José Julián Martí Pérez ( Havana , January 28 , 1853 – Dos Ríos , May 19 , 1895 ). National Hero of Cuba . He was a man of lofty principles, a Latin American and internationalist vocation; impeccable personal conduct, both public and private, and with human qualities that sometimes seem insurmountable. A Cuban of universal projection who surpassed the borders of the time in which he lived to become the greatest Hispanic-American political thinker of the 19th century .
Author of an essential work as a source of knowledge and reference for all generations of Cubans, the content, style and singular beauty of the poems, letters, newspaper articles, and all the writings and speeches he made place him as an intellectual of vast culture.
Biographical data
Childhood and adolescence
He was born on January 28, 1853 , at 41 Paula Street —today 314 Leonor Pérez Street—and was baptized 15 days later, on February 12 , in the Church of the Holy Guardian Angel in Havana .
He was the first-born of Mariano de los Santos Martí y Navarro ( 31 October 1815 – 2 February 1887 ) and Leonor Antonia de la Concepción Micaela Pérez y Cabrera ( 17 December 1828 – 19 June 1907 ), natives of Valencia and Santa Cruz de Tenerife , both in Spain. The sisters were Leonor Petrona (la Chata), ( 29 July 1854 – 9 July 1900 ) ; Mariana Matilde Salustiana (Ana), ( 8 June 1856 – 5 January 1875 ) ; María del Carmen (la Valenciana), ( 2 December 1857 – 14 June 1900 ) ; Maria del Pilar Eduarda (Pilar), ( January 13 , 1859 – November 11 , 1865 ); Rita Amelia (Amelia), ( January 10 , 1862 – November 16 , 1944 ); Antonia Bruna (Antonia), ( October 6 , 1864 – February 9 , 1900 ), and Dolores Eustaquia (Lolita), ( November 2 , 1865 – September 29 , 1870 ).
= José Martí began his primary education at a small neighborhood school. At the age of 7 he was a student at the San Anacleto school, run by Rafael Sixto Casado y Alayeto ; there he met Fermín Valdés Domínguez , who became another brother.
In 1862 he traveled with his father to the territorial district of Hanábana, jurisdiction of Colón or Nueva Bermeja , in the current province of Matanzas , where Don Mariano Martí had been named Captain Pedáneo Judge. In this place he learned about the horrors of slavery . He returned to the capital; in March 1865 he entered the Primary School for Boys (Prado 88), where Rafael María de Mendive resides , who will leave indelible marks on Martí, by the force of his example as a patriot, poet and teacher.
On September 17 , 1866 , José Martí, only 13 years old, was admitted —at Mendive’s request— to the Secondary Education Institute (Obispo No. 8). José Julián’s human sensitivity did not escape the delicate situation that the country was facing and that he saw reflected in his city. In his new home at Refugio Street No. 11, at the age of 14, he remembered a premonition that his father had made to him:
Because I would not be surprised if I were defending the freedoms of your land tomorrow. [1]
In March 1867 , the family moved to 53 Peñalver Street. While in his second year of high school, he received various awards and recognitions for his academic results. On September 15, he enrolled in the Professional School of Painting and Sculpture in Havana (62 Dragones Street, currently 308, between Rayo and San Nicolás), which he was forced to leave the following month. Months before the start of the independence struggle on October 10 , 1868 , the Martí Pérez family had decided to move to Marianao , until the end of November, when they moved again to San José Street between Gervasio and Escobar, but young José Julián continued to live in the same house as his teacher, which made it easier for him to attend classes daily, sharing Sundays with his family
First revolutionary letters
The war continues to gain strength, the Uprising of La Demajagua is followed by Las Clavellinas in Camagüey and the independentists of Las Villas. Mendive’s house allows him to learn about the development of events and he begins to express his total support for the conflict through his pen. This is how his sonnet ¡October 10! appears .
On January 19, 1869 , barely 90 days after the La Demajagua Uprising, taking advantage of the situation created by the so-called “Freedom of the Press” decreed by the then Captain General on the Island, Domingo Dulce Garay , he published together with his friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez , a small newspaper, with a small circulation, El Diablo Cojuelo, recognized as one of his first prose demonstrations against the colonial regime and in favor of independence. Four days later, in the first and only issue of his newspaper, La Patria Libre , Abdala appears :
Nubia won! I die happy: death matters little to me, because I managed to save her (…)
Oh, how sweet it is to die when one dies fighting boldly to defend one’s country!
Youth
In October 1869 , a new change of family address allowed the Martí – Pérez family to settle at 55 San Rafael Street . On the fourth of this same month, a squad of Volunteers passed in front of the house of Fermín Valdés Domínguez , at Industria 122, (corner of San Miguel ) and considered that the young men present there (among them were not Martí and Fermín) had made fun of them. At night a search was carried out in said house, seizing a letter signed by Martí and Fermín in which they branded the fellow student Carlos de Castro y de Castro as an apostate for enlisting in the Volunteer Corps and fighting against his country. For this reason, that night, Fermín and Eusebio Valdés Domínguez were arrested , and later Manuel Sellén , Atanasio Fortier and Santiago Balbín for offences against the Volunteer Corps of the Light Battalion, and on 21 October , José Martí, who was described as “a declared enemy of Spain” . They were all accused of treason. Days later, Fortier, Sellén and Balbín were released.
During the Court Martial to which they were subjected five months later ( March 4 , 1870 ), Martí bravely maintains the sole responsibility as author of the aforementioned letter, which Fermín defended as his own, arguing that the handwriting of both was very similar. By unanimous decision of the court, young José Julián is sentenced to six years of prison and forced labor; Fermín Valdés Domínguez to six months of major arrest in the Fortress of La Cabaña ; brother Eusebio and Atanasio Fortier to exile and the case of Sellén and Balbín is dismissed. Exactly one month later, on April 4, 1870 , it is recorded in the official documentation of the Havana Jail that he is transferred to the Departmental Prison to serve the sentence imposed. In his work El presidio política en Cuba Martí writes:
It was April 5, 1870. I had been seventeen for months. My country had torn me from my mother’s arms and appointed me a place at her banquet. I kissed her hands and wet them with the tears of my pride, and she departed, leaving me abandoned to myself. On the 5th she returned severely, put a chain around my foot, dressed me in strange clothes, cut off my hair, and held out a heart in my hand. I touched my chest and found it full; I touched my brain and found it firm; I opened my eyes and felt them proud, and I haughtily rejected the life that was given to me and that overflowed within me. My country held me in her arms and kissed me on the forehead and departed again, pointing out to me with one hand the space and with the other the quarries.
