by Yaz

The people of Puerto Rico have been under siege since the 1493 arrival of Christopher Columbus.  Women especially have had to bear the weight of colonial violence.  Families were ripped apart as the native Taino people were enslaved, their women raped, taken away from their parents, lovers and children to serve the Spaniards.  The same happened with the enslaved West Africans who were brought to the island around 1510. The battles of the imperialist were waged on the bodies of women who bore the mixed children of colonialism, while giving birth to a new Puerto Rican nation of many colors. 

After the United States invaded and colonized Puerto Rico in 1898, they decided that too many of these children had been born.  Women’s bodies again became the battleground for a new colonialism where U.S. government-sponsored sterilization campaigns sought to “control our population”.   At it’s height 1/3 of Puerto Rican women of childbearing age had been sterilized in a campaign that began in the 1940’s and continued well into the 1970’s.  Sterilization and the aggressive experimenting of birth control methods on Puerto Rican women would make every one of us born during this period a miracle.  For centuries Puerto Rican women have endured the colonial violence inflicted on our bodies and minds.  Who better then to step up to the frontlines to ensure the future of a liberated Puerto Rican nation than brave Boricua women? 

“If the men won’t fight for the liberation of Puerto Rico, then we women will do it!”

– Lolita Lebrón

Prior to the war with the U.S., Puerto Rican Freedom Fighters were already defending themselves from the Spanish colonizers. By the time the independence wars spread throughout Latin America in the early 1800’s, women in Puerto Rico were also leading revolts against Spanish colonialism on the island. One such heroine was Maria de las Mercedes Barbudo who joined forces with the Venezuelan government to lead an insurrection against the colonial forces in Puerto Rico.  Barbudo was captured, imprisoned then exiled to Cuba without trial. 

The most famous armed insurrection against the Spanish, known as El Grito de Lares, took place in 1868 under the leadership of Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances, who was in exile.  The home of a woman named Mariana Bracetti became the safehouse for those involved in the rebellion.  She was known as el brazo de oro or “golden arm” for having sewed the first flag representing a free Puerto Rico and because she too would take up arms in the revolt. When the town of Lares was declared the free republic on September 23rd, 1868, this was the flag that was raised.  Mariana was also made leader of the Lares Revolutionary Council.  However the Spanish authorities, tipped off by an informant, were able to intercept a ship that Betances was sending from the Virgin Islands with extra weapons and supplies.  The revolutionaries were eventually captured. 

Although the Lares insurrectionists were not successful in securing the independence of Puerto Rico, others continued to advocate for armed struggle against colonialism.  Lola Rodriguez de Tío, inspired by the Lares rebellion, wrote lyrics to the tune of a danza known as La Borinqueña. With words like “nosotros queremos la libertad, y nuestros machetes nos la dará”, Lola wrote the revolutionary anthem that is still used by independence supporters to this day.  Lola’s poetry and open support for liberation and armed struggle resulted in her being exiled from her homeland. Cuba became her second home where she worked closely with Cuban revolutionary Jose Martí.  She even went on to work with the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York City who were organizing the war of independence for both Cuba and Puerto Rico. 

The new Nationalist Party, under the direction of Don Pedro Albizu Campos, recognized violence as a necessary means of combating U.S. colonialism. Both men and women were trained to use weapons.  One such woman, Blanca Canales (like Mariana Bracetti in 1868) used her home to store ammunition and to gather Nationalists for another attempt to free Puerto Rico.

On October 20, 1950 Blanca Canales and a group of Nationalists set fire to a post office and attacked city hall in the town of Jayuya.  Afterwards she shouted from a balcony Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre. The Nationalists kept Jayuya for three days until they succumbed to several bombings and attacks at the hands of the U.S. National Guard.  Witnesses accused Blanca of having killed a policeman during the rebellion, a claim that got her a life prison sentence.  She received a pardon from the Governor of Puerto Rico, after having served a portion of this time behind bars. 

The Jayuya uprising resulted in an increase in independence supporters, but it did not keep the United States from changing Puerto Rico’s status to the Free Associated State in 1952, as a means of cementing PRs tie to the U.S.  Although the new status allowed for a constitution to be drafted, the President of the US maintained full veto power over any Puerto Rican law.  So in 1954 another woman stepped up to the front line in protest of U.S. imperialism.

Lolita Lebrón was born in Lares, home of the famed 1868 revolution.  On March 1, 1954 she and three men bought one-way tickets to Washington D.C. for a mission that they hoped would grab world attention to the cause for Puerto Rican liberation.  Ironically, Lolita led the men to the “Ladies Gallery” from where they would observe a meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives.  However this particular “lady” had planned to do much more than observe.  The 4 Nationalists fired shots at the ceiling and then Lolita unfurled a Puerto Rican flag. Like Blanca Canales before her, she shouted “Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre!”

Following the attack in Washington, colonial authorities showed up at the residence of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.  Accompanying him were three Nationalist women:  Doris Torresola, Isabel Rosado Morales and Carmín Pérez.  The police came with an order of arrest for the Nationalists, but the PR revolutionaries launched a full-on shoot out with the police until finally tear gas was used to debilitate them and they were forcibly taken into custody. 

The US dealt with the Puerto Rican Nationalists in the same way they deal with anyone that opposes them—they were silenced. With Ley 53, or the Gag Law, it became illegal to verbally express any association with the independence movement. Independence supporters were blacklisted, and could not find employment on the island.  With such strong political repression in Puerto Rico, the tradition of radical boricua women shifted from the island to the states. 

The 1970s saw a radical resurgence of the armed Puerto Rican liberation struggle with the rise of Los Macheteros and the FALN.  Both organizations fought for the liberation of Puerto Rico and its political prisoners.  After having served 25 years in prison, Lolita Lebrón and her male counterparts were pardoned by U.S. President Carter in 1979.  His decision was partly influenced by global pressure for her release as well as a deal made with Fidel Castro, granting the Nationalists pardons in exchange for the release of American prisoners in Cuba. However, in 1980, members of the FALN were arrested in Illinois. Among them were 6 women: Haydee Beltrán, Dylcia Pagán, Carmen Valentín, Ida Luz Rodríguez, Alicia Rodríguez and Alejandrina Torres.  Throughout that same year, Lolita Lebrón, only months after having left prison, traveled across the the americas to rally support for the new wave of political prisoners. 

In 1999, after 19 years of global pressure, U.S. President Clinton released most of the political prisoners/ POWs, however they were each subjected to strict conditions.  Currently three political prisoners/ POWs remain behind bars to this day. Among them is Haydee Beltrán, who has been locked up since 1980, when she was 24 years old

Some would argue that Puerto Ricans do exercise some freedoms.  But they are conditional freedoms.   Ultimately, how free can we be when our mothers, sisters, daughters risk imprisonment for defending the belief that EVERYBODY has the right to rule themselves?

Our freedom was taken from us in 1493 and again in 1898 and until we get free, there will always be a guerrillera ready to take our freedom back by any means necessary.