José Martí in The Spanish-American War
José Martí (1853–1895) was a Cuban intellectual, poet, and revolutionary leader who founded El Partido Revolucionario Cubano (Cuban Revolutionary Party) in 1882. He's still revered as a great revolutionary martyr in Cuba.
José Martí formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party while living in New York, in exile from his native Cuba. In the years leading up to the Cuban Revolution, he studied American political, economic, and popular culture, and concluded that the future of Cuba would be compromised by American aid.
"Once the United States is in Cuba," he remarked, "who will drive it out?"
In 1895, he returned to Cuba from exile in New York in order to assist in the armed struggle against Spanish forces. Just one month after arrival, Martí lost his life, killed in a Spanish ambush at Dos Ríos, Cuba.