Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico
Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico | |
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President | Vacant |
Founded | September 17, 1922 |
Headquarters | San Juan, Puerto Rico |
Paramilitary wing | Cadets of the Republic |
Women's wing | Daughters of Freedom |
Ideology |
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Regional affiliation | Foro de São Paulo |
Colors | Black, white |
Party flag | |
Notable past presidents *José Coll y Cuchí *Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos |
Part of a series on the |
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party |
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The Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico (
In the 1930s, intimidation, repression and persecution of Party members by the government, then headed by a
By the late 1940s, a more US-friendly party, the Partido Popular Democrático (
After Albizu Campos's death in 1965, the party dissolved into factions and members joined other parties, but some continue to follow the party's ideals in one form or another, often informally or ad hoc, to this day.[3]
Historical context
After four hundred years of colonial domination under the
Opponents to the colonial government argued that the profits generated by this arrangement were one-sided, enormous for the United States.[citation needed]
When the war ended, U.S. President McKinley appointed
Allen's
In 1914, the Puerto Rican House of Delegates voted unanimously for independence from the United States. In 1917, the US Congress passed an act by which it granted citizenship to Puerto Rican residents. This was overwhelmingly opposed by the island's political leaders. Critics said the US was simply interested in increasing the size of its conscription pool to get soldiers for World War I.[8]
United States "Manifest Destiny"
By 1930, over 40 percent of all the arable land in Puerto Rico had been converted into
This was not limited to Puerto Rico. By 1930 the
The
Founding of the Nationalist Party
The origins of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party date to 1917, when a group of Union Party members in Ponce, dissatisfied with the attitude of the Union Party of Puerto Rico towards the "granting" of U.S. citizenship, formed the "Asociación Nacionalista de Ponce" (Ponce Nationalist Association). Among its founders were Guillermo Salazar, Rafael Matos Bernier, J. A. González, and Julio César Fernández. These men also founded the newspaper El Nacionalista.[11]
The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was formed as a direct response to the American colonial government. In 1919,
The Legislative Assembly appointed Alfonso Lastra Charriez as its emissary since he had French heritage and spoke the language fluently. Betances' remains arrived in San Juan on August 5, 1920. A funeral caravan organized by the Nationalist Association transferred the remains from San Juan to the town of Cabo Rojo, where his ashes were interred by his monument.
By the 1920s, two other pro-independence organizations had formed on the Island: the Nationalist Youth and the Independence Association of Puerto Rico. The Independence Association was founded by José S. Alegría, Eugenio Font Suárez and Leopoldo Figueroa in 1920. On September 17, 1922, these three political organizations joined forces and formed the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Coll y Cuchi was elected president and José S. Alegría (father of Ricardo Alegría) vice-president.
In 1924, Pedro Albizu Campos joined the party and was named vice-president. Alegría was named Nationalist Party president in 1928 and held that position until 1930. By 1930, disagreements between Coll y Cuchi and Albizu Campos as to how the party should be run, led the former and his followers to leave and return to the Union Party. Albizu Campos did not like what he considered to be Coll y Cuchí's attitude of fraternal solidarity with the enemy.[12] On May 11, 1930, Pedro Albizu Campos was elected president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.
The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party maintained that, as a matter of international law, the Treaty of Paris following the Spanish–American War could not have empowered the Spanish to "give" to the US what was no longer theirs.
In the mid-1930s, there were disappointing electoral results and strong repression by the territorial police authorities. The party staged some protests that developed into celebrated incidents because of police overreaction: The October 1935 Rio Piedras[13] and the Ponce massacres. In these, government forces fired on unarmed civilians.[14][15] After the Río Piedras massacre, in December 1935, Albizu Campos announced that the Nationalist Party would withdraw from electoral participation while the United States kept control. Albizu Campos began to advocate direct, violent revolution.[citation needed]
Nationalist Party during 1930–1950
Nationalist Party partisans were involved in a variety of dramatic and violent confrontations between 1930 and 1950:
- In the 1930s, the party founded the official youth organization Cadetes de la República, headed by Raimundo Díaz Pacheco, and the Hijas de la Libertad (Daughters of Freedom), the women's branch of the Cadetes and in which Julia de Burgos served as secretary general.
