PARKS AND PRADO. 
59 
THE STUDENTS' MEMORIAL. 
vain offered all his wealth as a ransom for his son’s life. On November 
27, 1871, in the presence of 15,000 Spanish Volunteers under arms, the 
boys were executed on this spot. The panel records the event and the 
names of the victims : 
On the 27th of November, 1871, there were sacrificed in front of this place, by the 
Spanish Volunteers of Havana, the eight young Cuban students of the First Year 
of Medicine: 
Alonso Alvarez de la Campa, 
Carlos Augusto de Latorre, 
Pascual Rodriguez Perez, 
Angel Laborde, 
Jose de Marcos Medina, 
Eladio Gonzalez Toledo, 
Anacleto Bermudez, 
Carlos Verdugo. 
To their eternal memory, this tablet is dedicated, the 27th of November, 1899. 
In the bronze wreath beneath is inscribed “Inocentes.” Sus companeros. 
20 de Mayo, 1902—“Innocent.” Their Comrades. May 20, 1902. 
The affair created intense indignation everywhere; the Spanish Cortes 
investigated the case and formally pronounced the students guiltless. Some 
years after a son of Castahon came to Cuba from Spain for his father’s 
remains. He was attended at the tomb by a notary public, before whom 
he made declaration, as the result of his examination then, that the tomb 
had never been disturbed. In 1888 the Students’ Monument in memory of 
the martyred boys was provided by popular subscription, and is now one 
of the chief adornments of the Colon Cemetery. 
