This colonial style house where he was born in 1853 was converted into the Museo Casa Natal de Jose Marti. Important collection testifies to his brilliance as a politician, writer, teacher, journalist and diplomat. Personal objects include desks from New York, publications like ‘La Edad de Oro’, a portrait by Herman Norman, even his braided hair.

About Museo Casa Natal de Jose Marti

Museo Casa Natal de Jose Marti

Near the train station is the house where the national hero of Cuba Jose Marti was born on the 28th of January 1853.

The house was converted into a museum in 1925 and is testimony to his life as a politician, writer, teacher, journalist and diplomat in Cuba, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean.

On display upstairs are letters, manuscripts, photographs and many other objects attached to his life like the utensils in the glass case. These iron shackles were put on him when he was in prison. Across the room is an even older relic: a clump of Jose Marti’s braided hair when he was four years old that was donated by Amelia Marti. There’s also a few items when he was baptized.

Next to these former bedrooms is a tiny hallway which was actually the kitchen. The sink at the back wall here would have barely suited one person never mind the fact that his mother had to cook for Jose and his seven sisters.

            The house reflects a typical colonial architecture and was very close to the perimeter walls that surrounded Havana. When the Asociación de Señoras y Caballeros por Martí bought it in 1900 the house was the responsibility of Doña Leonor from 1901 until 1904. For another few years it was lived in by another tenant until the decision to transform it into a museum.

            Downstairs is a fine mahogany table in a small office-like room that he would have used. Among the other displays are books, letters and publications such as the ‘La Edad de Oro’ that he wrote and published in New York in 1889. Unique to this collection and indeed in general is the only oil painting portrait that exists of Jose Marti and which was the work of a Swedish artist Herman Norman. Another writing table in  a side room, used by him in the house in 120 Front Street, New York, is supposedly the place upon which he wrote most of his political discussions and revolutionary ideals.

            Personal objects include the spurs of metal and leather he was wearing when he fell in combat on the 19th of May 1895, a penknife and rosette which was said to have had his blood on them, a small Cuban flag that once belonged to the first President of the Republic Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and given to Marti by Fernando Figueredo Socarrás, the President’s personal secretary.

References

http://www.cnpc.cult.cu/cnpc/museos/marti/paginas/default.html

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