Reglamento Que Debe Observarse en los Partidos de Campo, Acerca de la Milicia Nacional Local [caption title]

Havana: January 5, 1822. Good.. Broadside, 11.5 x 8 inches. Foxed, faint signs of folding, a few small wormholes, not affecting text. An apparently unrecorded broadside order from the captain general of Cuba, Nicolas Mahy, directing all able-bodied men under the age of fifty to join up with their local militias in order to keep the peace. The local militias are directed to go out on nightly forays "en nùmero capaz de evitar las incursiones de los salteadores por los caminos, y la desercion que pueda acontecer de los negros de los ingenios cafetales y demas haciendas." Additionally, all men between the ages of fifty and seventy are told to report to “las casas mas fuertes de los pueblos" to form a garrison that can protect women, children and the elderly in case of insurrection. By the formation of these militias and the establishment of "el uso de los pasaportes," it was hoped to identify and arrest "los vagos y mal entretenidos." All mayors, within ten days of receipt of this regulation were to report the number of men they had enlisted along with their particulars. In the early 1820s much of Spanish colonial America was gripped by revolution, and with these orders the Cuban government likely hoped to avoid similar unrest on the island. Several independence groups had been formed in Cuba as of the promulgation of this decree, the largest of which was the Soles y Rayos de Bolívar, established in 1821. Signed in print by Mahy; not in OCLC.