Ursula de Cespedes y Orellano

Ursula de Cespedes y Orellano was born in the Hacienda La Soledad, in Bayamo, on October 21, 1832, the 6th great granddaughter of Blas Figueredo e Isasi.  She was educated at home where she received a ‘primary education’ and studied languages, needlework, and music.  She was encouraged by her older brother, José María, who provided her with books, selecting for her the works that he considered appropriate for her reading.

                In 1854, Ursula spent several months at the home of  her brother, José María in Villa Clara, where she met a young teacher and journalist, Gines Escanaverino y Linares.  Ursula returned to Bayamo and in 1855, Gines followed her, at least as far as Manzanillo, where he founded, with Bartolomé Masó, the newspaper El Comercio.  In 1856, he moved to Bayamo, and there founded La Regeneración, the first newspaper in that city.

                In 1857, Ursula and Gines were married in Bayamo.  In 1857, also, Ursula obtained the title of Maéstra de Primaria [teacher of primary education] and founded la Academia de Santa Ursula, for girls and young ladies, the first school of that type in Bayamo.  La Academia de Santa Ursula was founded on the principle of affection and love between teachers and students in an age when severe and authoritarian teachers were the norm.  Ursula said: ‘Lo importante no es lo que se aprende, sino la preparación  espiritual para comprender las bellezas del bien, del arte y de la  naturaleza’  [The important thing is not what one memorizes, but the spiritual preparation to understand the beauties of good, art and nature].

                In 1865, Ursula’s health began to fail, and they left Bayamo for Havana.  There, Ginés became Director de la Escuela Superior para Varones [principal of the upper school for men] until 1868, when they moved again, to San Cristóbal, near Cienfuegos to live with Ursula’s newly widowed mother.

                Ursula was a poet whose first book of  poetry, Ecos de las Selvas [Echos of the Forest] was published in Bayamo in 1860.  It contained a foreword by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.  When she was 13, her poems were published in El Redactor and Semanario Cubano, newspapers in Santiago de Cuba, and later in La Prensa, Havana, La Moda Elegante in Cadiz, Spain, and in some Mexican newspapers.

                Ursula died on November 2, 1874, at Santa Isabel de Las Lajas, Cienfuegos, Cuba.  In 1948, the Ministerio de Educación de Cuba published the book Poesias in which her life is described and the best of her poems reproduced.