Analysis on the North American influence in José Martí

Abstract

The article addresses the influences of the United States on José Martí, who observed this country from an early age. He admired his democratic political institutions and the origin of them from the process of independence against England and its results that were embod­ied in the American Constitution of 1787: liberal in accordance with the principles of the Enlightenment, as well as the work developed by parents founders of this nation. Although he valued the USA as the paradigm of democratic society in the nineteenth century, he crit­icized his vices and difficulties. Through his literary works he concluded that his political system was corrupt, from the elections to the parties in power, the treatment of the popular masses and immigrants, poverty and the excessive desire for wealth and profit, the impe­ rialist character of its foreign policy, reflected in the growing interest in Latin American domination, expressed in the 1890 International American Monetary Conference and the Washington Congress.