Federico Fernández Cavada establishes the "Logia Luz del Sur” (Southern Light Lodge) in Trinidad, Cuba, which will be used as an active recruiting center for insurgents, on January 5, 1869.
The Cuban-born Fernández Cavada, after serving in the American Civil War as a colonel, had been appointed United States consul at Trinidad.
Fernández Cavada had met and befriended General Thomas Jordan, and the friendship had inspired Fernández Cavada to resign his position as consul upon the Cuban insurrection against Spanish rule, a conflict that will become known as Cuba’s Ten Years' War.
Together with his brother Adolfo, who had resigned from his appointment as consul to Cienfuegos, Federico had joined the insurgents and had been named General for the District of Trinidad, Commander in Chief of the Cinco Villas.
