Dictionary.net

A Cuban poet (colored); born in Havana, 1809; died there, June 28, 1844. He spent his early years in poverty. In 1836 he resided in Matanzas, and published many poems in newspapers and reviews; some of them cost him several months' imprisonment. In 1844 he was falsely accused of implication in a conspiracy of blacks against whites, and was shot as a traitor with nineteen others. He is one of the most popular of Spanish-American poets: his poems have passed through numerous editions at home and abroad; the best is his prayer composed on the eve of death and recited on the way to execution, translated into English by Mary Webster Chapman.