62 Facts About Jose Marti

1. Jose Marti was an important figure in Latin American literature.

2. Jose Marti traveled extensively in Spain, Latin America, and the United States, raising awareness and support for the cause of Cuban independence.

3. Jose Marti was a key figure in the planning and execution of this war, as well as the designer of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and its ideology.

4. Jose Marti died in military action during the Battle of Dos Rios on May 19, 1895.

5. Jose Marti's written works include a series of poems, essays, letters, lectures, a novel, and a children's magazine.

6. Jose Marti wrote for numerous Latin American and American newspapers; he founded a number of newspapers.

7. Jose Marti was the older brother to seven sisters: Leonor, Mariana, Maria del Carmen, Maria del Pilar, Rita Amelia, Antonia and Dolores.

8. In 1866, Jose Marti entered the Instituto de Segunda Ensenanza where Mendive financed his studies.

9. Jose Marti signed up at the Escuela Profesional de Pintura y Escultura de La Habana in September 1867, known as San Alejandro, to take drawing classes.

10. Jose Marti hoped to flourish in this area but did not find commercial success.

11. Jose Marti started writing poems about this vision, while, at the same time, trying to do something to achieve this dream.

12. In January 1871, Jose Marti embarked on the steam ship Guipuzcoa, which took him from Havana to Cadiz.

13. At this time, Jose Marti registered himself as a member of independent studies in the law faculty of the Central University of Madrid.

14. In June 1874, Jose Marti graduated with a degree in Civil Law and Canon Law.

15. In 1875, Jose Marti lived on Calle Moneda in Mexico City near the Zocalo, a prestigious address of the time.

16. At this point, Jose Marti began collaborating with the newspaper El Socialista as leader of the Gran Circulo Obrero organization of liberals and reformists who supported Lerdo de Tejada.

17. In 1877, using his second name and second surname Julian Perez as pseudonym, Jose Marti embarked for Havana, hoping to arrange to move his family away to Mexico City from Havana.

18. Jose Marti taught composition classes free at the Academia de Ninas de Centroamerica girls' academy, among whose students he enthralled young Maria Garcia Granados y Saborio, daughter of Guatemalan president Miguel Garcia Granados.

19. Jose Marti met Afro-Cuban revolutionary Juan Gualberto Gomez, who would be his lifelong partner in the independence struggle and a stalwart defender of his legacy during this same journey.

20. In 1881, after a brief stay in New York, Jose Marti travelled to Venezuela and founded in Caracas the Revista Venezolana, or Venezuelan Review.

21. The journal incurred the wrath of Venezuela's dictator, Antonio Guzman Blanco, and Jose Marti was forced to return to New York.

22. Jose Marti served as a consul for Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay.

23. Jose Marti feared a military dictatorship would be established in Cuba upon independence, and suspected Dominican-born General Maximo Gomez of having these intentions.

24. Jose Marti knew that the independence of Cuba needed time and careful planning.

25. Ultimately, Jose Marti refused to cooperate with Maximo Gomez and Antonio Maceo Grajales, two Cuban military leaders from the Ten Years' War, when they wanted to invade immediately in 1884.

26. Jose Marti intervened in the commemorative acts of The Independents, causing the Spanish consul in New York to complain to the Argentine and Uruguayan governments.

27. Consequently, Jose Marti resigned from the Argentinean, Paraguayan, and Uruguayan consulates.

28. On January 5, 1892, Jose Marti participated in a reunion of the emigration representatives, in Cayo Hueso, the Cuban community where the Bases del Partido Revolucionario (Basis of the Cuban Revolutionary Party) was passed.

29. Jose Marti began the process of organizing the newly formed party.

30. In 1893, Jose Marti traveled through the United States, Central America and the West Indies, visiting different Cuban clubs.

31. Jose Marti decided to move to Montecristi, Dominican Republic to join Maximo Gomez and to plan out the uprising.

32. Jose Marti was buried in Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.

33. Death of Jose Marti was a blow to the "aspirations of the Cuban rebels, inside and outside of the island, but the fighting continued with alternating successes and failures until the entry of the United States into the war in 1898".

34. Jose Marti wrote extensively about Spanish colonial control and the threat of US expansionism into Cuba.

35. Jose Marti proposed in a letter to Maximo Gomez in 1882 the formation of a revolutionary party, which he considered essential in the prevention of Cuba falling back on the Home Rule Party after the Pact of Zanjon.

36. The Home Rule Party was a peace-seeking party that would stop short of the outright independence that Jose Marti thought Cuba needed.

37. Jose Marti thought war was necessary to achieve Cuba's freedom, despite his basic ideology of conciliation, respect, dignity, and balance.

38. Together with other Cubans resident in New York, Jose Marti started laying the grounds for the Revolutionary Party, stressing the need for a democratic organization as the basic structure before any military leaders were to join.

39. Jose Marti specified his plans for the future Cuban Republic, a multi-class and multi-racial democratic republic based on universal suffrage, with an egalitarian economic base to develop fully Cuba's productive resources and an equitable distribution of land among citizens, with enlightened and virtuous politicians.

40. Jose Marti demonstrated an anti-imperialist attitude from an early age, and was convinced that the United States posed a danger for Latin America.

41. Over time Jose Marti became increasingly alarmed about the United States' intentions for Cuba.

42. Jose Marti felt that the interests of Cuba's future lay with its sister nations in Latin America, and were opposite to those of the United States.

43. On various occasions Jose Marti conveyed his deep admiration for the immigrant-based society, "whose principal aspiration he interpreted as being to construct a truly modern country, based upon hard work and progressive ideas.

44. Once this was done, Jose Marti hoped that this representatives would bring a "much-needed modernization to the Latin American agricultural policies".

45. When it came to politics Jose Marti wrote that politics in the US had "adopted a carnival atmosphere.

46. Jose Marti criticized and condemned the elites of the United States as they "pulled the main political strings behind the scenes".

47. Jose Marti started to believe that the US had abused its potential.

48. Jose Marti applauded the United States' Constitution which allowed freedom of speech to all its citizens, no matter what political beliefs they had.

49. Jose Marti was amazed that the country maintained freedom of speech even with respect to calls that "could have led to its own destruction".

50. Jose Marti gave his support to the women's suffrage movements, and was "pleased that women here [took] advantage of this privilege in order to make their voices heard".

51. Works of Jose Marti contain many comparisons between the ways of life of North and Latin America.

52. Once it became apparent that the United States were actually going to purchase Cuba and intended to Americanize it, Jose Marti "spoke out loudly and bravely against such action, stating the opinion of many Cubans on the United States of America.

53. Jose Marti saw the necessity of a country having its own literature.

54. Jose Marti believed that "el hombre del sur", the man of the South, should choose an appropriate development strategy matching his character, the peculiarity of his culture and history, and the nature that determined his being.

55. From 1882 to 1891, Jose Marti collaborated in La Nacion, a Buenos Aires newspaper.

56. Volume two of his Obras Completas includes his famous essay 'Nuestra America' which "comprises a variety of subjects relating to Spanish America about which Jose Marti studied and wrote.

57. Jose Marti is universally honored as a great poet, patriot and martyr of Cuban Independence, but he was a translator of some note.

58. Jose Marti learned English at an early age, and had begun to translate at thirteen.

59. Jose Marti translated several books for the publishing house of D Appleton, and did a series of translations for newspapers.

60. Difference that Jose Marti established between prose and poetry are conceptual.

61. Place Jose Marti, featuring a bust of the poet, was inaugurated in 2014.

62. Parque Amigos de Jose Marti is a small park located in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, FL.