Who was José Martí, and what was the Cuban War of Independence?

José Martí and the Cuban War of Independence

José Martí y la guerra de independencia de Cuba

24 February 1895–1898. José Martí, born in Havana in 1853 to poor Spanish immigrants, was sentenced to hard labour at sixteen for his writings against Spain, exiled, educated in…

Draft: not yet checked against its sources.

Where: The Spanish Caribbean, The whole Spanish-speaking world, Cuba, United States, Spain

What happened

José Martí, born in Havana in 1853 to poor Spanish immigrants, was sentenced to hard labour at sixteen for his writings against Spain, exiled, educated in Madrid and Zaragoza, and from 1881 lived mostly in New York, where he wrote for the newspapers of Buenos Aires and Caracas, published Versos sencillos (1891) and warned Latin America about the imperial appetite of the United States. In 1892 he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party among the cigar workers of Florida to organise a short war fought 'with republican method and spirit'. The war began with the Grito de Baire on 24 February 1895; Martí landed in April and was killed in a skirmish at Dos Ríos on 19 May, a few weeks later. The war ground on until the United States intervened in 1898. Cubans call Martí 'el Apóstol'.

Say it

José Martí murió en 1895 luchando por la independencia de Cuba.

José Martí died in 1895 fighting for Cuba's independence.

Why it matters

Martí is both Cuba's national hero and one of the founders of modern Spanish prose and poetry; his verses are sung in 'Guantanamera', and his essay Nuestra América named a Latin American identity set against the United States.

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Connected

Sources

  1. José Martí — The World of 1898 — Library of Congress
  2. Chronology — The World of 1898 — Library of Congress