Mounting a revolution does not come cheap, and financing a revolution does not come without considerable risk. José Martí’s Cuban Revolutionary Party received the bulk of its financial resources from the Cuban cigar makers of Florida, and one cigar played a starring role in revolutionary events.
Spanish Rule in Cuba and Exiles Living in the U.S.
In the Caribbean, the struggle for independence from Spain was eventually accomplished with U.S. involvement. Prior to the “Remember the Maine” fervor and the resultant Spanish-American War, however, Cuba’s José Martí was drumming up support for his Cuban Revolutionary Party wherever he could find it.
Convicted of treasonous acts against the Spanish government in Cuba in 1870, José Martí was just 17 years old when he was exiled from his homeland for the first time. After his return seven years later, he lasted only two years before being deported again in 1879. Between 1879 and 1891, he was a vocal proponent of Cuba’s independence from Spain, attempting to unite Cubans at home and abroad. He spent much of his time in the U.S., or as he put it "lived inside the monster", procuring financial support from other Cuban immigrants.
Meeting with Cuban Workers in Tampa and Key West, Florida
One way Martí garnered support for his cause was through his speeches and writing. In 1891, at the invitation of the Ignacio Agromonte Club, a Cuban patriotic organization, Martí visited Tampa to speak to immigrant workers there. Several months later, he visited more workers in Key West. In Florida, he found the undying support of Cuban cigar makers. Martí visited Tampa and Key West regularly between 1891 and 1895, even stepping in between disgruntled tobacco workers and strike breakers at Key West’s “La Rosa Española”.
Cuban Independence and the Message in a Cigar
With the support of the cigar makers, Martí established the Cuban Revolutionary Party and planned a military attack on Cuba’s Spanish government. Refusing the title of “President”, José Martí became the “delegate” of the Cuban Revolutionary Party on April 18, 1892. By 1895, the Fernandina Plan, a plan for Cuban independence by force, was set in motion. Despite an initial setback when the U.S. detained three of his ships, the revolution began in February 1895 with the help of a message Martí sent to Máximo Gómez, the general of the revolutionary army, just days before. This message was carefully concealed within a cigar and smuggled into Cuba.
A month later, Marti and Gomez signed the Manifesto of Montecristi in Santo Domingo which proclaimed their intent for a “…humanitarian war in which the people of Cuba unite once more…”.
It was a goal that remained unrealized in Martí’s lifetime. A superb revolutionary leader off the battlefield, he was as vulnerable as the next man on it. José Martí was killed at Dos Ríos on May 19, 1895, just a little over a month after landing in Cuba. Even so, he is considered a Cuban hero for his efforts to regain Cuban independence.
Sources:
Cigars of Tampa. Tampa, Cuba, & José Martí . (Accessed October 29, 2010)
Historeik.net. Montecristi Manifesto. (Accessed October 29, 2010)
History of Cuba. Jose Marti Timeline. (Accessed October 29, 2010)
Jennifer Groepl - Living the good life in beautiful Cape Coral, Florida, Jennifer Groepl is currently working on her YA fiction projects. An intrinsically ...
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