José Marti, born in 1853 and a devoted follower of the 1868 struggle, recognized the primary reason for the failure of the First War of ... from a Spanish colony to an American protectorate ...

Unlike the Ten Years' War ... American attention to the sufferings of the Cuban people. The central leaders of the 1895 Cuban revolution were Maximo Gomez, ,Calixto Garcia, and Jose Marti.