He is recognised as having been a great influence on Cuban literature for reintroducing Romanticism, marking a new age in Hispano-American poetry.

He wrote "Almendares" together with Idelfonso Estrada Zenea and collaborated on "La voz del pueblo".

He was condemned to death in Havana in 1853 because of his activities against the Spanish government, but was pardoned due to the general amnesty and was able to return to Cuba the following year.

At the beginning of the 1868 war in Cuba he returned to the United States to support the cause, but every expedition in which he took part ended in failure.

He managed to reach Cuba secretly in 1870, and after a meeting with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, leader of the rebellion, he was imprisoned by Spanish troops while trying to return to the United States and shot to death in 1871.