- On April 6, 1932, Nationalist partisans marched into the melée ensued in the building, and one partisan fell to his death from a second floor interior balcony. The protest was condemned by the legislators Rafael Martínez Nadal and Santiago Iglesias; and endorsed by others, including the future leader of the statehood party, Manuel García Méndez.
- On October 24, 1935, a confrontation with police at Río Piedras resulted in the deaths of 4 Nationalist partisans and one policeman. The event is known as the Río Piedras massacre. This and other events led the party to announce on December 12, 1935, a boycott of all elections held while Puerto Rico remained part of the United States.
- On February 23, 1936, in San Juan, two Nationalists assassinated the Insular Police Chief and ex-U.S. Marine officer, E. Francis Riggs. The Nationalist perpetrators, Hiram Rosado and Elías Beauchamp, were arrested, transported to police headquarters, and killed within hours without trial. No policeman was ever tried or indicted for their deaths.[16]
- On March 21, 1937, the Nationalist Party organized a peaceful march in the southern city of National Guard of the typical U.S. state" and which answered to the U.S.-appointed governor Blanton Winship)[18] were arrayed against the marchers. They opened fire upon what a U.S. Congressman and others reported were unarmed[19] and defenseless[20] Cadets and bystanders alike,[21][22] killing 19 and badly wounding over 200 more.[23]
- Many of these unarmed people were shot in the back while trying to run away – including a 7-year old girl, who died as a result.U.S. government of nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.[27]Soon thereafter, the Puerto Rican government arrested the leadership of the Nationalist party, including Pedro Albizu Campos. In two trials, they were convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.
- A government investigation into the incident drew few conclusions. A second, independent investigation ordered by the US Commission for Civil Rights (May 5, 1937) led by ACLU) with Fulgencio Piñero, Emilio Belaval, Jose Davila Rice, Antonio Ayuyo Valdivieso, Manuel Diaz Garcia, and Franscisco M. Zeno, concluded that the events on March 21constituted a massacre. The report harshly criticized the repressive tactics and massive civil rights violations by the administration of Governor Blanton Winship.[28]
External videos | |
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and view a portion of the Albizu Documentary Trailer made in English here. | |
You may watch newsreel scenes of the Ponce Massacre here |
- On July 25, 1938, the municipality of Ponce organized celebrations to commemorate the American landing in 1898. This included a military parade and speeches by Governor Jaime Benitez, a student at the University of Chicagoat the time, wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt which in part read as follows:
The point I am to make is that the Governor [Winship] himself through his military approach to things has helped keep Puerto Rico in an unnecessary state of turmoil. He seems to think that the political problem of Puerto Rico limits itself to a fight between himself and the Nationalists, that no holds are barred in that fight and that everybody else should keep out. As a matter of fact he has played the Nationalist game and they have played his.[29]
Soon afterward, two Nationalist partisans, among them Raimundo Díaz Pacheco, attempted to assassinate Robert Cooper, judge of the Federal Court in Puerto Rico. On May 12, 1939, Winship was summarily removed from his post as Governor by President Roosevelt.[30]
- On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and Nationalist movements on the archipelago. The Senate, which at the time was controlled by the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill that day.[31] This bill, which resembled the anti-communist Smith Act passed in the United States in 1940, became known as the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law) when the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero, signed it into law on June 10, 1948.[32][33]
- Officially known as Law 53 (Ley 53) of 1948, the Gag Law made it illegal to display the Puerto Rican flag, sing patriotic songs, talk about independence, or fight for the liberation of the island, with anyone found guilty of disobeying the law being subject to a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment, a fine of US$10,000 (equivalent to $127,000 in 2023), or both.
- Albizu Campos ordered Nationalist uprisings to take place on October 30, 1950 (they had originally been planned for 1952, when Commonwealth status was expected.) These involved a dozen or so skirmishes throughout the island.
Nationalist Revolts of 1950
External audio | |
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You may listen to one of the speeches made in Spanish by Albizu Campos here |
The first battle of the Nationalist uprisings occurred in the early hours of October 29, in barrio Macaná of
In the Jayuya Uprising, led by Nationalist leader Blanca Canales, a police station and post office were burned. The town was held by the Nationalists for three days.[35]
The
The San Juan Nationalist revolt was a Nationalist attempt to enter the Governor's mansion, La Fortaleza, in order to attack then-governor Luis Muñoz Marín. The hour-long shootout resulted in the death of four Nationalists: Domingo Hiraldo Resto, Carlos Hiraldo Resto, Manuel Torres Medina and Raimundo Díaz Pacheco. Three guards were also seriously wounded.
