Leoncio Vidal

Leoncio Vidal y Caro (September 12, 1864 – March 23, 1896) was a Cuban revolutionary that fought in the Cuban War of Independence. A colonel, he fell in battle in Santa Clara, Cuba. He is considered a hero in Cuba and the Parque Vidal in Santa Clara was named in his honor. Vidal was the uncle of General Emilio Mola.

Born in Cuba to a Cuban mother, Marina del Rosario Caro Reyes, and a Spanish father, Leoncio Vidal Tapia, Vidal and his family lived through the calamities of the Ten Years' War in the town of Corralillo. Vidal's father enlisted in the Spanish forces against the Cuban rebels. However, the killing of a ten-year-old boy drove him to protest the war and move his family to Spain. The Vidal family lived ten years in Barcelona, the birthplace of Leoncio Vidal Tabia. There, Leoncio Vidal y Caro met his extended family, including their paternal grandfather whom awed Leoncio with his stories of resistance against Napoleon's invasion of Spain and the faith in and defense of the country.

Known as "the Cubans" while in Spain, Vidal and his brothers learned Catalan quickly. Always concerned for their education, Vidal's father sent the brothers to a school in Manresa. During this time, the Carlist Wars ravaged Northern Spain. The young and idealist Vidal brothers embraced the Carlist ideology, and fled the school and joined the guerrillas around Manresa. The chief of the guerrillas recognized the young boys, and ordered them back to school. Vidal, however, escaped and returned to the guerrillas, where he fought in battle and received a head wound. Vidal's father transferred Vidal and his brothers back to Barcelona, where they studied business, English, French, among other subjects.

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