Cuban History and its Patriots
Jose Marti was born in Havana in 1853. At seventeen he was exiled to Spain for his opposition to colonial rule. There he published a pamphlet exposing the horrors of political imprisonment in Cuba, which he himself had experienced. Upon graduating from the University of Saragossa, he established himself in Mexico City, where he began his literary career. His objection to a regime installed by a military coup led him to depart for Guatemala, but government abuses forced him to abandon that country as well. In 1878 he returned to Cuba under a general amnesty, but he conspired against the Spanish authorities and again was banished. He fled exile in Spain and came to the United States. After a year in New York he left for Venezuela, where he hoped to settle, but yet another dictatorship forced him to depart. Marti went back to New York where he lived from 1881 to 1895. In that year, he left to join the war for Cuban independence which he had so painstakingly organized. There he died in one of its first skirmishes.
Juan F. Perez/Cuba Siempre May.15.04