Various other shootouts took place throughout island – including those at Mayagüez, Naranjito, Arecibo, and Ponce, where Antonio Alicea, Jose Miguel Alicea, Francisco Campos (Albizu Campos's nephew), Osvaldo Perez Martinez and Ramon Pedrosa Rivera were arrested and accused of the murder of police corporal Aurelio Miranda during the revolt. Raul de Jesus was accused of violating the Insular Firearms Law.[36]
On October 31, police officers and National Guardsmen surrounded Salón Boricua, a barbershop in Santurce. Believing that a group of Nationalists were inside the shop, they opened fire. The only person in the shop was Campos barber Vidal Santiago Díaz. Santiago Díaz, who fought alone against the attackers for three hours, received five wounds, including one in the head. The battle was transmitted "live" via the radio airwaves to the public in general.[37]
On November 1, 1950, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate U.S. President Harry S. Truman, who was staying at the Blair House in Washington, D.C.
Truman supported development of a constitution for Puerto Rico and the 1952 status referendum on it; 82% of the voters approved the constitution. The US Congress also approved the constitution.
On March 1, 1954,
On November 18, 1955, a non-violent splinter group of nationalists calling themselves La Quinta Columna (The 5th Column) broke away from the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party due to not supporting the ideas and thoughts of Albizu Campos, as to a Puerto Rico relationship with Spain as its Mother country and their nationalistic love for Puerto Rico as their Motherland.[citation needed] The other reason for the splinter group was due to the violence that took place in the 1950s.[citation needed] This splinter group would later become known in 1968 as El Movimiento Indio Taino de Boriken (The Taino Indian Movement of Puerto Rico) which was primarily made up of the children of the Puerto Rican Nationalists whom would come to establish the indigenous grassroots civil rights movement in Puerto Rico.[citation needed]
1960s–present
Although less active, the Nationalist Party continues to exist as an organization and an ideology. It also has somewhat of a "chapter" in New York City. The New York Junta is an autonomous organ of the party that recognizes, and is recognized by, the National Junta in Puerto Rico.[citation needed]
In 2006 and in representation of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Jose Castillo spoke before the
In 2013 the Puerto Rico Nationalist Party made a public demonstration of their pro-Independence commitment by protesting a speech from the Governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro García Padilla.[39]
Its last president was Antonio "Toñito" Cruz Colón until his death in October 2014.[40]
Photo gallery
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(Left to right) Nationalists Carmen María Pérez González, Olga Viscal Garriga and Ruth Mary Reynolds
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Raimundo Díaz Pacheco commanding the Nationalist Cadets
See also
- Intentona de Yauco
- Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s
- Puerto Rican Independence Party
- Truman assassination attempt
Notable members of the PNPR
References
- ^ Power, Margaret (May–August 2013). "Nationalism in a Colonized Nation: The Nationlist Party and Puerto Rico". Memorias: Revista Digital de Historia y Arqueología desde el Caribe (20): 121–122. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
- ISBN 978-1-64131-139-7
- ^ Protesta interrumpe mensaje del gobernador. Antonio R. Gómez. El Nuevo Dia. Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
- ^ Ribes Tovar et al., p.106–109
- ^ Thomas Aitken, Jr.; Luis Munoz Marin: Poet in the Fortress, pp. 60–61; Signet Books/New American Library, 1965
- ^ Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation, pp. 70–76; Random House, 1972
- ^ a b c Ribes Tovar et al., p.122–144
- ^ Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation, pp. 65–82; Random House, 1972
- ^ a b c Rich Cohen; The Fish That Ate the Whale; pub. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012; pp. 146–150
- ^ Rich Cohen; The Fish That Ate the Whale; pub. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012; p. 174
- ^ Neysa Rodriguez Deynes, Rafael J. Torres Torres and Carlos Aneiro Perez. Breviario sobre la Historia de Ponce y sus Principales Lugares de Interes. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Model Offset Printing. 1991. Page 63.
