José Julián Martí Pérez was born on January 28, 1853, in Havana, at 41 Paula St., to a Spanish Valencian father, Mariano Martí Navarro, and Leonor Pérez Cabrera, a native of the Canary Islands.

Martí was the elder brother to seven sisters: Leonor, Mariana, Maria de Carmen, Maria de Pilar, Rita Amelia, Antonia and Dolores. He was baptized on February 12 in Santo Ángel Custodio church.

In January 1871, Martí embarked on the steam ship Guipuzcoa, which took him from Havana to Cadiz. He settled in Madrid in a guesthouse in Desengaño St. # 10. Arriving at the capital he contacted fellow Cuban Carlos Sauvalle, who had been deported to Spain a year before Martí and whose house served as a center of reunions for Cubans in exile.

In 1875, Martí lived on Calle Moneda in Mexico City near the Zócalo, a prestigious address of the times. One floor above him lived Manuel Antonio Mercado, Secretary of the Distrito Federal, who would become one of Martí’s best friends.

After a short time in New York, Martí travelled to Venezuela in 1881 and founded the Revista Venezolana, or Venezuelan Review. The journal provoked the wrath of Venezuela's dictator, Antonio Guzmán Blanco, and Martí was forced to leave for New York.