María García Granados y Saborío
| María García Granados | |
|---|---|
Daguerreotype of María García Granados
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| Born |
1860 Guatemala City,  Guatemala
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| Died | May 10, 1878 |
| Nationality | Guatemalan |
| Occupation | socialite |
| Parent(s) | General Miguel García Granados |
María García Granados y Saborío (1860-May 10, 1878), also known as La Niña de Guatemala ("the little girl of Guatemala"), was a Guatemalan socialite, daughter of General Miguel García Granados, who was President of Guatemala from 1871 to 1873 and whose house served as a gathering for the top artists and writers of the time. María was also niece and granddaughter of María Josefa García Granados, an influential poet and journalist of the time. When Cuban poet and patriot José Martí came to Guatemala in 1877, he was invited to General Garcia Granados gatherings and fell in love with Maria there, but could not correspond her because he was already engaged to marry Ms. Carmen Zayas Bazán. María died in 1878, shortly after learning that Martí had married, and he immortalized her in his 1891 poem La Niña de Guatemala.
Amo el bello desorden, muy más bello
Desde que tú, la espléndida María,
Tendiste en tus espaldas el cabello,
¡Como una palma al destocarse haría!
Desempolvo el laúd, beso tu mano
Y a ti va alegre mi canción de hermano.
¡Cuán otro el canto fuera
Martí came to Guatemala at age 24 from Mexico, where he had professional success as a journalist and writer and had reunited with his family after his deportation from Spanish Cuba (1871-1875). In Guatemala he met the dramatic actress Eloisa Agüero and eventually got engaged to his future wife, Carmen. Actually, Martí arrived to Central America after becoming disappointed with the authoritarian Mexican rule of Porfirio Diaz. Upon arriving to Guatemala he wrote a critical view of the inferiority that women had been subject to in that country: in an article entitled 'The new codes ", published in Progreso, on April 22, 1877 he made the following reflection upon request of Joaquin Macal -Secretary of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala at the time-: "What is the first of the colonial ballasts from the deposed legislation? The absolute power that bestial husbands had over the venerable wife; it practically gives husbands parental rights over women. The law of heaven, is not capable of knowing the law of land?" So he focused on the Guatemalan ladies' walking indolent, glances caste, dressed as women of the village, with braids lying on the mantle, they call shawl; hand counting idle floating mantle tips infant joys or sorrows of his first mistress'; and when found Maria -more cosmopolitan and illustrated- he was immediately infatuated with her. It should be noted that it appears that María was not the standard shy and vulnerable Guatemalan girl: Guatemalan publications of the time talk about her relatively active participation as a musician and singer outside her home, in public artistic activities organized by societies and institutions where she coincided with Martí. Apparently she was a very popular youth within the city's high society of the time; María was then the footsteps of her aunt and grandmother Maria Josefa, who had died in 1848 and had been a superb poet and journalist, very influential in the Conservative governments of Guatemala.
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