José Julián Martí Pérez (January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban Freemasons. Through his writings and political activity, he became a symbol for Cuba’s bid for independence against Spain in the 19th century, and is referred to as the “Apostle of Cuban Independence.” He also fought against the threat of United States expansionism into Cuba. From adolescence, he dedicated his life to the promotion of liberty, political independence for Cuba and intellectual independence for all Spanish Americans; his death was used as a cry for Cuban independence from Spain by both the Cuban revolutionaries and those Cubans previously reluctant to start a revolt.

José Julián Martí Pérez was born on January 28, 1853, in Havana, at 41 Paula St., to a Spanish Valencian father, Mariano Martí Navarro, and Leonor Pérez Cabrera, a native of the Canary Islands. Martí was the elder brother to seven sisters: Leonor, Mariana, Maria de Carmen, Maria de Pilar, Rita Amelia, Antonia and Dolores. He was baptized on February 12 in Santo Ángel Custodio church. When he was four, his family moved from Cuba to Valencia, Spain, but two years later they returned to the island where they enrolled José at a local public school, in the Santa Clara neighborhood where his father worked as a prison guard.

In 1865, he enrolled in the Escuela de Instrucción Primaria Superior Municipal de Varones that was headed by Rafael María de Mendive. Mendive was influential in the development of Martí’s political philosophies. Also instrumental in his development of a social and political conscience was his best friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez, the son of a wealthy slave-owning family. In April the same year, after hearing the news of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Martí and other young students expressed their pain—through group mourning—for the death of a man who had decreed the abolition of slavery in a neighboring country. In 1866, Martí entered the Instituto de Segunda Ensañanza where Mendive financed his studies.

Martí began his political activism at an early age. He would travel extensively in Spain, Latin America, and the United States raising awareness and support for the cause of Cuban independence. His unification of the Cuban émigré community, particularly in Florida, was crucial to the success of the Cuban War of Independence against Spain. He was a key figure in the planning and execution of this war, as well as the designer of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and its ideology. He died in military action on May 19, 1895.

On October 1869, aged 16, he was arrested and incarcerated in the national jail, following an accusation of treason and bribery from the Spanish government upon the discovery of a “reproving” letter, which Martí and Fermín had written to a friend when he joined the Spanish army.[8] More than four months later, Martí confessed to the charges and was condemned to six years in prison. His mother tried to free her son (who at 16 was still a minor) by writing letters to the government; his father went to a lawyer friend for legal support, but all efforts failed. Eventually Martí fell ill; his legs were severely lacerated by the chains that bound him. As a result, he was transferred to another part of Cuba known as Isla de Pinos instead of further imprisonment. Following that, the Spanish authorities decided to repatriate him to Spain. In Spain, Martí, who was 18 at the time, was allowed to continue his studies with the hopes that studying in Spain would renew his loyalty to Spain.

In June 1874, Marti graduated with a degree in Civil Rights and Canonical Law. In August he signed up as an external student at the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras de Zaragoza, where he finished his degree by October. In November he returned to Madrid and then left to Paris. There he met Auguste Vacquerie, a poet, and Victor Hugo . In December 1874 he embarked from Le Havre for Mexico. Prevented from returning to Cuba, Martí went instead to Mexico and Guatemala. During these travels, he taught and wrote, advocating continually for Cuba’s independence.

México and Guatemala 1875–1878

In 1875, Martí lived on Calle Moneda in Mexico City near the Zócalo, a prestigious address of the times. One floor above him lived Manuel Antonio Mercado, Secretary of the Distrito Federal, who would become one of Martí’s best friends. On March 2, 1875, he published his first article for Vicente Villada’s Revista Universal, a broadsheet discussing politics, literature, and general business commerce. On March 12, his Spanish translation of Victor Hugo ‘s Mes Fils (1874) began serialization in Revista Universal. Martí then joined the editorial staff, editing the Boletín section of the publication.

In these writings he expressed his opinions about current events in Mexico. On May 27, in the newspaper Revista Universal, he responded to the anti-Cuban-independence arguments in the Mexican newspaper La Colonia Española. This was a newspaper for Spanish citizens living in Mexico. In December, Sociedad Gorostiza (Gorostiza Society), a group of writers and artists, accepted Martí as a member, where he met his future wife, Carmen Zayas Bazán during his frequent visits to her Cuban father’s house to meet with the Gorostiza group.

