28: José Julián Martí y Pérez is born in Havana. His parents, Mariano Martí and Leonor Pérez, were Spaniards; his father came from Valencia, and his mother, from the Canary Islands.
1865
Martí begins studying at the Havana Municipal Boys School with Rafael María de Mendive, a teacher who greatly influences his sense of patriotism.
1868
October 10: The Ten Years War begins against the Spanish colonial rule in Cuba.
1869
January 19: Martí has his first political essay published in the single-edition El Diablo Cojuelo (The Crippled Devil), followed shortly by his own newspaper La Patria Libre (Free Homeland), which made only one appearance, publishing his dramatic poem “Abdala.”
October 21: Martí is arrested and sent to the National Prison, accused of treason. A few days earlier, a group of Spanish Volunteer troops had searched the house of a friend (Fermín Valdés Domínguez) and had found a compromising letter, accusing a former fellow student for “apostasy” for enlisting in the Spanish armed forces. The letter was signed by Martí and Valdés Domínguez, who is subsequently imprisoned for six months.
1870
March 4: Martí is condemned to six years’ hard labor and sent to work in a prison quarry.
August—December: His parents manage to get his sentence commuted to exile — which he began on the Isle of Pines — and then obtain permission for him to live in Spain.
1871
February: Martí arrives in Madrid, after spending a few days in Cádiz. He publishes his short work, “El presidio político en Cuba” (“Political Prison in Cuba”).
May 31: He enrolls in several courses at Madrid’s Central University.
November 27: Eight medical students in Havana are shot for protesting against Spanish colonial rule. This has a profound effect on Martí’s view of Spain and Cuba’s struggle for independence. He writes an ode about the event.
1873
February 15: Martí’s short essay “La República española ante de la Revolución cubana” (“The Spanish Republic and the Cuban Revolution”) is published as a pamphlet in Madrid.
May: He moves to Zaragoza and enrolls at the Literary University while continuing his other studies.
1874
June—October: During this period, Martí obtains a Bachelor of Civil and Canon Law and Doctoral Degree of Philosophy and Humanities with exceptional grades.
December 1874–February 1875: He travels from Spain to Mexico, stopping over in Paris, Le Havre, Liverpool, New York (where he stays 11 days), Havana, Progreso, Campeche and Veracruz.
1875
February: Martí arrives in Mexico City, where he is reunited with his parents and sisters and meets Manuel Mercado.
May: He becomes a member of the editorial staff of the Revista Universal, a newspaper on which he has worked since March.
December 19: His short play Amor con amor se paga (Love is Repaid with Love) has its first performance.
1876
February 20: Martí begins to work on El Socialista, organ of the Great Workers’ Circle of Mexico (GCOM).
June: The Workers’ Hope (EE) society, whose headquarters were in the capital, names him a representative to the first workers’ congress ever held in Mexico, although there is no documentation on his participation.
December 29: He leaves Mexico shortly after General Porfirio Díaz takes power through a bloody civil war.
1877
January—April: Martí arrives in Havana clandestinely, then goes on to Progreso and to Guatemala.
April: He begins teaching at the Normal School in Guatemala.
May 29: He is appointed as a professor at the university of French, English, Italian and German literature.
December 20: Martí returns to Mexico City, where he marries Carmen Zayas Bazán. He also publishes his pamphlet “Guatemala” there.
1878
February 10: The Zanjón Pact is signed in Cuba, ending the Ten Years War and allowing exiles to return to the island.
April 6: Martí resigns from the Normal School in protest against the arbitrary removal of its principal José María Izaguirre. This is his last public opposition to the policies of Guatemalan President Justo Rufino Barrios.
July—August: He travels to Honduras and then to Havana.
October: He immerses himself in the conspiracies of the clubs in Havana attached to the Cuban Revolutionary Committee (CRC), which is based in New York.
November 22: His only son, José Francisco, is born.
1879
March 18: The Central Revolutionary Club (CCR) is founded in a meeting of conspirators in Havana, and Martí is elected Vice-President.
June: The Cuban Revolutionary Committee names Martí as its deputy delegate on the island.
August 24–25: The so-called Little War of Independence begins in Santiago de Cuba.
September 17: Martí is arrested and accused (without process of law) of being linked to the insurrectional movement.
September—December: He is deported to Spain, from where he leaves clandestinely for France and then New York.
1880
January 9: A few days after his arrival in New York, the Cuban Revolutionary Committee resolves to make Martí one of its directors.
March 26: He becomes acting Chairman of the Committee when General Calixto García, its Chairman, leaves for Cuba. General García is taken prisoner in August, and the war ends unsuccessfully.
1881
January:
