The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle Read Free Book Online

victorious.

    The Americans have seized power.
    Once again, we are the subjects
    of a foreign tyrant.
    Rosa

    We helped them win
    their strange victory
    against Spain.

    We imagined they were here
    to help us gain the freedom
    we’ve craved for so long.

    We were inspired by their wars
    for freedom from England
    and freedom for slaves.

    We helped them win
    this strange victory
    over us.
    José

    They choose a majestic tree,
    a
ceiba,
the kapok tree
    revered by Cubans,
    a sturdy tree with powerful roots.

    They choose the shade of spreading branches.
    We have to watch from far away.
    Even General Gómez,
    after thirty years of leading our rebels,
    even he is not invited
    to the ceremonial surrender.

    Spain cedes power before our eyes.
    We can only watch from far away
    as the Spanish flag is lowered
    and the American flag glides upward.

    Our Cuban flag
    is still forbidden.
    Rosa

    Silvia has decided
    to help the Sioux nuns
    build an orphanage
    for children
    from the camps.

    José and I must continue
    doing what we can
    to heal the wounded
    and cure the sick.

    Peace will not be paradise,
    but at least we can hope
    that children like Silvia
    and the other orphans
    will have their chance
    to dream
    of new ways
    to feel free….
    Silvia

    I feel like a child again.
    I don’t know how to behave.

    The war is over—
    should I dance,
    am I free to sing out loud,
    free to grow up,
    fall in love?

    I am free to smile
    while the orphans sleep.

    I admit that I feel impatient,
    so eager to write in a journal,
    like the Fox,
    writing a record
    of all that I have seen….

    Peace is not the paradise
    I imagined, but it is a chance
    to dream….

 
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    Author’s Note

    My grandmother used to speak of a time when her parents had to leave their farm in central Cuba and “go to another place.” I had no idea what she meant, until I grew up and read historical accounts of Weyler’s reconcentration camps.
    My grandmother was born on a farm in central Cuba in 1902. She described Cuba’s countryside as so barren from the destruction of war that once, when her whole family was hungry, her father rode off into the wilderness and came back with a river turtle. That one turtle was cause for celebration, enough meat to keep a family alive and hopeful.
    One of my grandmother’s uncles was a Pacífico (a Peaceful One), who kept farming in order to feed his little brother. Another uncle was a blond man of primarily Spanish descent who married the daughter of a Congolese slave. My mother remembers seeing this couple coming into town with wild mountain flowers to sell. She says they were two of the happiest people she had ever seen. I like to picture them in love with eachother, and with the beauty of their homeland, free of hatred, and free of war—free, in every sense of that short, powerful word. During a recent trip to Cuba, I met my mother’s cousin Milagros, one of their descendants, whose name means “Miracles.”
    I feel privileged to have known my grandmother, who pressed wet sage leaves against her forehead whenever she had a headache, and my great-grandmother, who was young during Cuba’s wars for independence from Spain, and Milagros, whose children are young and hopeful now.

 
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    Historical Note

    In this story, Silvia and the oxcart driver are the only completely fictional characters. Their experiences are based on composites of accounts by various survivors of Weyler’s reconcentration camps.
    All the other characters are historical figures, including Rosario Castellanos Castellanos, known in Cuba as Rosa
la Bayamesa,
and her husband, José Francisco Varona, who helped establish and protect Rosa’s hospitals. Some of the hospitals were mobile units, moving with the rebel
mambí
army. Others were thatched huts, hidden in the forest. Some were caves.
    So little is known about the daily routines of Rosa and José that I have taken great