On January 1, 1876, in Oaxaca, elements contrary to Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada’s government led by Gen. Porfirio Díaz proclaimed the Plan de Tuxtepec, thence instigating a bloody civil war. Martí and fellow Mexican colleagues established the Sociedad Alarcón, composed of dramatists, actors, and critics. At this point, Martí began collaboration with the newspaper El Socialista as leader of the Gran Círculo Obrero (Great Labour Circle) organization of liberals and reformists who supported Lerdo de Tejada. In March, the newspaper proposed a series of candidates as delegates, including Martí, to the first Congreso Obrero, or congress of the workers. On June 4, La Sociedad Esperanza de Empleados (Employees’ Hope Society) designated Martí as delegate to the Congreso Obrero. On December 7, Martí published his article Alea Jacta Est in the newspaper El Federalista, bitterly criticizing the Porfiristas’ armed assault upon the constitutional government in place. On December 16, he published the article “Extranjero” (foreigner; abroad), in which he repeated his denunciation of the Porfiristas and bade farewell to Mexico.

In 1878, Martí returned to Guatemala and published his book Guatemala, edited in Mexico. On May 10, socialite María García Granados died of lung disease; her unrequited love for Martí branded her, poignantly, as ‘la niña de Guatemala, la que se murió de amor’ (the Guatemalan girl who died of love). Following her death, Martí returned to Cuba. There, he finished signing the Pact of Zanjón which ended the Cuban Ten Years’ War, but had no effect on Cuba’s status as a colony. He met Afro-Cuban revolutionary Juan Gualberto Gómez, who would be his life-long partner in the independence struggle and a stalwart defender of his legacy during this same journey. He married Carmen Zayas Bazán on Havana’s Calle Tulipán Street at this time. In October, his application to practice law in Cuba was refused, and thence immersed himself in radical efforts, such as for the Comité Revolucionario Cubano de Nueva York (Cuban Revolutionary Committee of New York). On November 22, 1878 his son José Francisco, known fondly as “Pepito”, was born.

The United States, Venezuela 1880–1890

After a short time in New York, Martí travelled to Venezuela in 1881 and founded the Revista Venezolana, or Venezuelan Review. The journal provoked the wrath of Venezuela’s dictator, Antonio Guzmán Blanco, and Martí was forced to leave for New York.

Back in New York Martí joined General Calixto García’s Cuban revolutionary committee, made up of exiled & disheveled Cubans who wanted independence for Cuba. Here Martí supported Cuban independence freely. He worked as a newspaper reporter and was also a correspondent for La Nación of Buenos Aires and for different Central American journals, especially La Opinion Liberal in Mexico City. The article “El ajusticiamiento de Guiteau,” an account of President Garfield’s murderer’s trial, was published in La Opinion Liberal in 1881, and later selected for inclusion in The Library of America’s anthology of American True Crime writing. At the same time, Martí wrote poems and translated novels to Spanish. He worked for Appleton and Company and, “on his own, translated and published Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona. His repertory of original work included plays, a novel, poetry, a children’s magazine, La Edad de Oro, and a newspaper, Patria, which became the official organ of the Cuban Revolutionary party”. Also, he worked very hard by serving as a consul for Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. Throughout this work, he preached the “freedom of Cuba with an enthusiasm that swelled the ranks of those eager to strive with him for it”.

Within the revolutionary committee, there was tension between Martí and his Cuban military compatriots. Martí thought it was of utmost importance that a military dictatorship not be established in Cuba upon independence, and suspected Dominican-born General Máximo Gómez of having these very intentions. Martí knew that the independence of Cuba needed careful planning and would take time. This is why Martí refused to cooperate with Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo Grajales, two Cuban military leaders from the Ten Years’ War, when they wanted to invade immediately in 1884. Martí knew that it was too early to attempt to win back Cuba, and later events proved him right.

