Jose Marti was born in Havana in 1853. At age sixteen he was imprisoned for opposing Spanish colonial rule during the Ten Years War (1868-1878) and later he was exiled to Spain. There he published a pamphlet exposing the horrors of political imprisonment in Cuba, which he himself had experienced.
In 1878 he returned to Cuba under a general amnesty and worked for a law firm, but he conspired against the Spanish authorities and again was banished to Spain in September 1879. He fled exile in Spain and came first to France and then to the United States. Marti went back to Miami where he lived from 1881 to 1895.
- Ronning, C. Neal José Martí and the Émigré colony in Key West: Leadership and State Formation Praeger Publishers One Madison Avenue New York, New York 1990 page 8
- Quiroz, Alfonso W. The Cuban Republic and Jose Marti: Reception and Use of a National Symbol Lexington Books 2006 page 2
- Rodríguez-Luis, Julio Re-reading José Martí (1853-1895): One Hundred Years Later (1999) State University of New York Press Albany page 143