María de los Ángeles Cano Márquez
Born in Medellin in 1887, she came from a cultured and humanist family of educators, journalists, artists, musicians and poets of radical firmness, both from her father, Don Rodolfo, and from her mother, Mrs. Amelia. Maria was a self-taught person who followed the independent and free thought of her father, who guided her in her primary education.
Her first public incursions began with her connection to the literary movement of the early 20’s in Medellín. Along with prominent free-thinking intellectuals, she was part of the Cyrano social gathering, which later published a magazine under the same name, being the only female columnist of such. She was influenced by the literary female movement of the late 1910’s, conceived, mainly, in countries of the south of the continent. She collaborated in El Correo Liberal (1923), and together with the writers Maria Eastman and Fita Uribe, initiated the path of female literary activity of that time, which was soon imitated in several regions of the country.
Except for what was published during this time, really, very few are the texts that testify to her thinking in the later period of her life, dedicated to political agitation, since the press mainly registered her impact on the masses. Her transition from intimate romanticism to the social projection of vital concerns, may be appreciated, from her interest in getting the workers to access reading. In March 1924, she expressed her desire to open a free popular library; summoning newspapers and bookstores to donate materials, and in May, she had already organized this service in the Municipal Library and invited the workers to «… like the exquisite pleasure of reading with me».
Thus, she began her approach to the life of artisans and poor people in the city, who in May 1925, proclaimed “Flor del Trabajo” (labor flower), one of the picturesque forms of the time, through which women were exalted in popular events.
In this way, the cycle of her public life began, characterized by intense activity in favor of workers, and in its first stage includes, from visits to manufacturing centers, to arduous organizational work in committees and popular commands. With the transfer of a group of workers from the Tropical Oil Company, from Barrancabermeja to the prison of Medellin, she made her first public intervention, in a demonstration where she demanded justice for the social prisoners.
Later, together with the former president of the republic, Carlos E. Restrepo, she spoke in a massive mobilization against the death penalty and in defense of public liberties. With her vehement intervention, she broke into the national public opinion. In a small city, as it was then Medellin, in which the defense of morals caused plebiscites to remove the Venus de Milo from a showcase, appears this 38 year old nimble and small woman, who takes the streets and squares, in the name of freedom and equality, ready to face the repressive hegemonic conservative regime, to fight against the ignorance and exploitation of wage-earners and against the voracity of American companies.
In 1925 began the tours that made her famous throughout the country. The people threw themselves into the street, to appreciate that curious woman who spoke in public about men’s affairs, and when it was heard, it provoked the adhesion of the poor and the indignation of the elites. Her first tour was to the mining area of Segovia and Remedios, after which, her language acquired a clear and direct character: «…Comrades, stand up, ready to defend ourselves! Let us be one heart, one arm. Let’s close ranks and move forward! A moment of hesitation, of indolence, will give place to one more oppression, to new yokes. Brave soldiers of the Social Revolution, on the march!, hear my voice that summons you! »
In 1926 she worked on the preparation of the III National Workers Congress, for which, she made an extensive tour through from Medellin to Ibague, in the company of her relative, the socialist leader Tomas Uribe Marquez. In Bogotá, the Workers’ Congress elected her as its director, as well as those who would continue to be her fighting companions: Ignacio Torres Giraldo, Raul E. Mahecha, Tomas Uribe M. and Alfonso Romero. She presided a delegation before the national government, in order to request the release of political and social prisoners. That same Congress also proclaimed her as Labor Flower of Colombia, and she assumed the commitment to work for the Revolutionary Socialist Party.
In the years 27 and 28, she carried out an intense propaganda activity in large areas of the country. It was mobilized by cars, mules, horses, railroad; She navigated the rivers, and occasionally, he moved by air. She toured Boyaca, the banks of the Magdalena River and other rivers in Caldas, Valle, Antioquia, Cauca, Santander and the Atlantic Coast. During these tours, she was received by crowds that would greet her and accompany her in their gatherings. On several occasions, she was arrested; in others, forced to walk many kilometers, under police surveillance, until leaving the premises of a neighboring province; at times, she was received with rifles as to disperse her protesters.
She would criticize the affluent elite for social injustice, the government for repressing the opposition, confronted and denounced the American banana companies, oil companies, and the British mining companies, as well as the national government, for not guaranteeing respect for the integrity of the workers and national sovereignty.
Upon returning to Medellin in March 1928, she actively participated in the solidarity campaigns with Nicaragua, invaded by US troops, as well as in the Committee for the Fight for Civil Rights against the Heroic Law and to secure guarantees for the opposition.
The strike of the banana companies was violently suppressed in November 1928, and produced a massacre of workers. The unleashed repression led Maria to prison, along with her colleagues in Medellin. These facts, as well as the recession of 1930’s, affected the extinction of work of the National Workers Congress and the division of the PSR. The internal confrontations in socialism and the treatment to which it was subjected, marginalized it from the social struggle; and from 1930 onwards, she became a worker at the Departmental Press of Antioquia, and later, she went on to serve in the Departmental Library. However, in 1934, she actively supported the strike of the Antioquia Railroad. Later, she sank into absolute silence, while in her city the daughters of the family were rigorously cared for so that they would not end up being feared Marias Canos, a term coined as to refer to the young rebels.
In 1945, women suffragettes offered her a tribute in Medellin. Having recently defeated Nazism, she said: «A new world emerges today from the epic of liberty, nourished with blood, with weeping and torture. It is a duty to answer the call of History. We have to make Colombia respond. The horizons of freedom, justice and peace are widening. Today as yesterday, I am a soldier of the world.» María Cano died in Medellin in 1967.