He first settled in Chocó (then part of either Gran Colombia or the Republic of New Granada), where he made a fortune from gold mining and trade with the Caribbean.

[citation needed] He married Manuela Ferrer Scarpetta, daughter of a Spanish Navy officer.

Isaacs took arms again in 1860, this time against General Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, and saw action in the Battle of Manizales during the Colombian Civil War.

The members of the reader's club "El Mosaico" offered to publish his poems after Isaacs read them in one of their sessions.

That year Isaacs took a job as the supervisor of the construction of a horse-path between Buenaventura and Cali and started to write María.

As a consequence Isaacs became a well-known personality in Colombia and his newly found fame allowed him to start a career as journalist and politician.

On his return to Colombia he was actively involved in the politics of Valle del Cauca, which he represented in the Colombian Congress, and in 1876 he fought in yet another civil war.

Isaacs spent the last years of his life in the city of Ibagué in Tolima where was planning to write a historical novel.

The book, based on romantic experiences, has an elegiac tone, and tells the story of the tragic love of Maria and her cousin Efrain, in Valle del Cauca.

As a journalist, Isaacs directed, in 1867, the newspaper La Republica from a moderate conservative approach where they published articles of a political nature.