The United States, Central America and the West Indies 1891–1894

On January 1, 1891, Martí’s essay “Nuestra America” was published in New York’s Revista Ilustrada, and on the 30th of that month in Mexico’s El Partido Liberal. He actively participated in the Conferencia Monetaria Internacional (The International Monetary Conference) in New York during that time as well. On June 30 his wife and son arrived in New York. After a short time, in which Carmen Zayas Bazán realized that Martí’s dedication to Cuban independence surpassed that of supporting his family, she returned to Havana with her son on 27 August. Martí would never see them again. The fact that his wife never shared the convictions central to his life was an enormous personal tragedy for Martí. He turned for solace to Carmen Miyares de Mantilla, a Venezuelan who ran a boarding house in New York, and he is presumed to be the father of her daughter María Mantilla, who was in turn the mother of the actor Cesar Romero, who proudly claimed to be Martí’s grandson. In September Martí became sick again. He intervened in the commemorative acts of The Independents, causing the Spanish consul in New York to complain to the Argentine and Uruguayan governments. Consequently, Martí resigned from the Argentinean, Paraguayan, and Uruguayan consulates. In October he published his book Versos Sencillos.

On the 26 of November, he was invited by the Club Ignacio Agramonte, an organization founded by Cuban immigrants in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida, to a celebration to collect funding for the cause of Cuban independence. There he gave a lecture known as “Con Todos, y para el Bien de Todos”, which was reprinted in Spanish language newspapers and periodicals across the United States. The following night, another lecture, ” Los Pinos Nuevos”, was given by Martí in another Tampa gathering in honor of the medical students killed in Cuba in 1871. In November artist Herman Norman painted a portrait of José Martí.

On January 5, 1892, Martí participated in a reunion of the emigration representatives, in Cayo Hueso, the Cuban community of Key West where the Bases del Partido Revolucionario (Basis of the Cuban Revolutionary Party) was passed. He began the process of organizing the newly formed party. To raise support and collect funding for the independence movement, he visited tobacco factories, where he gave speeches to the workers and united them in the cause. In March 1892 the first edition of the Patria newspaper, related to the Cuban Revolutionary Party, was published, funded and directed by Martí. On April 8, he was chosen delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party by the Cayo Hueso Club in Tampa and New York. From July to September 1892 he traveled through Florida, Washington, Philadelphia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica on an organization mission among the exiled Cubans. On this mission, Martí made numerous speeches and visited various tobacco factories. On December 16 he was poisoned in Tampa.

In 1893, Marti traveled through the United States, Central America and the West Indies, visiting different Cuban clubs. His visits were received with a growing enthusiasm and raised badly needed funds for the revolutionary cause. On May 24 he met Rubén Darío, the Nicaraguan poet in a theatre act in Hardman Hall, New Mexico. On June 3 he had an interview with Máximo Gómez in Montecristi, Dominican Republic, where they planned the uprising. In July he met with General Antonio Maceo Grajales in San Jose, Costa Rica.

In 1894 he continued traveling for propagation and organizing the revolutionary movement. On January 27 he published ” A Cuba!” in the newspaper Patria where he denounced collusion between the Spanish and American interests. In July he visited the president of the Mexican Republic, Porfirio Díaz, and travelled to Veracruz. In August he prepared and arranged the armed expedition that would begin the Cuban revolution.

Return to Cuba 1895

January 12, 1895, the North American authorities stopped the steamship Lagonda and two other suspicious ships, Amadis, and Baracoa at the Fernandina port in Florida, confiscating weapons and ruining Plan de Fernandina (Fernandina Plan). On January 29, Martí drew up the order of the uprising, signing it with general Jose Maria Rodriguez and Enrique Collazo. Juan Gualberto Gómez was assigned to orchestrate war preparations for La Habana Province, and was able to work right under the noses of the relatively unconcerned Spanish authorities. Martí decided to move to Montecristi, Dominican Republic to join Máximo Gómez and to plan out the uprising.

The uprising finally took place on February 24, 1895. A month later, Martí and Máximo Gómez declared the Manifesto de Montecristi, an “exposition of the purposes and principles of the Cuban revolution”. Martí had persuaded Gómez to lead an expedition into Cuba.

Before leaving for Cuba, Martí wrote his “literary will” on April 1, 1895, leaving his personal papers and manuscripts to Gonzalo de Quesada, with instructions for editing. Knowing that the majority of his writing in newspapers in Honduras, Uruguay, and Chile would disappear over time, Martí instructed Quesada to arrange his papers in volumes. The volumes were to be arranged in the following way: volumes one and two, North Americas; volume three, Hispanic Americas; volume four, North American Scenes; volume five, Books about the Americas (this included both North and South America); volume six, Literature, education and painting. Another volume included his poetry.

