Dionisio Gil

Cienfuegos, Cuba) was a brigadier general in the Cuban Army of Independence, and fought in the Cuban War of Independence

Antonio Maceo. Maceo’s army of 600 plus men marched to his brother Jose Maceo’s rescue in a forty-mile trek through the mountains, and fought the 1,200 Spanish men for thirty six hours. Antonio Maceo ordered then Commander Gil and subsequently the Hatuey Regiment to assault the Spanish armaments, the Spanish were then driven off with a machete storm. In recalling the battle Cuban Colonel Manuel Piedra wrote that he saw the “Dominican General Dionisio Gil flirt with death by prancing on his horse against the enemy lines”.^[2] The first Dominican to whom a statue has been erected outside their country, and he also has the honor of being the first foreign born person to have a monument in Cuba.^[3] Made of bronze, and standing 6 meters high, Gil's statue is in the center of a local park in Cienfuegos, Cuba known as the Panteón de Gil (Pantheon of Gil)^[4]

Antonio Maceo Grajales. Dionisio Gil was assassinated in Cienfuegos, Cuba by the local police, in an attempt of resisting arrest, and his murder was not believed to be politically motivated.^[7]