Political Imprisonment in Cuba

The political prison in Cuba (1871) is a testimony of the hardships suffered by José Martí during his stay in prison. It is a denunciation of the horrors that the Spanish metropolis committed in the political prisons of the island of Cuba.
Its purpose is to mobilize the reader to change, and to transform elements of oppression into instruments of liberation.
It is a writing of about fifty pages. Here he recounts in a masterly way the bitter experience lived in the quarries of San Lázaro. In them he was imprisoned, forced to work in subhuman conditions.
Later, in Spain and with only eighteen years, Martí would publish El presidio político en Cuba. This is an exceptional testimony of what he experienced during this sad stage of his life.
It is a heartbreaking document that begins with very enlightening words:

“Infinite pain should be the only name of these pages. Infinite pain because the pain of imprisonment… It kills the intelligence and dries up the soul.”

Despite injustice and pain, it already shows its spiritual greatness. He refuses to accept that the Spanish people know of the horrors being committed in the Cuban political prison:

“Let me think you don’t know yet. Let me think that in this land there is still honor.”