Salute to the martyrs of the October 30, 1950 JAYUYA UPRISING!

By Carlito Rovira

On October 30, 1950 (70 Years ago) an armed battle took place in the municipality of Jayuya which spread throughout Puerto Rico. It became known as the Jayuya Uprising. It is an event in recent Puerto Rican history which bourgeois historians and apologists for U.S. colonialism would prefer to dilute or completely erase.

Men and women determined to bring about an independent Puerto Rican republic carried out daring armed confrontations with U.S.-trained police and the National Guard. The fury that ensued was due to U.S. colonial policy, which began with the 1898 military invasion. Leading up to October 1950 the U.S. colonizers were putting in place a brutal plan to crush the independence movement and all expressions of anti-colonialism.

The colonization of Puerto Rico was motivated by capitalist economic interests of giant banks and corporations. Countries like Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Japan and the United States engaged in savage competition among themselves to obtain colonies. With the conquest of the Philippines, Guam, Cuba and Puerto Rico the U.S. became an imperialist power. U.S. rulers envisioned themselves controlling the world, especially Latin America where they had defined their intentions to make it their own in the 1823 Monroe Doctrine.

However, this historical trend did not go unchallenged. Millions of people resisted the savage onslaught by this system, especially after World War II and well into the 1960’s-70’s with the emergence of organized revolutionary nationalist movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

It was a momentous period in history with national liberation movements becoming an integral part of the global class struggle, which came to a head at the height of the so-called Cold War. At the political-military poles of this conflict were the United States on one side and the Soviet Union on the other.

Most notable in this historic turmoil were revolutions in Algeria (1954), Angola (1961), Bolivia (1952), Congo (1960), China (1949), Dominican Republic (1965), Egypt (1952), Iraq (1958), Vietnam (1945) and Cuba (1959), as well as the inspiring liberation movements of Palestine, South Africa and Northern Ireland. Imperialism did not foresee the resistance of its victims picking up arms in their quest for freedom. The Jayuya uprising occurred in the context of existing world circumstances.

The 1950 Jayuya Uprising

Under the leadership of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico proclaimed the inalienable right of the Puerto Rican people to independence. These freedom fighters gained the respect of multiple sectors of the population.

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The Nationalist Party also became known for advocating the right to use whatever means necessary to achieve liberation, including the use of armed force. This made them the primary target of colonialism’s repressive agencies that sought to destroy the independence movement.

When the political left in the United States was persecuted in the 1940-50’s, the result of an anti-communist witch-hunt spearheaded by the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy, Puerto Ricans witnessed a harsher version of that despicable campaign. People in the U.S. hardly knew that Nationalists were systematically imprisoned and murdered.

Laws were created to justify killing Nationalists in plain view. The cause for independence was criminalized outright. Such was the nature of Law 53 of 1948, better known as the Gag Law, (Spanish: Ley de La Mordaza);  it banned the Nationalist Party, prohibited possession and display of the Puerto Rican flag, outlawed public gatherings, prohibited criticism of the U.S. presence and mention of independence in literature, musical renditions and in all mass media. This vicious law aimed to destroy the Puerto Rican people’s self-identity by instilling fear.

U.S. news media outlets only told the false narrative of Washington officials who projected the uprising as an “internal matter among Puerto Ricans.” But nothing can dismiss the cold facts pointing to the contrary: the supposed “Government of Puerto Rico” did not come into existence by the will of the people, it was installed by U.S. colonial decree. Federal law mandates the U.S. President to take direct charge of matters there in cases of emergency. In addition, the governor of Puerto Rico is required to report and take directions from the White House.

Early in October 1950, Nationalist Party intelligence operatives obtained information of a secret government plan to eliminate the independence movement. The tactics to be used in the planned onslaught involved attacking offices and homes of Nationalist Party members. With knowledge of the imminent attack Party leadership chose to uphold national dignity and their right to armed self-defense. They decided that it was best to take the initiative by landing the first blow.

On the morning of October 30, 1950, a young woman named Blanca Canales led an armed contingency of Nationalists towards Jayuya. Once they arrived in the city the patriots launched their attack on the police headquarters. The Nationalists then surrounded the despised facility and a gun battle ensued.

Civil and police officials were shocked by the unexpected tenacity of the freedom fighters. The police were ordered to surrender and come out of the building with their hands raised. As soon as the Nationalists gained control of the situation Blanca Canales proceeded to give the command to burn down the building.

