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José Martí (1853-1895) |
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Cuban poet, essayist and journalist, who became the symbol of Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain and who promoted better understanding among American nations. "No man has any special right because he belongs to any specific race; just by saying the word man, we have already said all the rights." Much of his adult life José Martí spent in New York. His three major collections of poems were Ismaelillo (1882), Versos sencillos (1891), and Versos libres, written in the 1880s, but published posthumously in 1913. 'Sueño con claustros de mármol' (I dream of marble cloisters), Martí's most famous political poem, takes the reader into a dream world, where sculptures of dead heroes come alive: Sueño con claustros de mármol José Martí was born in Havana, the first son of Valencian
Mariano Martí Navarro, a sergeant in the Spanish
garrison, and Leonor Pérez y Cabrera. Mariano obtained a transfer to the colonial police force, and then
went from one job to another. As a young boy, Martí accompanied him on trips to
the countryside and to the villages surrounding Havana. Until he became a political activist, Martí had a close relationship with his father. During one of
the trips, Martí allegedly saw how a slave ship unloaded men, women and children on
a shore, and a dead slave was hanging from a tree. Later he wrote
about his early sight of brutality in Versos sencillos
(Simple Verses): "A child saw this and shuddered / with passion for
those who groan; he stood below the corpse and swore / to wash the
crime away with his life." (Selected Writings, edited and translated by Esther Allen, New York: Penguin Books, 2002, p. 281) Both of his parents had chosen to live silently under the
colonial rule. Martí's
mother was born in the Canary Islands; she
always wanted to protect her son and was alarmed when she saw him
reading radical writers. The educational reformer
Rafael María Mendive (1821-1886) persuaded Martí's father to allow him
to study at secondary school. Expressing a profound gratitude to
his teacher, Martí once said that owing to Mendive he had joy and love
in his life. From 1866 to 1869, Martí attended the Instituto de Havana. Secretly he worked on the underground papers El Diablo Cojuelo, published in the form of a flyer, and La Patria Libre (The Free Homeland). Abdala (1869), a patriotic fable in verse form which he published in La Patria Libre,
told about a prince from the imaginary land of Nuvia, who dies for his
beliefs. At the age of sixteen, Martí was arrested for subversion and
sentenced to six years' hard labor in a chain gang, but through the
intervention of his father, his sentence was commuted, and he was sent to the
Isla de la Juventud (or Isle of Youth), then known as the Isla de
Pinos (Isle of Pines). Due to an injury caused by a blow from a chain, he suffered from chronic pain in his right testicle. Later, in 1871, he was exiled to
Spain, where he continued his political activism. At the University of
Madrid, he studied law (a favorite subject of revolutionaries from Robespierre, Marx
and Lenin to Mahatma Gandhi and Castro), and moved to the
University of Saragosa, receiving a degree in law in 1873, and a year
later a degree in philosophy and letters. In Spain he published El presidio de Cuba (1871). Most of his adult life Martí lived in the North, operating in the
United States to overthrow the Spaniards from Cuba. Throughout his
vagabond existence, Martí felt that he lived only for his country.
Between 1874 and
his death, he went to Cuba three times, once under a false
name. Martí moved in 1875 to
Mexico, where he wrote for Revista Universal. In a poem from the same year Martí mentioned his use of hashish: "El Hashish es
la planta misteriosa, fantástica poetisa de la tierra / Sabe las
sombras de una noche hermosa / Y canta y pinta cuanto en elle
encierra." ('José Martí: "Se aspira, aroma, narcotiza, y canta"' by Alberto Méndez Castelló, enero 29, 2018, Cubanet, https://www.cubanet.org. Accessed 1 July 2025) After his stint in Mexico, Martí taught
literature and philosophy at the University of Guatemala and then returned
to Cuba. He worked in a law office, but in 1879 he was again deported
to Spain. Because of his political status and opinions, Martí was unwelcome to many
countries. In January 1880 he moved to New York City, where he worked
as an editor, journalist or foreign correspondent for several
magazines, including the New York Sun, El Partido Liberal, La Opinión Nacional, La Nación, La República, El Economista Americano, and La Opinión Pública. During the early 1890s, Martí made trips to the Cuban émigré communities in Florida. Cuban tobacco workers in Tampa, Ybor City, and Key West were supporters of Martí and the Patriotic League. He was invited to speach in Tampa at a fund-raising campaign in Tampa, where he gave two of his most famous speeches, 'With All, and For the Good of All' and 'The New Pines.' Martí's political enemies in Cuba claimed that he lived on the savings of Tampa's cigar workers. Between 1881 and 1891, Martí published more than 250 chronicles and articles. Usually they took the form of a letter addressed to the editor. Moreover, Martí immersed himself in the world of Cuban separatist politics by joining the leadership of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee. To the veteran of Cuban indepencence struggles, Fernando Figueredo, who lived in Key West, he wrote: "Everything, Figueredo, I have given for my country." (quoted in José Martí in the United States: The Florida Experience, edited by Louis A. Pérez Jr., by Tempe: ASU Center for Latin American Studies, Arizona State University, 1995, p. 47) Due to his activities, he was chased by Pinkerton agents, and had a network of safe houses. Martí smuggled guns and money and was fully aware of the presence of spies and infiltrators around him. Martí also served as consul for Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina, and was a Spanish teacher at Central High School. Martí's most influential collection of poems from his mature period, Versos sencillos, was produced during a particularly difficult period in his life. For years he had lived apart from his wife, Carmen Zayas Bazán, whom he had married in 1877, and his son José. The couple separated after Carmen briefly visited New York in 1890. Martí blamed her for the split. His crisis reflects in the poem XXIII: "Yo quiero salir del mundo / Por la puerta natural . . . " "From this world I will depart, / And the natural door will try: / Green leaves will cover the cart / On which I'm taken to die. // Don't in darkness let me lie / With traitors to come undone: / I am good and as the good die, / I will die face to the sun!" (Versos sencillos = Simple Verses, translated, with an Introduction by Manuel A. Tellechea, Houston, Texas: Arte Público Press, 1997, p. 75) Since
