. Anyone found in the countryside after eight days would be killed.

My great-grandparents were two of the refugees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yo sé los nombres extraños

De las yerbas y las flores,

Y de mortales engaños,

Y de sublimes dolores.

I know the strange names

Of the herbs and the flowers,

And deadly betrayals,

And sacred sorrows.

—JOSÉ MARTÍ,

    from
Versos Sencillos

    (
Simple Verses
), 1891

 

 

PART ONE       The Names of the Flowers
                                        1850–51

PART TWO       The Ten Years' War
                                        1868–78

PART THREE   The Little War
                                        1878–80

PART FOUR     The War of Independence
                                        1895–98

PART FIVE      The Surrender Tree
                                        1898–99

                                            
AUTHOR'S NOTE

                                            
HISTORICAL NOTE

                                            
CHRONOLOGY

                                            
SELECTED REFERENCES

                                            
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

 

        The Names of the Flowers
        1850–51

Rosa

Some people call me a child-witch,

but I'm just a girl who likes to watch

the hands of the women

as they gather wild herbs and flowers

to heal the sick.

I am learning the names of the cures

and how much to use,

and which part of the plant,

petal or stem, root, leaf, pollen, nectar.

Sometimes I feel like a bee making honey—

a bee, feared by all, even though the wild bees

of these mountains in Cuba

are stingless, harmless, the source

of nothing but sweet, golden food.

Rosa

We call them wolves,

but they're just wild dogs,

howling mournfully—

lonely runaways,

like
cimarrones,

the runaway slaves who survive

in deep forest, in caves of sparkling crystal

hidden behind waterfalls,

and in secret villages

protected by magic

protected by words—

tales of guardian angels,

mermaids, witches,

giants, ghosts.

Rosa

When the slavehunter brings back

runaways he captures,

he receives seventeen silver
pesos

per
cimarrón,

unless the runaway is dead.

Four
pesos
is the price of an ear,

shown as proof that the runaway slave

died fighting, resisting capture.

The sick and injured

are brought to us, to the women,

for healing.

When a runaway is well again,

he will either choose to go back to work

in the coffee groves and sugarcane fields,

or run away again

secretly, silently, alone.

Lieutenant Death

My father keeps a diary.

It is required

by the Holy Brotherhood of Planters,

who hire him to catch runaway slaves.

I watch my father write the numbers

and nicknames of slaves he captures.

He does not know their real names.

When the girl-witch heals a wounded runaway,

the
cimarrón
is punished, and sent back to work.

Even then, many run away again,

or kill themselves.

But then my father chops each body

into four pieces, and locks each piece in a cage,

and hangs the four cages on four branches

of the same tree.

That way, my father tells me, the other slaves

will be afraid to kill themselves.

He says they believe

a chopped, caged spirit cannot fly away

to a better place.

Rosa

I love the sounds

of the jungle at night.

When the barracoon

where we sleep

has been locked,

I hear the music

of crickets, tree frogs, owls,

and the whir of wings

as night birds fly,

and the song of
un sinsonte,

a Cuban mockingbird,

the magical creature

who knows how to sing

many songs all at once,

sad and happy,

captive and free…

songs that help me sleep

without nightmares,

without dreams.

Rosa

The names of the villages where runaways hide

are
Mira-Cielo,
Look-at-the-Sky

and
Silencio,
Silence

Soledad,
Loneliness

La Bruja,
The Witch….

I watch the slavehunter as he writes his numbers,

while his son,

the boy we secretly call Lieutenant Death,

helps him make up big lies.

The slavehunter and his boy agree to exaggerate,

in order to make their work

sound more challenging,

so they will seem like heroes

who fight against armies with guns,

instead of just a few frightened, feverish, hungry,

escaped slaves,

armed only with wooden spears,

and secret hopes.

Lieutenant Death

When I call the little witch

a witch-girl, my father corrects me—

Just little witch is enough, he says, don't add girl,

or she'll think she's human, like us.

A pile of ears sits on the ground,

waiting to be counted.

This boy has a wound,

my father tells the witch.

Heal him.

The little witch stares at my arm, torn by wolves,

and I grin,

not because I have to be healed by a slave-witch,

but because it is comforting to know

that wild dogs

can be called wolves,

to make them sound

more dangerous,

making me seem

truly brave.

Rosa

The slavehunter and his son

both stay away during the rains,

which last six months, from May

through October.

In November he returns with his boy,

whose scars have faded.

This time they have their own pack of dogs,

huge ones,

taught to follow only the scent

of a barefoot track,

the scent of bare skin from a slave