José de la Luz y Caballero

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José Cipriano de la Luz y Caballero (born July 11, 1800, died June 22, 1862) was a Cuban scholar, acclaimed by José Martí as "the father ... the silent layer of foundations" in Cuban intellectual life of the 19th Century (see "Un magno artículo de Martí", in Aforismos de Luz y Caballero Havana, 1960, p. 139). Interest in Luz's work was revived around the time of the Cuban Revolution, and new editions of his work published, as he was regarded as a source of intellectual autonomy for the country.

Luz took his degree in philosophy in 1817 at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo in Havana, and took a degree in law at the Seminario de San Carlos. He travelled extensively in North America and Europe, coming into contact with a number of important intellectuals of the time, including Sir Walter Scott, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Cuvier, and the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.

Caballero is perhaps best known for his often quoted characterization of Humboldt, who travelled in Cuba in the early 19th century, as the "second discoverer" of the island, after Columbus: “Colón dio a Europa un Nuevo Mundo; Humboldt se lo hizo conocer en lo físico, en lo material, en lo intelectual y lo moral” ("Columbus gave Europe a New World; Humboldt made it known in its physical, material, intellectual, and moral aspects").