- ISBN 978-0-8477-0158-2
- ^ The Imprisonment of Men and Women Fighting Colonialism, 1898 – 1958: 1930 – 1940. Retrieved 18 October 2012.
- ^ Rovira, "Remember the 1950 Uprising of October 30: Puerto Rico"
- ^ Victor Villanueva, "Colonial Memory and the Crime of Rhetoric: Pedro Albizu Campos" Archived August 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine . Washington State University, Program in American Studies. Common Reading Assignment. Also in College English, Volume 71, Number 6. July 2009. National Council of Teachers of English. (Also appearing as "Colonial Research: A Preamble to a Case Study" in "Beyond the Archives: Research as a Lived Process", Gesa Kirsch and Liz Rohan, editors. Southern Illinois University Press.) Page 636. Retrieved 21 October 2012.
- ^ Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation, Random House, 1972
- ^ "Law Library Microform Consortium". Llmc.com. Archived from the original on December 14, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ "Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Civil Rights in Puerto Rico. The Commission, 70p, np, May 22, 1937". Llmc.com. Archived from the original on December 14, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ "Law Library". Llmc.com. Archived from the original on December 14, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Don Luis Sanchez Frasquieri, President of the Ponce Rotary Club at the time Archived January 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The "police riot" shot at the demonstrators as well as the crowd standing by". Llmc.com. Archived from the original on December 14, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ "US Congressman Vito Macartonio". Cheverote.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ "Over 200 were wounded". Cheverote.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Antonio de la Cova. "Photos of police shooting with rifles (from positions previously occupied by marchers and bystanders) at bystanders running away". Latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Five Years of Tyranny, Speech before the U.S. House of Representatives. Archived January 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine The entire speech is contained in the Congressional Record of August 14, 1939. It is reported in the Cong. Rec., and various other publications elsewhere, that among those shot in their backs was a 7-year-old girl, Georgina Maldonado, who "was shot in the back while running to a nearby church."
- ^ "Report of the ACLU as echoed by U.S. Congressman Vito Marcantonio". Cheverote.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ISBN 1-85109-523-3. Retrieved May 1, 2009.
- ISBN 0-7432-8195-0. Retrieved March 17, 2009.
- ISBN 0-8477-0160-3
- ^ Five Years of Tyranny. Archived January 12, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Piri Thomas. Berkeley, CA: Cheverote Productions. 2003. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
- ^ "La obra jurídica del Profesor David M. Helfeld (1948-2008)'; by: Dr. Carmelo Delgado Cintrón Archived March 27, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Manuel Maldonado-Denis; Puerto Rico: A Socio-Historic Interpretation; Random House, 1972
- ^ "Puerto Rican History". Topuertorico.org. January 13, 1941. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ISBN 978-1-931702-01-0
- ^ "Puerto Rico?s October Revolution - New York Latino Journal". Archived from the original on August 26, 2009. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
- ^ "Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico-FBI files" (PDF). Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ "WebCite query result". www.webcitation.org. Archived from the original on October 26, 2009.
{{cite web}}
: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ Special Committee on Decolonization Approves Text Calling on United States to Expedite Puerto Rican Self-determination Process; Draft Resolution Urges Probe of Pro-Independence Leader’s Killing, Human Rights Abuses; Calls for Clean-up, Decontamination of Vieques (Issued on 13 June 2006.). UN General Assembly. GA/COL/3138/Rev.1. 12 June 2006. UN Department of Public Information. News and Media Division. New York, New York. Special Committee on Decolonization. 8th & 9th Meetings (AM & PM). Retrieved 24 January 2014. Archived at WayBack Machine on 2013-11-04 (4 November 2013).
- ^ Protesta interrumpe mensaje del gobernador. Antonio R. Gómez. El Nuevo Dia. Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. July 25, 2013. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
- ^ "Fallece líder nacionalista Antonio Toñito Cruz Colón". Primera Hora. October 17, 2014.
Further reading
- Pagán, Bolívar. Historia de los Partidos Politicos Puertorriqueños 1898–1956. San Juan: Librería Campos, (1959).
- Power, Margaret M. (2023). Solidarity across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Anti-imperialism. UNC Press