Born in Havana, Cuba, Jos? Juli?n Mart? y P?rez was the son of poor Spanish immigrants. Thanks to the aid of his teacher, he was able to go to high school just at the time the Ten Years' War, Cuba's first struggle for independence, began. Mart? quickly committed himself to the cause, publishing his first newspaper La Patria Libre (Free Fatherland) in 1869. Soon he was arrested for denouncing a pro-Spanish classmate and was sentenced to six years at hard labor.

Freed after only a few months, Mart? began the exile that would characterize the better part of the rest of his life. He went to Spain where he published, El presidio pol?tico en Cuba, a rousing attack on Cuban prisons. He received his university education in Madrid and Zaragoza and then returned to the Western Hemisphere.

From 1881 until his fateful return to Cuba in 1895, Mart? spent much of his time in New York. He reported on life in the United States for many newspapers in Latin America including Opini?n Nacional (Caracas) and La Naci?n (Buenos Aires). He wrote everything from a magazine for children (Edad de Oro) to poetry (Versos sencillos 1891), to essays on the nature of the United States which he admired for its energy and industry as well as its notable statesmen, particularly the framers of the Constitution. However, he denounced its imperialist attitude toward its southern neighbors.

Yet, despite his busy literary career, he spent much of his time planning the second Cuban struggle for independence. He insisted that the next war should be short (to avoid U.S. intervention) and fought with a "republican method and spirit" (to forestall the possibility of a military dictatorship.) In 1892 he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party to organize the coming struggle. By early 1895, his preparations were complete. He would set sail with the generals from the last struggle and considerable supplies from Fernandina, Florida.

Then, U.S. authorities seized the ships just as they were about to set sail. Mart? arrived in Cuba without any special authority and no way to keep the generals in check. He was killed in a small skirmish not two weeks after he had arrived.

It was only in the 1920's and 1930's that Mart? was embraced by a new generation of nationalist Cubans as "el ap?stol," and cherished by many other Latin Americans as well. As the great Nicaraguan poet Rub?n Dar?o noted, Mart? belonged to "an entire race, an entire continent."