Already in the Departmental Prison he was assigned number 113 of the First Brigade of Blancos and was assigned to work in the San Lázaro Quarries . Today, in part of the area occupied by these quarries, the Fragua Martiana Museum and its Rincón Martiano are located . His parents, afflicted by the fate of their beloved son, began an incessant struggle to achieve his release. In August, after more than one hundred and twenty days of being subjected to the most merciless treatment by the jailers and the quarry brigades, his parents managed to have their son sent to the prison’s tobacco shop and then, finding himself ill, they transferred him to the La Cabaña fortress to be “…relegated to the Isla de Pinos ” (today the Isla de la Juventud) when his sentence was commuted by the Captain General on 5 September thanks to the efforts of his parents, who could find no other consolation to alleviate the suffering of their son, along with that of the entire family, and those of José María Sardá y Girondella, a Catalan who at the time owned the quarries. On 13 October 1870 , José Martí arrived on the small island as a deportee and subject to forced domicile. Sardá took the young convict under his protection and took him to his farm “El Abra” , near Nueva Gerona , where for the first time Martí would work as a teacher for the daughters of José María. At that time there were already about two hundred and eighty individuals serving sentences on the Isle of Pines , since this land had also been used for this purpose since 1806. On December 12 , in response to a new request from Leonor Pérez to the Captain General, he was granted permission to return to Havana with the aim of being deported to Spain . On the 18th of the last month of the year 1870 , he left Gerona for Havana and on the 21st his passport was issued for the trip on January 15, 1871 :
In two hours I will embark in exile for Spain . I have suffered a lot, but I am convinced that I have known how to suffer. And if I have had the strength to do so much and if I feel strong enough to be a true man, I owe it only to you and to you and only to you is all that I have that is good and loving.
Exile
The painful life of exile began with the denunciation on the very ship he was travelling on of the torture, abuse and crimes to which his fellow sufferers were subjected, pointing out as one of the most notorious responsible the Commander of the Prison, Lieutenant Colonel Mariano Gil Palacios, who was one of the passengers of this ship. Once in the Spanish capital he continued his revolutionary actions in favour of independence. His stay in Madrid allowed him to learn about the roots of the colonial system and the contempt of its rulers for the nascent Cuban people who sacrificed themselves in the redemptive jungle. He requested to enroll in the Faculty of Law of the Central University of Madrid as a student of private education. However, a year later, due to the state of his health due to the terrible conditions to which he was subjected in prison, he had to abandon his plans.
In mid- 1871 , Castillo and El Presidio Político en Cuba , two forceful denunciations of the inhumane conditions to which Cubans condemned by the colonial authorities were subjected, came to light in Madrid .
This last publication, published in Spain in 1871 , reveals an 18-year-old young man who was already emerging as a brilliant writer committed to the independence of his people from Spanish colonialism. A year later it was published in the Spanish capital, on November 27th !:
«(…) We love our brothers who died more every day, we do not wish peace for their remains, because they live in the sublime agitations of glory, we shed today one more tear in their memory, and we are inspired to mourn them in their energy and in their courage, cry with us all who feel! Suffer with us all who love! Prostrate yourselves on the ground, tremble with remorse, groan with fear all those who on that terrible day helped to kill!»
On February 11, 1873 , following the abdication of the king, the Senate and Congress formed a National Assembly and proclaimed the Spanish Republic . Four days later, he finished writing The Spanish Republic before the Cuban Revolution , which he sent to the members of the new government. In this document, he explicitly and with singular courage points out Cuba’s inalienable right to be independent by law of irrevocable will and historical necessity.
The firmness of the criteria, however, allows him to differentiate and clarify that the opposition and the fight is not against the Spanish or their people, but against the colonial system prevailing in Cuba .
Ill since mid- 1872 and after having been operated on twice for sarcocele , caused by his convict chain, he was forced to accept the selfless and timely help of his dear friend, Fermín Valdés Domínguez , who decided to take him to Zaragoza so that he could recover his health and complete his studies. He requested a transfer to the University of Zaragoza on 17 May 1873 with the right to take an examination, passing the first subjects eleven days later.
On June 25 and 27 , 1874 , he successfully completed the Bachelor of Arts exams at the Institute of Zaragoza. The accreditation title was denied to him for not paying the money corresponding to the rights charged for this document. Days later, on June 30 , he graduated with a degree in Civil and Canon Law .
On August 31 of the same year, he enrolled in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, taking all the subjects between the end of September and October. On October 24 of this year, he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy and Letters. Throughout this first stage as an adolescent, he did not waver for a single moment in his fight for his country.
After completing his studies at the end of 1874 , he traveled to Madrid and from there to Paris , from where he made the Le Havre – Southampton – Liverpool crossing at the end of December , and on January 2, 1875 , aboard the Celtic steamer, in third class, he began his return trip to his beloved continent. His final destination: Mexico , where his loved ones, whom he had not seen since January 1871 , were awaiting him .
Travels through America
The short but intense period between these years constitutes, without a doubt, a decisive period in the integral formation of José Martí’s Latin American thought . On February 8 , 1875 , he arrived in Veracruz , Mexico , aboard the steamer City of Mérida and two days later, he set out on a journey by rail to the capital of this country, which according to Martí himself (…) always had hearts of gold, and arms without thorns, where the foreigner takes refuge without fear. It was there that the reunion with his family took place, after an exile that had already exceeded four years. A painful news awaited the young José Julián; his sister Ana had died on January 5 , while the transatlantic Celtic was in progress, on which he had embarked from Liverpool, bound for America .
