The goal of the committee was to create a united effort by Cubans and Puerto Ricans to win independence from Spain in the second half of the 19th century.

In 1868, Puerto Rico and Cuba, representing all that remained from Spain's once extensive American empire since 1825, began their struggle for independence.

The revolutionary committee not only organized two revolts against Spanish rule in Puerto Rico, the Grito de Lares (Cry of Lares) of 1868 and the Intentona de Yauco (The Attempted Coup of Yauco) of 1897, but it also gave financial support and weaponry to the Cuban independence efforts early in the Cuban Ten Years' War.

B. Pérez, Gustavo J. Steinacher, J. Cortada, A. C. Lamoutte, Ulises Valdivieso, Manuel Besosa, J. J. Henna, J. M. Terreforte, J. D. Delgado, Julio Crespo, R. H. Todd, Luis E. Acosta, Luis Castro López, Crispín Cervera, José Rivera, Joaquín Ramos, Manuel Román, Juan Curet, Francisco Moreno, Valentín París, Clemente R. Lecompte, Arturo Font, Sotero Figueroa, José Budet, S. Moret Muñoz, Pedro Modesto Giraud, J. J. Bas, Sandalio Parrilla, J. Martorell, Eduardo Ferrer, J.

[6] In 1897, Antonio Mattei Lluberas visited the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Committee in New York City, where he met with Emiterio Betances, Terreforte, and Méndez Martinez to plan for a major revolt.

Betances was to direct it, Mendez Mercado would organize it, and General Rius Rivera would command the armed forces.