José Julián Martí Pérez

José Julián Martí Pérez was born on Paula Street No. 41, Havana. In 1866 he enrolled in the Institute of Secondary Education of Havana. He also entered the class of Elementary Drawing at the Professional School of Painting and Sculpture of Havana, better known as San Alejandro.

On October 4, 1869, as a squadron of the First Battalion of Volunteers passed by Industrias Street No. 122, where the Valdés Domínguez family lived, laughter was heard coming from the house and the volunteers took this as a provocation. They returned at night and subjected the house to a thorough search. Among the correspondence they found a letter addressed to Carlos de Castro y Castro, a schoolmate who, for having enlisted as a volunteer in the Spanish army to fight the independence fighters, they branded an apostate.

For this reason, on October 21, 1869 Martí entered the National Prison accused of infidelity for writing that letter, along with his dear friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez. On March 4, 1870, Martí was sentenced to six years in prison, a sentence later commuted to exile on the Isle of Pines, where he arrived on October 13. On December 18 he left for Havana and on January 15, 1871, through efforts made by his parents, he managed to be deported to Spain. There he began to pursue studies at the universities of Madrid and Zaragoza, where he graduated with degrees in Civil Law and in Philosophy and Letters.

From Spain he moved to Paris, for a brief time. He passed through New York and arrived in Veracruz on February 8, 1875, where he reunited with his family. In Mexico he established relations with Manuel Mercado and met Carmen Zayas Bazán, the Cuban woman who would become his wife.

From January 2 to February 24, 1877 he was incognito in Havana as Julián Pérez. Upon arriving in Guatemala he worked at the Central Normal School as a professor of Literature and History of Philosophy. He returned to Mexico to marry Carmen on December 20, 1877, returning to Guatemala in early 1878.

After the War of 1868 ended he returned to Cuba on August 31, 1878, to settle in Havana, and on November 22 José Francisco was born, his only son. He began his conspiratorial activities as one of the founders of the Cuban Revolutionary Central Club, of which he was elected vice president on March 18, 1879. Subsequently the Cuban Revolutionary Committee, based in New York under the presidency of Major General Calixto García, appointed him subdelegrate on the Island.

In the office of his friend Don Nicolás Azcárate he met Juan Gualberto Gómez. Between August 24 and 26, 1879 a new uprising took place in the vicinity of Santiago de Cuba. On September 17 Martí was arrested and deported again to Spain, on September 25, 1879, for his links to the Little War. Upon arriving in New York, he settled in the boarding house of Manuel Mantilla and his wife, Carmen Miyares.

Martí managed to bring his wife and son on March 3, 1880. They remained together until October 21, when Carmen and José Francisco returned to Cuba. A week later he was elected member of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee, of which he assumed the presidency when substituting for Calixto, who had departed for Cuba to join the Little War.

Between 1880 and 1890 Martí would achieve renown throughout the Americas through articles and chronicles he sent from New York to important newspapers: La Opinión Nacional, of Caracas; La Nación, of Buenos Aires and El Partido Liberal, of Mexico.

Subsequently he decided to seek better accommodation in Venezuela, where he arrived on January 20, 1881. He founded the Revista Venezolana, of which he was able to edit only two issues. After clashing with caudillism, he had to return to New York.

In mid-1882 he resumed the work of reorganizing the revolutionaries, communicating this to them through letters to Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo. On October 2, 1884 he met with both leaders for the first time and began to collaborate on the Gómez-Maceo Insurrectional Plan; subsequently he abandoned his efforts for disagreeing with the leadership methods employed.

On November 30, 1887 he founded an Executive Commission, of which he was elected president, in charge of directing the organizational activities of the revolutionaries. In January 1892 he drafted the Bases and Statutes of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. On April 8, 1892 he was elected Delegate of that organization, whose constitution was proclaimed two days later, on April 10, 1892. On March 14 he founded the newspaper Patria, official organ of the Party.

In the years 1893 and 1894 he traveled through various countries of the Americas and cities of the United States, uniting the principal leaders of the War of 1868 and gathering resources for the new conflict. From mid-1894 he accelerated preparations of the Fernandina Plan, with which he intended to promote a short war, without great wear and destruction for Cubans. On December 8, 1894 he drafted and signed, jointly with colonels Mayía Rodríguez (representing Máximo Gómez) and Enrique Collazo (representing the patriots of the Island), the plan for the uprising in Cuba. The Fernandina Plan was discovered and the ships with which it was to be executed were seized. Despite this major setback, Martí decided to continue with the plans for armed uprisings on the Island, which was supported by the principal leaders.

On January 29, 1895, together with Mayía and Collazo, he signed the order for the uprising and sent it to Juan Gualberto Gómez for its execution. He left immediately from New York to Montecristi, in the Dominican Republic, where Gómez was waiting for him, with whom he signed on March 25, 1895 a document known as the "Manifesto of Montecristi," program of the new war. Both leaders arrived in Cuba on April 11, 1895, at Playitas de Cajobabo, Baracoa.

Three days after the landing, they made contact with the forces of Commander Félix Ruenes. On April 15, 1895 the leaders gathered there under Gómez's direction agreed to confer upon Martí the rank of Major General for his merits and services rendered.

On April 28, 1895, in the camp of Vuelta Corta, in Guantánamo, together with Gómez he signed the circular "War Policy." He sent messages to the leaders indicating they should send a representative to an assembly of delegates to elect a government in a short time. On May 5, 1895 his meeting with Gómez and Maceo took place in La Mejorana, where the strategy to follow was discussed. On May 14, 1895 he signed the "Circular to the chiefs and officers of the Liberation Army," the last of the organizational documents of the war, which he prepared jointly with Máximo Gómez.

Following the march westward through the eastern province, they arrived at Dos Ríos, near Palma Soriano. On May 19, 1895 a Spanish column deployed in the area and the Cubans went to meet it. Martí marched between Gómez and Major General Bartolomé Masó. Upon arriving at the site of action, Gómez instructed him to stop and remain in the agreed location. However, in the course of the battle, he separated from the main body of Cuban forces, accompanied only by his aide Ángel de la Guardia. Martí rode, unknowingly, toward a group of Spaniards hidden in the brush and was struck by three shots that inflicted mortal wounds. When word of what had happened spread, it proved impossible to recover his body, which was taken by the Spanish and, after several burials, was finally laid to rest on the 27th, in niche number 134 of the south gallery of the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba.