These were 14 groups from Key West, seven from New York, five from Tampa, five from Jamaica, one from Philadelphia, one from Boston, one from New Orleans and one from Ocala.
Later they were joined by others from the United States and the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America: from Haiti, Santo Domingo, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Venezuela, Panama, Mexico, Argentina, Peru…
The basic organizational process took place from January 1892 with the drafting, approval of its public bases and secret statutes.
Crucial moments were the election of the delegate (Martí) and the treasurer (Benjamín Guerra), the only officials; and the proclamation of the party on April 10, 1892.
The date chosen was a glorious day, the anniversary of the Assembly of Guáimaro, held on April 10, 1869, attended by the delegates of the 1868 Revolution of Independence with the proclamation of the Republic of Arms and the first Cuban Constitution.
The similarity of the independence goals is shown in the similarity of the flags of the two sister Antilles, which differ only in the distribution of colors; While Cuban has a red triangle with a white star in the center and three alternating blue and white stripes, Puerto Rican has the first blue and the blue and white stripes in the same order.
DEDICATION TO THE LAND
In 1891, Martí was at the height of his brilliant work as a journalist, diplomat, writer and poet when he renounced everything and dedicated his life to founding the PRC, destined to prepare for the Cuban War of Independence and the future republic.
By the end of the year, he set about recruiting his future members among Cuban émigré groups living in American cities.
On November 26 and 27, 1891, he delivered two dissertations in Tampa that opened new avenues in Cuban history, the first known as With all and for the good of all and the second Los Pinos Nuevos.
“For Cuba that suffers, the first word,” he said in the first of the famous speeches. “Cuba must be taken as an altar to offer our lives to, not as a pedestal to stand on.”
“…I want the first law of our republic to be full human dignity. Every true man needs to feel the slap that every man’s cheek receives on the cheek,” he defined his ideas at the Liceo Cubano de Tampa.
Martí is gaining supporters for his unified patriotic enthusiasm; On November 28, the so-called resolutions of the Tampa emigrants were adopted, which are considered to be the prologue to the bases of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
The process of final organization of the PRC began after the adoption and approval of the bases and secret statutes on January 4 and 5, 1892, respectively, by the independence representatives of New York, Tampa, and Key West.
The first article of its foundations states: The Cuban Revolutionary Party was founded in order to achieve, with the combined efforts of all people of good will, the absolute independence of the island of Cuba and to promote and support that of Puerto Rico.
The PRC will be governed in accordance with the secret statutes agreed upon by the organizations that established it, the ninth and last states. There are about 13 points that reveal its composition through all the organized associations of independent Cubans that accept its program and fulfill the duties imposed on it.
It will work through the independent associations which form the bases of its authority, a council formed in each locality, with the presidents of all of them, and a delegate and treasurer elected annually.
It describes the duties of the Associations, the Council, the Delegate and the Treasurer; The associations have one vote for each group of 20 to 100 members.
On March 14, 1892 in New York was born Patria, Martí’s newspaper, which aroused in its readers the feeling and pride of the Cuban nation and the need for its liberation.
On the instructions of the delegate, the commander of the last war, Gerardo Castellanos, traveled to Cuba on August 4, 1892.
Martí begins his pilgrimage to incorporate the Mambises generals Carlos Roloff, Serafín Sánchez, Máximo Gómez and Antonio Maceo, who will be pillars for the union between the New Pines and the veterans of ’68.
He personally keeps his word to countries in the Caribbean and Central America, he also visits Mexico and more than once expats in the USA.
Firm hand and speed guide this enterprise of Martí, which only culminates in a much higher point, the outbreak of the war that he declared necessary on February 24, 1895 and his death in the battle of Dos Ríos, Cuban territory, May 19, 1895.
Son of the 1968 revolution – he became a revolutionary -, political prisoner at the age of 16, deported and exiled for most of his life, José Martí suffered the consequences of the shackles on his body, but it was more difficult for him to live with an enslaved homeland.
He always dressed in black, he mourned them, convinced that no one took the sword from the Cubans, they dropped it at the end of this long and painful Ten Years’ War (Pacto del Zanjón 1878) without achieving their goals of independence and Abolition of slavery.
He felt admiration and respect for the heroes and martyrs of this act, which he studied intensively for years; he honored them in his writings, speeches and verses and did everything so that the discord among Cubans would not be repeated.
He always advocated a revolutionary solution, even when Spain authorized a liberal autonomous party in the 1980s with the aim of preventing the separatist war from resuming.
This new type of party, conceived for a long time by Martí in the depths of his revolutionary thought, was able to unite the patriots fighting again against Spanish colonialism and collecting resources for the war, penny by penny.
With the death of Martí, the PRC lost its democratic character and the promotion and assistance for sister Puerto Rico’s independence was abandoned.
The new delegate Tomás Estrada Palma, espousing annexationist ideas, advocated United States intervention in 1898 and later decreed the dissolution of the organization, so necessary in the future republic.
Taken from the Latin Press.