Bartolomé Masó Márquez.  Born on a farm near Yara, Manzanillo, Oriente, on December 21, 1830. Major General of the Liberation Army.  One of the participants in the preparatory meeting for the war at the Ingenio Rosario.  Second chief of the liberating forces.

 In 1867 he joined the executive commission of the Revolutionary Junta of Manzanillo.

 He was one of the participants in the preparatory meeting for the war at the Ingenio Rosario on October 6, 1868.

 He rose up on October 10, 1868 in La Demajagua, along with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, who appointed him second in command of the liberating forces, with the rank of Lieutenant General.

 He was one of the twelve men who remained with Céspedes after the frustrated attack on Yara, on October 11, 1868.

 After the occupation of Barrancas on October 15, 1868, he participated in the attack and taking of Bayamo, from the 18th to the 20th of that same month.

 When the government of the Republic in Arms was constituted on April 12, 1869, he changed the name of his position, becoming director of the Treasury of the State of Oriente, which he held until March 1870.

 A few days later he was named a member of the court-martial of the Department of Bayamo, where he remained until July, when he returned to his old post.  Once that position was abolished, in 1871, he joined the forces of Major General Modesto Díaz as a soldier, with whom he fought in Humilladero.

 In January 1872 he was appointed Undersecretary of War, but upon taking office he was entrusted with being in charge of that Secretariat.  On June 3, 1872 he resigned and joined the General Headquarters of the Liberation Army, where the next day he received the rank of Colonel, although in the ranks of the Liberation Army such promotion appears registered with the date of December 8, 1873.

Shortly after, he was appointed second chief of the Holguín district.  In 1872 he participated in the combats of Cauto, El Paso, Llanada del Buey, Punta Alegre, Buey Abajo, Rejondón de Báguanos, Samá, Baire Abajo and Cupeyal.

 He stood out in the attack on Holguín on December 19 and 20, 1872, under the orders of Major General Calixto García.

 On April 10, 1873 he fought in Auras and in June of that year he was appointed chief of the Jiguaní Brigade.  In 1874 he was in the combats of Melones on January 9 and Naranjo-Mojacasabe on February 10 and 11, as well as in the Battle of Las Guásimas from March 15 to 19.

 In January 1875 he took office as representative to the House for the East, for which he had been elected on February 14, 1874.

 He also served as secretary of that body.  When the sedition of Lagunas de Varona took place on April 26, 1875, he accompanied President Salvador Cisneros to that camp to urge the rebels to give up his attitude.

Due to the situation created by this fact, he resigned from his position in the Chamber and rejoined the ranks, under the orders of Modesto Díaz.  In 1876 he sustained the combats of El Caobal, Ojo de Agua, Los Moscones and La Cuaba, at the head of the Jiguaní Regiment.  In April 1877 he was called again to occupy the Secretary of War, but he did not accept.

In the middle of that year he was the head of a regiment that operated on the western line of Holguín but in July he was forced to abandon that command by not supporting the demands emanating from the sedition of Santa Rita on March 11, 1877.

On October 19, 1877 he was appointed head of the Yara Regiment.  Shortly after, he was appointed second chief of the Manzanillo district and proposed for the rank of Brigadier General.  He rejected the Zanjón Pact on February 10, 1878.

 The provisional government of Major General Manuel de Jesús Calvar ratified the rank of Brigadier General, in Baraguá, on March 17, 1878.

 After Maceo marched on Jamaica on March 9, 1878, he laid down his arms.  On October 5, 1879, he was arrested in Bayamo for being involved in the organization of the Little War.  After spending 16 days in the Morro de Santiago de Cuba, he was transferred to the castle of San Cristóbal, in Puerto Rico, and three days later he was transferred to the prison of Cádiz, Spain, and from there to the prisons of Melilla and Ceuta.  He was released in 1881.

 In 1890 he participated in the failed conspiracy known as La Paz del Manganese.

 He was among the organizers of the 1995 War in the East, for which the Cuban Revolutionary Party held him responsible with the regions of Manzanillo, Bayamo, Holguín and Jiguaní.  He rose up on February 24, 1895 in Bayate and assumed command of all the rebel forces until the arrival of Major General Máximo Gómez on April 11, 1895. On March 10, 1895 he attacked a Spanish column in Guanábano, near Bayamo.  He was in the combat of Dos Ríos, where José Martí fell on May 19, 1895.

 He was appointed chief of the Second Eastern Corps with the rank of Major General.  In the Constituent Assembly of Jimaguayú on September 13, 1895, he was elected Vice President of the Republic in Arms, which he resigned to continue commanding his troops.

 For hindering the sending of Second Corps forces for the creation of the invading column to the west, Major General Antonio Maceo dismissed him.  He appeared before the Governing Council on November 16, 1895, and presented his claim to it.  On December 1, 1895, the General in Chief ordered his definitive replacement and the following day he agreed to occupy the vice presidency.  On October 31, 1896, he wrote the lyrics for the hymn Resurrection, dedicated to February 24, 1895.

 The Constituent Assembly of La Yaya on October 10, 1897 elected him president and took office on October 30, 1897. On April 24, 1898 he proclaimed the document known as the "Sebastopol Manifesto", where he emphasized the slogan " independence or death” to counteract the intrigues of an autonomist tendency.  On November 9, 1898, he handed over all powers to the Assembly of Representatives of the Cuban Revolution, in Santa Cruz del Sur, declaring the dissolution of the government.

 On October 31, 1899, the North American intervention named him administrator of the Treasury in Manzanillo.

 He was a candidate in the first presidential elections of the Republic, but he resigned due to the illegal manipulations that were observed to elect his adversary, Tomás Estrada Palma, preferred by the North Americans.

 He died at La Jagüita hacienda, Manzanillo, on June 14, 1907. A municipality in the current province of Granma bears his name.