It is Mexico that will enable him to learn from a very early age about the tragedy of the aborigines and awaken in him a sincere love and consideration for the indigenous people of the continent, whom he considers to have sufficient intelligence and capacity, judging by the development achieved in their previous civilizations, and without whom the true and integral progress of the great Latin American family cannot be conceived.
Until January 2, 1877 , when he lived in Mexico, he published interesting articles and translations in the Revista Universal using the pseudonyms Orestes and Anáhuac , where he expressed opinions on political events and the difficulties the country was going through, on topics related to art and literature and, in particular, in defense of the struggles for freedom in our American lands.
On December 19 , 1875 , the Teatro Principal premiered his proverb, Love is paid with love , to great acclaim . He participated in the founding of the Alarcón Society, along with prominent Mexican intellectuals, and the Hidalgo Society welcomed him as one of its members, institutions that brought together renowned writers, poets, critics, and journalists.
He collaborated with the newspaper El Socialista, the organ of the Gran Círculo Obrero de México , a liberal and reformist organization. On June 4, 1876 , the Esperanza de Empleados del Distrito Federal society appointed him delegate to the Workers’ Congress recently inaugurated in the capital.
The Aztec land has unforgettable encounters in store for the young Martí. As soon as he arrives, Juan de Dios Peza introduces him to Rosario de la Peña y Llerena, a woman whose personality and beauty captivate poets and writers who have turned the young woman’s home into a must-see place. José Julián does not escape her charms:
At the end of 1875 another young woman knocks on the doors of a heart in search of love: Carmen Zayas-Bazán e Hidalgo ; a beautiful woman from Camagüey who would become his wife on December 20, 1877 , after getting married in the Metropolitan Cathedral , as recorded in the marriage certificate [2] , after having complied with the religious formalities. Years later, his son José Francisco was born .
| Marriage Certificate Technical Sheet |
| Historical Archive of the Archdiocese of Mexico
Marriage certificate of José Martí, founder of the Cuban Revolutionary Party , microfilm 248, box 35, AHAM 141 Mr. José Martí y Pérez and Ms. Carmen Zayas y Bazan. Recorded on the following page 87 under item number 158 [in the margin]. In the city of Mexico on the twentieth day of December of one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, I, the bachelor Don José C. García Marín, being in the vestry of this parish at 6:30 in the morning, attended the celebration of the marriage that by words of this present made legitimate and true Don José Martí y Pérez and Miss Carmen Zayas y Bazan in the presence of the godparents and witnesses who sign this document. [Signature] Carmen Zayas Bazan [Signature] As a godfather As a godmother Francisco Zayas Bazan [Signature] Rosa Zayas de Guzman [Signature] As a witness As a witness MA Mercado [Signature] Manuel Ocaranza [Signature] |
The game of science finds in him a passionate participant. On October 24, 1876 , the specialized chess magazine , La Estrategia Mexicana, broadcast and commented on the game he lost to the child Andrés Leudovico Viesca, who at just seven years old keeps the lovers of this sport in suspense .
Faced with the fall of the legitimate government of Mexico and the presence of General Porfirio Díaz who has already entered the capital with his troops, Martí denounces in El Federalista this armed assault on the established power and is forced to abandon such a beloved land.
Now, under the pseudonym of Julián Pérez, made up of his middle name and surname, and at the risk of exposing himself to the highest penalty for violating his status as a political exile, he left Veracruz for Havana, where he arrived on January 6 , 1877 , with the purpose of seeking minimum subsistence conditions for his family. After a short stay in the country, he returned to Mexico on February 24 , to head to Guatemala , where he arrived in early April with letters of recommendation provided to him by José Mariano Domínguez , father of his friend Fermín.
A few days after arriving in the land of the quetzal, the Cuban patriot José María Izaguirre welcomed him as a member of the faculty of the Normal School in charge of literature courses and composition exercises.
In May 1877 he was appointed professor of French , English, Italian and German Literature and History of Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the National University and later taught free composition classes at the Central American Girls’ Academy .
Among the students is Miss María García Granados , daughter of General Miguel García Granados , to whom he would dedicate sixteen years later, one of the most beautiful love poems that would become known worldwide as: The Girl from Guatemala .
Martí had an intense political and intellectual life. Due to his growing prestige as a man of letters, the Guatemalan government asked him to analyse one of the most important legal documents, which led to the publication of his article: Los Códigos Nuevos (The New Codes), in which he bravely defends the differences of opinion with the original document and later, also through a request, the Indian drama Patria y Libertad (Homeland and Liberty), in which he denounces the prevailing situation in the countries of South America and his unwavering decision to fight for independence.
The unknown and delicate situation he saw in Latin America awakened in him the need for the world to know about its history, traditions and customs and thus the magazine Guatemala was born, which was published in February 1878 by the Mexican newspaper El Siglo XIX . With the purpose of marrying Miss Carmen Zayas-Bazán e Hidalgo , daughter of the Cuban lawyer Francisco Zayas Bazán and Mrs. Isabel Hidalgo, he traveled to Mexico and on December 20, 1877 he married. Days later he embarked on an eventful honeymoon headed for Guatemala. In April 1878 his resignation from classes at the Normal School was accepted, presented as a protest against the unjust deposition of the director José María Izaguirre .
On May 10 , 1878 , the ringing of bells announced news that shook all of Guatemala and deeply touched José Martí’s heart: the young María García Granados had died and her physical disappearance had plunged the people into painful mourning. Shortly after, another unfortunate and unexpected piece of news moved the young Martí, who could find no reason to justify the information and the content of what had been agreed upon at Zanjón . His patriotic intuition prevented him from accepting that the Cubans had grown tired of fighting for independence, and faced with the dilemma of having to leave Guatemala because of the internal situation that had been created around him; moving to another country with Carmen to restart his life and the events that had ruined the independence of his country, he decided to go to Cuba to personally verify the scope of what had happened.
