On June 13, 1910, Fermín Valdés Domínguez died, a student of Rafael María de Mendive, surgeon and journalist, unconditional friend who accompanied the hero in the school newspapers, where they both stamped their initial enthusiasm for love and freedom, their first dreams.
When he closed his eyes, he made valid the thought of the Cuban National Hero who sentenced that «death was not true when the work of life had been accomplished», because he participated in the foundation of El Diablo Cojuelo and together with the Apostle of the Cuban independence he was judged for the crime of infidelity and sentenced to six months in jail and then he suffered exile for his redeeming ideas.
Valdés Domínguez was next to Martí in the foundation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and three years later, when the Apostle comes to Cuba to fight in the Necessary War, the loyal friend remains at the head of the newspaper Patria; but after the death of his soul brother in Dos Ríos, Fermín travels to the island in the libertarian expedition of Carlos Roloff and already in the homeland he organizes the Health of the Liberating Army in Las Villas.
In the Assembly of Jimaguayú he was appointed secretary of Foreign Relations and assistant to General Máximo Gómez, next to whom, and together with Lieutenant General Antonio Maceo, he participated in the battle of Mal Tiempo.
Valdés Domínguez was a regular contributor to the Mambo press, and had even time to write a book; at the end of the liberation fight in 1898, Fermín returned to practice medicine until his death, which occurred on a date like this one in 1910.
Martí described his friendship with Valdés Domínguez as «a true pillow that has saved innumerable proofs».
