January 2010
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In Havana in July 1794, Doña María Rosario Molina received the news that no military wife wants to hear: her husband, adjutant major Tomás García, had died on campaign on the neighbouring island of Santo Domingo.1 Case studies such as that of Rosario Molina offer rare glimpses into the personal life of military families in Cuba during a period punctuated by international conflicts with consequences throughout the Caribbean. This chapter examines the wartime experiences of Cuban women compared to and contrasted with those of women elsewhere in the Atlantic world. As a result of the demands that war—indeed, even the threat of war—placed on Cuba as a whole, women routinely took on roles traditionally assigned to men. Over time, these reversed roles became second nature to many military wives, widows and daughters, giving Cuban women a degree of agency that was unique in the Hispanic Caribbean.2