On July 6 he writes to Manuel Mercado :
(…) Should I tell you how much proud purpose, how much powerful impulse boils in my soul? That I carry my unhappy people in my head, and that it seems to me that one day their freedom will depend on a breath of mine? (…) I am not going to be a childish martyr; -to work for my people, and to fortify myself for the fight. –The most impatient will beat me, not the most ardent. –And he will beat me in time: not in strength and courage.
Between the end of July and August he heads to Honduras to board the steamer Nuevo Barcelona that will take him to his beloved and endearing homeland.
Once on Cuban soil, he continued to be a victim of the colonial power, which prevented him from practicing law because he did not have the degree that accredits him as a graduate in Civil and Canon Law, despite the fact that he had presented to the competent authorities the certification of studies completed in the metropolis. The law offices of Nicolás Azcárate (San Ignacio No. 55) and later that of Miguel F. Viondi (Empedrado No. 2, corner of Mercaderes) welcomed him as an intern and allowed him to carry out work related to the specialty. In the latter he found the appropriate space to carry out his conspiratorial work alongside Juan Gualberto Gómez .
On November 22, 1878 , his son José Francisco was born , whom he would affectionately call Pepe, and to whom he dedicated his first book of verses in 1881 : Ismaelillo . The Literature Section of the Liceo de Guanabacoa elected him secretary on January 15, 1879 , where he carried out incessant political work, as well as at the Liceo Artístico y Literario de Regla , where he was admitted fifteen days later.
Among the many political and cultural activities in which he participated, the speeches given at the banquet he offered to his friends Manuel Márquez Sterling in the upper floors of the Café El Louvre in rejection of the Autonomist positions stand out ; the tribute to the poet Alfredo Torroella and the violinist Rafael Díaz Albertini
I do not want to remember what I have heard and what I never imagined would be said in front of me, the representative of the Spanish Government: I am going to think that Martí is crazy (…) but a dangerous crazy person.
On September 17, he was arrested at his home (Amistad No. 42 between Neptuno and Concordia). He was accused of conspiring with Juan Gualberto Gómez and other pro-independence fighters; the Spanish government tried to pressure him to testify in favor of Spain .
Martí is not a marketable breed!
His second deportation from Cuba then took place. On May 21, 1892 , in the Patria newspaper , he published a posthumous tribute to the lawyer Francisco Agramonte and, recalling those days, he recalled:
Havana filled the prison of the foresighted Cuban, showed him all its brave soul, offered him its rich purse, which the prisoner did not want to accept, broke the glasses in silence when saying goodbye to the prisoner (…) and when a Havana prisoner disembarked, in that time of peace, in the Santander prison, he found a quarter of the prison full of wounded, sick, consumptive, feverish, miserable, uneducated Cubans who had just been arrested in Cuba, and sent on foot to Ceuta, in the very months of the Zanjón settlement! [3]
The next day, the Minister of Overseas Affairs issued orders for the young Cuban to be sent to the prison located in the African colony of Ceuta , which did not materialize when he was granted bail and then the order was annulled by the government itself. After evading Spanish surveillance, he managed to escape to France from where he would travel to the United States .
Organizer of the Necessary War
Stay in New York
On January 3, 1880 , close to turning twenty-seven years old, José Martí arrived in New York . From his arrival he established relationships with important personalities and patriots who would prove decisive in achieving his desired goals. On the 9th of the same month, by unanimous agreement of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee based in this city, he was named a member of this outstanding patriotic organization.
She finds shelter, understanding, collaboration and protection in the house of Manuel Mantilla and Carmen Miyares . The home of this Cuban family, fully identified with the struggles for our independence, will be the ideal environment to quietly develop the redemptive work.
An intense campaign of propaganda and unity of the revolutionary forces abroad begins. The young Martí is invited to address his patriotic emigrants. On January 24, 1880 , he gives his first speech at Steck Hall. His profound assessment of what happened in the previous conflict and his emotional words announcing a new revolutionary stage, touch the hearts of those who have not accepted peace without independence:
Great rights are not bought with tears, but with blood. The stones of the Morro are strong enough for us to melt them with laments, and weak enough to resist our bullets for a long time. What a gloomy future for our land if we abandon the brave fighters to their efforts, and do not gather to help, with the same speed and courage with which they gather to fight! (…) Move and be content, illustrious dead! Before giving up on the effort to make the country free and prosperous, the South Sea will join the North Sea, and a serpent will be born from an eagle’s egg.
Various media outlets begin to echo the postulates and ideas that the newcomer champions. His magnetism and personal charisma quickly capture the hearts of veteran fighters and newcomers. His talent and beautiful prose make him a journalist to whom important media outlets offer their pages and request his collaboration.
On March 26, 1880 , when General Calixto García ‘s expedition left for Cuba, Martí assumed the high responsibility of leading the Cuban Revolutionary Committee as interim president, a function he performed until June 16, when José Francisco Lamadriz assumed said responsibility .
After a little more than six months apart, on March 3, he was reunited with his wife and José Francisco in New York , with whom he shared his personal life for seven months. Carmen decided to return to Havana . His dedication to the cause of the Revolution prevented Martí from devoting the time to his family that his wife demanded, and she was unable to understand his devotion to the freedom of his people and the duty and mission that Pepe, as she affectionately called him, had assumed in the history of the country. Thus, on October 21, 1880 , they both returned to Cuba .
On November 28 of that same year, María Mantilla was born , daughter of Manuel Mantilla and Carmen Miyares, a child who would become over the years the idolized child of Martí, whose portrait the Maestro would carry on his chest in the fields of free Cuba , like a protective shield against bullets.