1880
Martí had been romantically entangled with Carmen (Carmita) Mantilla,
the wife of
a tobacco merchant, who was widowed in 1885. The boarding house
the Mantilla's run had been a surrogate home for Martí. In November
1880, she gave birth to a daughter, María. The baptismal certificates
list Manuel Mantilla as her father. Martí became
her godfather. She is the center of several "versos sencillos". María
declared herself to be Martí's daughter. Except for travels, Martí remained in the U.S. until the year of his
death. Soon after arriving in New York, he visited Coney Island, which
he portrayed as a place "where human freaks are on display, exotic
fishes, bearded ladies, melancholy dwarfs, and stunted elephants,
blatantly advertised as the biggest elephants in the world." (The America of José Martí: Selected Writings,
translated from the Spanish by Juan de Onís, with an introduction by
Federico de Onís, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968, p. 104) One of
the places Martí frequented in 1880s was the Astor Library on Lafayette Place. (Sugar, Cigars, and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York by Lisandro Pérez, New York: New York University Press, 2018, p. 179) La Patria, the revolution's official newspaper which Martí published, followed events in Cuba, and launched a crusade against the brutality and corruption of the Spanish colonizers. When Enrique Collazo, a Cuban general and two other veterans publicly criticized him in the Havana newspaper La Lucha for agitating from the safe distance (he has chosen to "continue giving lessons on patriotism from aboard, in the shadow of the U.S. flag"), Martí was deeply hurt by the accusation – writing was his weapon. (José Martí: A Revolutionary Life by Alfred J. López, Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014, pp. 259-260) In 1894 Martí founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party and tried to lead rebel forces from the U.S. to the Island. The plan failed but the next year he succeeded in reaching his native country, landing in a remote beach not far from Guantánamo. José Martí died in a skirmish at Dos Rios on May 19, 1895; he was fatally shot by a Spanish sniper and fell from his horse. A Cuban scout finished him off with a Remington rifle. (José Martí: An Introduction by Oscar Montero, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 19) José Martí was buried by Spanish soldiers in Santiago de Cuba. The popular song Guantanamera is based on Marti's poem, which
was made famous by the composer Joseíto Fernández. His style is still
considered a model of Spanish prose. Martí's collected writings in 73
volumes appeared in 1936-53. The main body of Martí's prose was
journalistic in nature, written for newspapers and
magazines. In articles published all over Latin America, he wrote
about figures such as Buffalo Bill, Jesse James ("gran bandido"), Ralph
Waldo Emerson,
Walt Whitman, Mart Twain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Louisa May
Alcott.
He also wrote about Henry Highland Garnet, an African-American
abolitionist, whose "eyes evinced honesty, his lips truth, his whole
person respect. He rendered it and inspired it. In a group of men, he seemed to be the leader." (Inside the Monster: Writings on the United States and American Imperialism
by José Martí, translated by Elinor Randall, with additional
translations by Luis A. Baralt, Juan de Onís and Roslyn Held Foner,
edited with an introduction by Philip S. Foner, New York and London:
Monthly Review Press, 1975, p. 69) Martí always reaffirmed his anti-colonialist and anti-racists beliefs. In the essay 'Nuestra América' (1891) Martí formulated his own pan-Latin-American doctrine. He emphasized the need to come to terms with the continents multi-racial identity and the importance of teaching thoroughly the history of America, from the Incas to the present. Especially Emerson, "one of those to whom Nature opens and reveals herself," had a deep influence on his thinking. (José Martí's "Our America": From National to Hemispheric Cultural Studies, edited by Jeffrey Grant Belnap and Raul A. Fernandez, Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press ,1998, p. 209) During the last fifteen years of his life, Martí
sent regular contributions to important Spanish American newspapers.
His essays were written in a style, which had a deep influence on the
literary prose of every Spanish-speaking nation. Fidel Castro claimed him as the 1959 Cuban Revolution's "intellectual author." For further reading: José Martí: Cuban Patriot by Richard B. Gray (1962); Introducción a José Martí by Roberto Fernández Retamar (1978); José Martí: Mentor of the Cuban Nation by John M. Kirk (1983); José Marti: Revolutionary Democrat, edited by Christopher Abel and Nissa Torrents (1986); Nuevos asedios al modernismo, edited by Iván A. Schulman (1987); José Martí and the Emigré Colony in Key West by C. Neale Ronning (1990); Relecturas martianas: Narración y nación by Iván A. Schulman (1994); José Martí in the United States: The Florida Experience, edited by Louis A. Pérez (1995); José Martí's "Our America": From National to Hemispheric Cultural Studies, edited by Jeffrey Grant Belnap and Raul A. Fernandez (1998); Jose Martí: An Introduction by Oscar Montero (2004); The Influence of Emerson and Whitman on the Cuban Poet Jose Marti: Themes of Immigration, Colonialism, and Independence by Georg Schwarzmann (2009); José Martí, Cuban Apostle: A Dialogue by Cintio Vitier and Daisaku Ikeda (2013); Syncing the Americas: José Martí and the Shaping of National Identity, edited by Ryan Anthony Spangler and Georg Michael Schwarzmann (2017); José Martí's Liberative Political Theology by Miguel A. De La Torre (2021); A Posthumous History of José Martí: The Apostle and His Afterlife by Alfred J. López (2023) Selected works:
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