He was the most popular singer of the life of the Indians.  His verses were known in different parts of Cuba and many of them were musicalized. In 1835 he published the songs of Siboney that reached an extraordinary success. He obtained great popularity not only for his quality as a versifier, but in an essential way for being the spokesman of the patriotic feelings of the Creoles. He also dedicated his talent to literature and journalism. He wrote essays that were reflected in different publications.  He composed the lyrics of the song La Bayamesa that was sung on March 27, 1851 in front of the window of the house of Doña Luz Vázquez y Moreno, in the city of Bayamo.

The Songs of Siboney

In January 1855 José Fornaris published Cantos del Siboney, where he presented the peaceful life of the first inhabitants of Cuba. The Spanish Government interpreted the fight between the Siboneyes and Caribe Indians as an allusion to the exploitation of the Creoles. The captain general called Palacio and told him to go and sing to the Indians elsewhere. Nevertheless, this work was received with much brilliance by the public, having five editions between 1855 and 1863 and the author rightly won the title of first siboneyista of Cuba, which became a literary movement. The following poems are part of the notebook: El Siboney, Mi hogar, los últimos siboneyes, Muerte de Doreya, La muerte del cacique, El cacique de Abaguanes, El cacique de Camagüey, among others.

Song La Bayamesa

There are four famous songs in Cuba that bear the title La Bayamesa. Two of them are better known by the majority: the one by Sindo Garay and the one by Céspedes, Castillo and Fornaris. But some forget that there are two more that also bear that title: the one by Perucho Figueredo, the Cuban National Anthem and a fourth anonymous song that the mambises sang in the insurrection camps. In La Bayamesa by Céspedes, Castillo and Fornaris it is detailed:

Don't you remember, gentle Bayamesa

That you were my shining sun,

And laughingly on your languid forehead

Soft kiss I imprinted with ardor?

Don't you remember that in a happy time

I was enraptured with thy pure beauty,

And in thy bosom I bent my head

Dying of joy and love?

Come, and look out of your grille smiling;

Come, and listen lovingly to my song;

Come, do not sleep, come to my cry;

Bring relief to my hard pain.

Remembering past glories

Let us dispel, my good, the sadness;

And let us both bow our heads

Dying of joy and love.