Stay in Venezuela
The year 1881 begins for Martí with the decision to try his luck in Venezuela . On January 21 he is already in Caracas , the Jerusalem of the Americans, as he called it, and at dusk
(…) without shaking off the dust from the road, he did not ask where to eat or sleep, but how to get to where the statue of Bolívar was (…)
Cartoon made by Martí
He taught French Grammar and Literature at the Santa María school, directed by Agustín Aveledo, and later became a professor of literature at the Villegas School, where he established the oratory chair. He collaborated with the newspaper La Opinión Nacional in Caracas, using the pseudonym M. de Z. in his first works. Later he founded the Revista Venezolana, whose first and only volume was published on July 1, 1881 with its thirty-two pages written by José Martí. In this magazine he sets forth ideas that constitute a manifestation of literary renewal in Latin America. Since his arrival in the land of the Liberator , he has managed to establish a friendship with the Venezuelan Cecilio Acosta , about the death of this illustrious Venezuelan he states:
A just man has died: Cecilio Acosta has died. To mourn him would be an understatement. To study his virtues and to imitate them is the only pleasing homage to great natures and worthy of them. He worked to make men; it will give him joy to be one. What a grief to see such a great worker die, in the thick of the task!
His hands, made to handle time, were capable of creating it. For him the Universe was his home; his country his dwelling; History, his mother; and men his brothers(…) [4]
The anger of the general president explodes. Faced with the Cuban’s firmness of principles and praise for his personal enemy, on July 27 , he orders him directly through his aide-de-camp to abandon the homeland of Simon Bolivar.
(…) energetic ideals and fervent dedications are not diminished in a sincere spirit by the setbacks of life. I am a son of America: I owe myself to her. And of America, to whose revelation, shaking and urgent foundation I dedicate myself, this is the cradle; there is no bitter cup for sweet lips; nor does the viper bite in manly breasts; nor do faithful sons deny their cradle. Give me Venezuela in which to serve her: she has a son in me. [5
Return to New York
He arrived in New York on August 10, 1881 on board the steamship Claudius with a fully defined central objective: to organize the so-called Necessary War . During these long and momentous years of his life, his figure reached a dimension that surpassed the borders of the American continent. His brilliant talents as a journalist, writer, poet, diplomat, teacher and sociologist stood out in all their splendor. Nothing escaped his pen in the development of North American society and no one succeeded like him in glimpsing the hidden consequences of the excessive exploitation of monopolies, the impetuous and excessive accumulation of wealth in capitalist hands and the critical situation of misery and abandonment in which the American Indian and worker found themselves submerged.
He describes with beautiful nuances the merits and achievements of this industrialized country, the lives of its illustrious men and the successes and failures of its internal and external policy. With a realistic sense, he warns about the dangers that selfishness and violence are creating in a society that brings within itself a nascent and thriving empire.
A few days after his arrival, he began collaborating with La Opinión Nacional, in Caracas; a year later with La Nación, in Buenos Aires , and later with La América, in New York , El Partido Liberal in Mexico, and La República in Honduras .
His tireless revolutionary work proved to be unceasing. In mid- 1882 he asked Generals Gómez and Maceo for their opinions on the revolutionary work he had undertaken.
His work as a diplomat began in May 1884 , when he assumed the role of interim consul of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay in the absence of Enrique Estrázulas , a position he was forced to resign months later to prevent Spain from accusing this sister country of supporting its conspiratorial work for Cuban independence. Of special significance and transcendence were the interviews held in New York with Generals Gómez and Antonio Maceo , who defended an independence project to which the Teacher had joined. In his letter to Máximo Gómez dated October 20 , 1884 , after deep meditation, he communicated his decision to abandon this cause and spoke out against the start of an improvised revolutionary war, without adequate preparation of its objectives and a previous and sincere public declaration of the principles that animate the heroic servants who called it. He explains to the dear General the reasons and convenience of giving up this purpose that would have been doomed to failure from the beginning.
I had a pride in my father that grew every time I thought of him, because no one lived in more vile times, nor did anyone, despite his apparent simplicity, emerge purer in thought and deed than them.
Never, José, did he protest against this austere life of mine that deprived his of the comfort of old age!
Due to his outstanding qualities that already distinguished him among the most distinguished public servants of the continent, on April 16, 1887 , he was named Consul General of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay in New York. A deep joy ran through his body when at the end of November of that year his mother held him in her arms upon arriving in New York and received from her hands the ring with the word CUBA printed in large letters, commissioned by him from his friend Agustín de Zéndegui and made with a link from the shackle he had worn in prison.
On March 16, 1889 , The Manufacturer of Philadelphia published the article Do we want Cuba? in which it openly and maliciously insulted and offended Cuba. Days later, The Evening Post echoed the aforementioned insult. The dignity of the Cuban people having been offended, the swift and forceful response of the one who carries within himself the decorum of many men was not long in coming. Vindication of Cuba would constitute an exemplary riposte that was published in this last New York newspaper on March 25 , 1889 :
e Cubans are not that people of miserable vagabonds or immoral pygmies that The Manufacturer likes to describe; nor the country of verbose useless people, incapable of action, enemies of hard work, that, along with the other peoples of Spanish America, proud travelers and writers usually paint. We have suffered impatiently under tyranny; we have fought like men, and sometimes like giants, to be free; we are passing through that period of turbulent rest, full of germs of revolt, which naturally follows a period of excessive and unfortunate action; we have to fight like the defeated against an oppressor who deprives us of the means of living, and who favors, in the beautiful capital that the foreigner visits, in the interior of the country, where the prey escapes from his grasp, the empire of corruption such that it poisons in our blood the forces necessary to conquer freedom. We deserve, at the hour of our misfortune, the respect of those who did not help us when we wanted to shake him off.
Cover of the Golden Age Magazine
The months of July, August, September and October 1889 will witness the limited circulation of a unique magazine, La Edad de Oro , edited by A. Da Costa Gómez, a friend of the Maestro. Full of tenderness and love for children and of great formative value for the new Latin American generations, a magazine designed to:
(…) to converse once a month, like good friends, with the gentlemen of tomorrow, and with the mothers of tomorrow; to tell the girls pretty stories with which to entertain their visitors and play with their dolls; and to tell the boys what they must know to be true men.
An entertaining and interesting publication that allows children to grow up with a culture useful for life and for the country, from the episodes narrated in Homer ‘s Iliad , and other stories that are part of the national culture:
(…) Some of us have been driven here by the storm; others by legend; others by commerce; others by the determination to write, in a land that is not yet free, the last stanza of the poem of 1810 ; others are ordered to live here, as their pleasant empire, by two blue eyes. But as great as this land may be, where Lincoln was born, for us, in the secret of our hearts, without anyone daring to criticize us or hold it against us, it is greater, because it is ours and because it has been more unhappy, the America where Juárez was born.
On July 24, 1890 , he was appointed Consul of the Argentine Republic in New York and six days later of Paraguay in the same city. On December 23, the government of Uruguay appointed him its representative in the International Monetary Commission . He would represent these countries with dignity until October of the following year, when he resigned, in order to be able to devote himself entirely to the tasks of independence and not to compromise these sister nations in this endeavor.
The year 1891 begins with the publication of the essay Our America , in the New York Illustrated Magazine , which, due to its profound Latin American content and beautiful prose, was republished by the newspaper El Partido Liberal, of Mexico, thirty days later.
In April, his wife Carmen Zayas-Bazán and his son José Francisco, who is about to turn thirteen, arrive in New York. Four months later, in a surprising and unusual manner and in close relationship with Enrique Trujillo , he requests, through him, that the Spanish Consulate in that city issue their passports as quickly as possible to Havana. The news, the hidden way the events were carried out and the disloyal service of the journalist and owner of El Porvenir, move the Maestro, who will never see them again and withdraws his friendship from his unworthy companion.
In August, the Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses) were published , which came from his anguished soul in the Catskill Mountains in August of the previous year, when the doctor told him to rest to recover his seriously affected health, but he only thought about the freedom of his country. The results of a sustained propaganda work and in favor of the unity of the Cubans have made it possible to intensify all the work of revolutionary organization for the creation of the party. He gives various and important speeches among which the one offered at the Cuban Lyceum of Tampa on November 26, 1891 stands out , in which he calls on all his compatriots to put:
(…) around the star, on the new flag, this formula of triumphant love: With all, and for the good of all, one of whose stated principles is today part of our Constitution (…) I want the first law of our republic to be the cult of Cubans to the full dignity of man.
A message of encouragement and a call for unity for all compatriots living in exile is the speech known as Los Pinos Nuevos , which he gave a day later in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the execution of the eight medical students :
Suddenly the sun broke over a clearing in the forest, and there, in the flash of the sudden light, I saw rising above the yellow grass, around the black trunks of the fallen pines, the joyful clusters of new pines: That’s what we are: new pines!
The next day, the emigrants bid him farewell in an emotional rally, in which they publicly announced the Resolutions agreed upon with him by the revolutionaries of Tampa , considered the foundations of the Cuban Revolutionary Party .
The dawn of 1892 heralds the advent of important historical moments for the revolutionary process. Only five days into the year, in an assembly of representatives of the emigration in Cayo Hueso, the secret Bases and Statutes of the Cuban Revolutionary Party are approved.
On March 14, the first issue of Periódico Patria , the mouthpiece of the emigration, appears with the purpose of intensifying the propaganda campaign in favor of independence. On the birth of the newspaper he writes:
In times of danger, to watch over freedom, to contribute to making its forces invincible through unity, and to prevent the enemy from defeating us again through our disorder.
On April 8, when the elections to form the top leadership of the Cuban Revolutionary Party took place, José Martí was elected Delegate; Benjamín Guerra , Treasurer and Gonzalo de Quesada y Aróstegui was appointed Secretary. Two days later, as a tribute to the twenty-third anniversary of the Constituent Assembly of Guáimaro, this political organization was proclaimed to the world. Its bases express the Party’s essential objective as: To prepare and order the war for the independence of Cuba and to promote and assist that of Puerto Rico and in its Statutes the structure and procedures that govern it, defining the Clubs as grassroots groups of the members of the Council Bodies as an organ that groups the Presidents of the Clubs of each locality. Martí’s pen describes the importance of the PRC:
It is beautiful, when the greatest danger of the country lies in the harsh and isolated treatment of its inhabitants, to see the birth of a revolutionary party on the very day that it proclaimed the democratic constitution of the republic!
On April 10, 1892 , the constitution of the Cuban Revolutionary Party was proclaimed. Its ideological projection, enriched by fourteen years of life in the belly of the monster, allowed it to show us how:
The disdain of the formidable neighbor, who does not know it, is the greatest danger for our America, against which we must march in a tight squad, like silver in the roots of the Andes.
His revolutionary pilgrimage did not stop. On September 15, General Gomez accepted the position of supreme commander of the armed wing of the revolution. His political work was important and decisive in all the corners where Cuban hearts were harbored; he was forced to make multiple and constant trips within the American Union and to the countries of the region to achieve the unity of thought and action essential for victory.
On December 25 , 1894 , the details for the imminent start of the war were completed. The Plan of Fernandina, known today as the Plan of Fernandina , had been carefully prepared and consisted of taking three armed expeditions to the island on the steamships Amadís, Lagonda, and Baracoa. A costly indiscretion by Colonel López Queralta, betraying the extreme trust placed in him by Martí, aborted this project and put the North American authorities on notice, seizing the ships and the weapons acquired thanks to the voluntary contribution of all the workers and patriots of the emigration. These actions by the United States were part of its political strategy to hinder all expeditions to support the patriotic forces on the Island and to support Spain, a friendly power with which it maintained close relations.
A devastating blow had been dealt to the Martí project. The Apostle was not discouraged by such an infamous setback to the Revolution that was struggling to be born, he did not allow defeatism to take hold of the patriots of Cuba and those in exile. It was necessary to avoid at all costs that they might feel defrauded by the top organizers of the coming conflict and that the revolutionary spirit and the unity achieved might be harmed. Recovered from adversity, he conveyed to Juan Gualberto Gómez his unwavering decision:
Immediately, in a different direction, the work that a man’s cowardice has killed.
