Political oratory was a genre that developed widely during the war that began in 1868. In addition to its original intention of gaining followers for the cause, or more specifically, sometimes haranguing troops into combat, the very elaboration of the texts – many of which were not improvised but carefully written in advance – sometimes indicates the loss of the immediacy of the political effect, sinking into an aesthetic gloating.

Oratory was practiced in all Cuban spaces. In the jungle, it was an immediate call to take up the machete and a way to resolve conflicts in assemblies. In the cities, proselytizing efforts were carried out to evade Spanish surveillance, and in the emigrants, orators sought to recruit expeditionaries and raise the necessary funds to continue the war effort.

In this sense, the emigrant communities, not subject to the urgency of war or the direct surveillance of the Spanish authorities, had greater opportunities to give free rein to their ideas in the public arena. In New York, where the Representative Office of the Republic in Arms had been established and most of the Cuban intelligentsia had settled, important speeches took place, despite the controversies between supporters of Aldam and Quesada.

A much more popular forum for political and literary expression was the San Carlos Patriotic and Teaching Institute (San Carlos Club), founded in Key West in 1871, located at 516 Duval Street, Key West, United States.

Likewise, in tobacco factories, both in Cuba and in the emigrants, in addition to the function of the cigar reader, who contributed so much to the formation of the political culture of the masses, platforms were improvised to serve as tribunes where inspired speeches were delivered. José Martí would even do so during his visit to Cayo at a later stage, specifically in 1891.

Although with an aesthetic treatment that determined the inclusion of the genre as part of the body of national literature, political oratory – as its name indicates and is inherent to it – was destined to fulfill the function of urging revolutionary struggle, and in some cases, opposing it.