The expedition, composed of Martí, Gómez, Ángel Guerra, Francisco Borreo, Cesar Salas and Marcos del Rosario, left Montecristi for Cuba on April 1, 1895. Despite delays and desertion by some members, they got to Cuba. They landed at Playitas, near Maisi Cape, Cuba, on April 11. Once there, they made contact with the Cuban rebels, who were headed by the Maceo brothers, and started fighting against Spanish troops. The revolt did not go as planned, “mainly because the call to revolution received no immediate, spontaneous support from the masses.” By May 13, the expedition reached Dos Rios. On May 19, Gomez faced Ximenez de Sandoval’s troops and ordered Martí to stay rearguard, but Martí separated from the bulk of the Cuban forces, and entered the Spanish line.

Death

José Martí was killed in battle against Spanish troops at the Battle of Dos Ríos, near the confluence of the rivers Contramaestre and Cauto, on May 19, 1895. Gómez had recognized that the Spaniards had a strong position between palm trees, so he ordered his men to disengage. Martí was alone and seeing a young courier ride by he said: “Joven, a la carga!” meaning: “Young men, charge!” This was around midday, and he was, as always, dressed in a black jacket, riding a white horse, which made him an easy target for the Spanish. The young trooper, Angel de la Guardia, lost his horse and returned to report the loss. The Spanish took possession of the body, buried it close by, then exhumed the body upon realization of its identity. They are said not to have burned him because they were scared that the ashes would get into their throats and asphyxiate them. He is buried in Cementerio Santa Efigenia in Santiago de Cuba. Many have argued that Maceo and others had always spurned Martí for never participating in combat, which may have compelled Martí to that ill-fated suicidal two-man charge. Some of his Versos sencillos bore premonition: “No me entierren en lo oscuro/ A morir como un traidor/ Yo soy bueno y como bueno/ Moriré de cara al sol.” (“Do not bury me in darkness / to die like a traitor / I am good, and as a good man / I will die facing the sun.”)

The death of Marti was a blow to the “aspirations of the Cuban rebels, inside and outside of the island, but the fighting continued with alternating successes and failures until the entry of the United States into the war in 1898”.

Martí’s fundamental works published during his life
1869 January – Abdala
1869 January – “10 de octubre”
1871 – El presidio político en Cuba
1873 – La República Española ante la revolución cubana
1875 – Amor con amor se paga
1882 – Ismaelillo
1882 February – Ryan vs. Sullivan
1882 February – Un incendio
1882 July – El ajusticiamiento de Guiteau
1883 January – “Batallas de la Paz”
1883 March – ” Que son graneros humanos”
1883 March – Karl Marx ha muerto
1883 March –El Puente de Brooklyn
1883 September– “En Coney Island se vacía Nueva York”
1883 December –” Los políticos de oficio”*1883 December –”Bufalo Bil”
1884 April –”Los caminadores”
1884 November – Norteamericanos
1884 November –El juego de pelota de pies
1885 – Amistad funesta
1885 January –Teatro en Nueva York
1885 March – “Una gran rosa de bronce encendida”
1885 March –Los fundadores de la constitución
1885 June – “Somos pueblo original”
1885 August – “Los políticos tiene sus púgiles”
1886 May – Las revueltas anarquistas de Chicago
1886 September – ” La ensenanza”
1886 October – “La Estatua de la Libertad”
1887 April – El poeta Walt Whitman
1887 April – El Madison Square
1887 November – Ejecución de los dirigentes anarquistas de Chicago
1887 November – La gran nevada
1888 May – El ferrocarril elevado
1888 August – Verano en Nueva York
1888 November – ” Ojos abiertos , y gargantas secas”
1888 November – “Amanece y ya es fragor”
1889 – ‘La edad de oro’
1889 May – El centenario de George Washington
1889 July – Bañistas
1889 August – “Nube Roja”
1889 September – “La caza de negros”
1890 November– ” El jardín de las orquídeas”
1891 October –Versos Sencillos
1891 January – “Nuestra América”
1894 January – ” ¡A Cuba!”
1895 –Manifiesto de Montecristi- coauthor con Máximo Gómez
Martí’s major posthumous works
Adúltera
Versos libres

Wiki/InternetPhoto/www.TheCubanHistory.com
The Cuban History, HOLLYWOOD.
Arnoldo Varona, Editor.