He spent his first ten years in Spain, learning the Latin Alphabet, attending school, engaging in childhood activities and helping his parents in the farm.

During his teenage years, he studied at the high school at Medina de Pomar and began gaining Castilian nationalism around this time.

For his further actions and services, he received the Order of San Fernando but after the Pact of Zanjón, he entered a more passive position, being stationed at the barracks of Havana.

[1] After the war, Santocildes married Doña Dolores Miyares y Hernández who belonged to a prominent Cuban family and they would have two daughters and one son with the latter attending the Toledo Military Academy as a Second Lieutenant but had to return to Spain by 1881 as he received command of the 1st Battalion of the Aragón Infantry Regiment at Tortosa.

[1] Santocildes would then take command of the Reina y de Isabel la Católica Regiments as well as the Havana Public Order Battalion.