Mariano de los Santos Martí Navarro

Father of José Martí. His handwriting, spelling, and fluency were optimal for his time and denote an education above average. Some historians have attributed to him the trades of tailor and ropemaker, inherited from his father. Son of Vicente Martí and his mother, Manuela Navarro.

He entered the Artillery Corps of his native city in the forties, and in 1850 he moved to La Habana with the rank of first sergeant, when the company he was part of was transferred to the capital of the colony.

He participated in the struggle against the expedition of Narciso López, in which he distinguished himself and was rewarded. Established in the capital, he married Leonor Pérez Cabrera on February 7, 1852. He held in Cuba the positions of artillery sergeant, neighborhood overseer, district captain, and ship inspector, although he suffered poverty from lack of employment during long periods.

He traveled with his family, for health reasons, to Spain (1857-1859) and to British Honduras, where he took his son with him (1863). While he was a local judge in Hanábana (April 1862 to January 1863), in the Ciénaga de Zapata, south of the current province of Matanzas, Don Mariano had his son by his side, who served him as a clerk. After his son was imprisoned, he resigned from the position he then held—neighborhood overseer of Cruz Verde, in Guanabacoa—and began making efforts on behalf of José, who was finally deported to Spain.

Don Mariano managed, despite the persecution that fell upon him and his family, to remain in La Habana until the prospect of reuniting with his son led him to undertake a trip to Mexico, together with his family, in June 1874.

They met there in January of the following year, although saddened by the death, days before, of Ana. Don Mariano had arrived in Mexico without money, having given everything for his son.

In that country he met Manuel Mercado, through whose intermediation he obtained a supply contract for the Mexican army, and he and his entire family made harnesses and knapsacks, which helped them emerge from hardship and allowed them to set up their own home and leave the upper floors of Mercado's house, who had taken them all in.

He resided temporarily in New York (1883-1884), where he was under the care of his son.

He died in La Habana on February 2, 1887, possibly in the house of his son-in-law José García Hernández, husband of his daughter Amelia.