Only 17 days had passed since the aborted Plan of Fernandina, and a strong and accurate decision was essential on the direction that events should take. On January 29, 1895 , the Delegate signed, together with General José María (Mayía) Rodríguez, with the express authority and power of the General in Chief and Commander Enrique Collazo , who attested to the conformity of the patriots of the Island, the Order of Uprising, which he sent to Juan Gualberto Gómez , representative of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in Cuba.
On January 30, he left New York on the steamer Athos , bound for the Dominican Republic to meet with the Generalissimo, who was anxiously awaiting him to learn the details of what had happened at Fernandina. Once the instructions had been given and the representatives of the Revolution on the Island had authorized the uprising, they set Sunday, February 24 , 1895 , to restart hostilities against Spain. Martí received confirmation by cable from Havana with the agreed-upon words: “Drafts accepted ,” when he was already in Montecristi preparing to join the camps of free Cuba.
Necessary War
On March 25 , 1895 , he drafted and then signed with General Gómez, the Montecristi Manifesto , a political document of continental significance in which the objectives and purposes of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and the principles that inspire the new war against Spanish colonialism and for national independence are reiterated to the world , in which all elements of Cuban society are called to combat.
That same day, he writes to his close friend, Federico Enríquez y Carvajal , and tells him of his decision to give himself completely and participate directly in the conflict, with the same courage, dedication and effort with which he evoked and organized the war.
Monument to José Martí in Havana’s Revolution Square
On April 2, he was already on the island of Gran Inagua, coming from Montecristi , together with Generalissimo Máximo Gómez, Colonel Francisco Borrero, Brigadier Ángel Guerra , Lieutenant César Salas and the Dominican Marcos del Rosario , who arrived aboard the schooner Brothers, being forced days later to return to Cap Haitien when the captain of the schooner refused to comply with the agreement with Martí. On April 10 :
We left the Cape. – Dawn in Inagua. – We hoisted sails. 11.- boat. We left at 11. We passed (4) close to Maisí, and we saw the lamp. I was on the bridge. At 7 ½, darkness. Movement on board. Captain shaken. They lowered the boat. It rained heavily when we started. We headed badly. Various ideas and confusion in the boat. More showers. The rudder is lost. We set course. I use the test oar. Salas rows continuously. Paquito Barrero and the General help from the stern. We strap on our revolvers. Heading for the bay. The moon appears, red. Under a snow. We arrived at a pebble beach. La Playita (at the foot of Cajobabo). I stayed in the boat last, emptying it. We left. Great joy. We turned the boat around, and the jug of water. We drank Málaga. Up through stones, thorns and swamp. We heard, and prepared, near a gate. Going around a place. We arrived at a house. We slept nearby. On the ground.
The exhausting days begin. The old combatants, accustomed to climbing high mountains, to the calm, to the cold of the night, to the scorching sun, to the rain and to the dangers of war, are surprised by the firmness and resistance, without a single complaint, of the Delegate, not accustomed to these extremely difficult tasks.
(…) at nightfall, the people line up, and the General goes out to the ravine with Paquito, Guerra and Ruenes. “Will you allow us to be alone with the three of us? I resign myself, sullen. Is there any danger? Angel Guerra comes up, calling me, and Capt. Cardoso. Gómez, at the foot of the mountain, on the path shaded by plane trees, with the ravine below, tells me, beautifully and tenderly, that apart from recognizing in me the Del., the Liberation Army, its leader, elected by the council of leaders, names me Major General. I embrace him. They all embrace me.”
“The beautiful night does not let me sleep. The cricket whistles; the lizard quiquiqueas, and its chorus answers it; you can still see, through the shadows, that the mountain is of cupey and paguá, the short and thorny palm; the little souls fly slowly around; Among the strident noises, I hear the music of the forest, composed and soft, like the finest violins; the music waves, it intertwines and unties, it opens its wings and settles, it flickers and rises, always subtle and minimal. It is the gaze of the fluid sound: what wings brush the leaves? What tiny violin, and waves of violins, draw sound, and soul, from the leaves? What dance of souls of leaves?
He writes instructions, sends correspondence, harangues the troops who wholeheartedly acclaim him as president, writes the historic manifesto letter addressed to the New York Herald that he signs together with General Gómez. On May 5, together with General Gómez, he goes to meet General Antonio Maceo who has summoned them to the La Mejorana sugar mill.
“(…)I maintain, rudely: the Army is free, -and the country, as a country and with all its dignity represented. I show my discontent with such indiscreet and forced conversation, at an open table, in Maceo’s hurry to leave. Night is going to fall on Cuba, and he will walk for six hours. There, close by, are his forces: he will take us to see them.”
On the strategy of the war, the three great figures maintain an identical position, as well as in the decision to organize the invasion of the West. Maceo finally remains in command of the entire East and Gómez and Martí will continue towards Camagüey to extend the war towards the West. Days later, they arrive at Baraguá , the place of the honorable protest, and the development of the famous interview and the dignified and firm position of the Bronze Titan are remembered by a practical one . On May 9 , four days after La Mejorana , from Altagracia, Holguín :
(…) We are going to Masó, we are coming from Maceo. What an enthusiastic review of the 3000 men on foot and on horseback that I had at the gates of Santiago de Cuba! How upright on his beautiful horse the brave Rabbi! How full of triumphs and hopes Antonio Maceo. (…) They would have been touched by the excitement of Maceo’s Camp and the shining face with which the sons of Santiago de Cuba followed me from body to body.
May 17th :
Gómez leaves with 40 horses to harass the Bayamo convoy. I stay, writing with Garriga and Feria who copy the General Instructions to the Chiefs and Officers: -with me twelve men, under Lieutenant Chacón, with three guards, on the three roads (…)
Taking advantage of the fact that on May 18 General Gómez was still pursuing the Spanish troops that he had heard about and that they were moving in pursuit of him and the rest of his companions, Martí wrote the well-known letter to his friend Manuel Mercado , which would remain unfinished when the expected meeting with General Bartolomé Masó took place in the camp that same day.
Dos Ríos Camp , May 18 , 1895. Mr. Manuel Mercado:
My dearest brother: I can now write: I can now tell you with what tenderness and gratitude and respect I love you, and this house that is mine, and pride and obligation: I am now in danger every day of giving my life for my country, and for my duty –since I understand it and have the courage to carry it out– of preventing in time with the independence of Cuba the expansion of the United States throughout the Antilles and their fall, with that added force, on our lands of America. Everything I have done until today, and will do, is for that. It has had to be done in silence and as if indirectly, because there are things that in order to achieve them must be kept hidden, and if they were proclaimed for what they are, they would raise difficulties too strong to achieve the goal
Fallen in combat
It is Sunday, May 19 , 1895. Gómez heads toward the Vuelta Grande camp, where he already knows that his subordinate and valued friend, General Bartolomé Masó , is waiting for him, along with the Delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party [6] . At noon, the camp is filled with joy and optimism after hearing the emotional words that the three beloved leaders have pronounced before the troops.
Shortly after, the column led by the Spanish Colonel José Ximénez de Sandoval , composed of more than 600 soldiers, manages to intercept the peasant Carlos Chacón, who came from Mambí territory and had been sent in search of goods and food for the men of the Liberation Army . The soldier becomes cowardly and betrays the Cuban revolutionaries, and informs the Spanish chief of the presence of Gómez, Martí and Masó. The column continues its advance towards Las Bijas, in the pastures of Boca de Dos Ríos , where the enemy stops to rest, strategically deploying the men to defend themselves against a possible Mambí attack.
At the camp, a patrol warns of the presence of a strong enemy troop in the vicinity. Following Gómez’s orders, Masó, in command of three hundred horsemen, follows the General’s troop. Martí marches alongside the two experienced warriors.
As they approached the place, Gómez strongly ordered Martí to stay behind to protect him from enemy fire. The Spanish vanguard was surprised by Gómez’s first attack and was defeated, a situation that alerted the rest of the column, which responded with force to the new Mambi attack, forcing Gómez to retreat.
Martí, now separated from the main body of the troops, orders the young Ángel de la Guardia to march to the front and they make a movement that brings them close to a section of the Spanish column that is hiding in the undergrowth waiting for the mambi troops. When they notice the presence of only two combatants in the place, they open fire. The green lieutenant is knocked down when his horse is hit, while José Martí falls mortally wounded.
The enemy quickly realises that he has caused a significant loss to the insurgent troops, judging by the clothes he is wearing (dark jacket and light trousers, a black beaver-style felt hat, black boots, the cord of his mother-of-pearl revolver around his neck), his documents and the amount of money he is carrying. They seize the body and despite the efforts of Gómez’s troops, they find it impossible to rescue him.
The body was identified and tied to a horse and taken to Remanganagua . Ximénez de Sandoval informed his immediate superior in Santiago de Cuba of the results of the actions and, disdaining the body of the fallen hero, he had him buried without a coffin and half naked, in a grave dug in the ground. With part of the money stolen from their pockets, the soldiers bought tobacco and liquor to celebrate the feat.
Faced with such a terrible loss, Gómez sends his assistant, Second Lieutenant Ramón Garriga, to meet with the enemy leader, whose name and military rank he does not know, and to whom he sends a personal letter asking him to answer if Martí is a prisoner, wounded or dead, and where his remains are. The brave messenger is arrested but manages to escape certain death. That request was never answered.
The Spanish command did not want to run the risk of confirming a false report and immediately ordered the military doctor Pablo A. de Valencia to go to Remanganagua to exhume the body, identify it and prepare it for its transfer to Santiago de Cuba . On May 23, the exhumation was carried out and the remains were placed in a rough coffin [7] . Three shots hit his body [8] . One of them penetrated through the neck with an entry hole under the beard, in the lower jaw, on the right side, and exited above the upper jaw, on the left side, whose lip was shattered; the shot that was fatal penetrated through the front of the chest, at the level of the cuff of the sternum, which was fractured, and a third in the lower third of the right thigh and towards its lower part, as shown in the autopsy performed by Dr. Pablo Valencia days later.
When the Mambi troops learned of the Spanish plan, they prepared various ambushes along the way to try again to recover the Delegate’s body, without achieving any results.
Burials
Main article: Burials of José Martí .
Mausoleum of José Martí located in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba
On the morning of May 27, José Martí’s burial takes place in niche 134 of the south gallery of the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery , with his posthumous words spoken by Colonel Sandoval.
On February 24 , 1907, his remains were removed in a solemn ceremony and placed in a metal urn in niche 134, now converted into a small pantheon that would be known as the Templete, where they would rest until September 1947 , when they were taken to the Retablo de los Héroes (Altarpiece of the Heroes) until June 1951 , when they were buried to have their remains permanently deposited in the new mausoleum built in the same place in this same cemetery.
His fall in combat, facing the sun, against Spanish colonialism, represented an irreparable loss for the development of the war, but his doctrine became forever an inexhaustible source of revolutionary thought for Cubans and Latin Americans.
New York Writers Hall of Fame
In June 2018, he was named a new member of the New York Writers Hall of Fame , a project of the Empire State Book Center. The proposal for his inclusion was promoted by Esther Allen (b. 1962, American translator and essayist, scholar and translator of Martí), as well as by Ada Ferrer (b. 1962, Cuban-American historian, professor of History and Latin American Studies at New York University ). [9]
As of the date of his inclusion (2018), the Apostle is the second Hispanic writer to enter such an exclusive hall, after the Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos (1914-1953) did so in 2011. [10]
Major works
To see the list of works by José Martí, see the Appendix .
Literature
- José Martí. Complete Works. Critical edition, Volume I, from the Center for Martian Studies.
- The Complete Poems of José Martí. Critical edition, from the Center for Martí Studies.
- Martí, the Apostle, by Jorge Mañach.
- Basket of flames, by Luis Toledo Sande.
- Infinite Pain, by Raúl Rodríguez La
- Iconography of Martí, by Gonzalo de Quesada Miranda.
- José Martí, 1853-1895, Chronology, by Ibrahim Hidalgo