Surrounded by crowds of residents the brave patriots raised the outlawed Puerto Rican flag. With her weapon raised in the air Blanca Canales agitated the onlookers by shouting  the historic words of the struggle — “QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE!” She defiantly declared the independence of Puerto Rico.

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Violent clashes between police and nationalists also occurred in Utuado, Ponce, Mayagüez, Arecibo, Naranjito, Ciales, Peñuelas and other towns. In Arecibo a gun battle ensued at the site of the police station there in which several Nationalists were killed. Among the 12 patriots wounded was former political prisoner Carlos Feliciano.

In San Juan, the police attacked the headquarters of the Nationalist Party. Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, Isabel Rosado and others undertook an armed battle until they were overwhelmed by tear gas. Campos was then sentenced to life imprisonment. But U.S. puppet Governor Luis Muños Marin conveniently granted Campos a pardon a few months before his death in 1965. Many pro-independence activists, including medical experts, maintain that Campos’ physical deterioration was due to tortured with secret radiation experiments.

Military airplanes were deployed to bomb Jayuya in which 70 percent of the municipality was destroyed. The National Guard immediately pushed to suppress the uprising and regain control of city. New repressive measures were imposed throughout the country, including martial law.

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A news blackout kept the events of the rebellion out of mainstream outlets in order to avoid the condemnation of colonialism in the court of public opinion. To guarantee silencing voices of the emerging struggle U.S. officials intensified their efforts to twist the facts. When the news media asked about the rebellion President Harry Truman falsely projected the conflict as being among Puerto Ricans.

On November 1, 1950 Nationalist Party members Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola went to the Blair House in Washington, D.C. to assassinate President Harry Truman. Their intended purpose was to counter Washington’s lies about the conflict before the world. Torresola was killed and Collazo was critically wounded in a shootout with Capital Police and Truman’s Secret Service bodyguards. But the brave act of the two martyrs did bring about exposure to what was occurring in Puerto Rico.

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The meaning of Jayuya

As Puerto Ricans rebelled with guns in hand, anti-colonial struggles in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America waged on. The Jayuya Uprising in Puerto Rico was part of that global resistance of oppressed and exploited people.

Although the efforts of the Nationalist Party failed to expel colonialism a political victory was won. This episode proved that the colonizers will compel the people to rebel. It does not matter how great the repressive reach is it can never erase from the minds of colonized people the pride of their national identity and their revolutionary traditions.

The Jayuya Uprising did force U.S. rulers to change their administering form of domination. In 1952 the Governor of Puerto Rico was no longer a military high ranking official appointed by the U.S. President. Elections were introduced for the office of Governor, but only to disguise the colonizing nature of the U.S. presence. By 1957 Law 53 of 1948, (the Gag Law) was lifted. The removal of this notorious law included lifting the ban of the Puerto Rican flag.

If one were to examine the chronology of the atrocities committed by the U.S. in Puerto Rico, like the secret sterilization of women, the cancer epidemic caused by the U.S. Navy bombing destruction of Vieques, the thousands of deaths caused by Hurricane Maria, and the deliberate policy of neglect that followed and other examples of genocide, points to why the uprising was justified.

For their own reasoning U.S. colonizers will also remember the Jayuya Uprising, as they recognize the potential threat Puerto Ricans pose once they rise up in rebellion. And in that inevitable moment the lessons gained from the Jayuya experience shall prove decisive in the future battle for a free Puerto Rican republic.


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The birth of Puerto Rico’s fight for independence & the affirmation of a nation — EL GRITO DE LARES

By Carlito Rovira

On September 23, 1868, in the city of Lares, Puerto Rico, was the historic site of an uprising against African chattel slavery under Spanish colonial domination. The event is known as “El Grito de Lares”—the outcry of Lares— which affirmed the existence of the Puerto Rican nation and its struggle for national liberation, first against Spanish and then against U.S. colonialism. It is a struggle that continues to this day.

El Grito de Lares took place in a world context of bourgeois democratic revolutions against the remnants of feudalism in the dominant European powers. Feudal states like Spain, basing themselves on the wealth generated by large land holdings and colonial exploitation, were forcefully compelled to give way to the growing power of world capitalism.

The Haitian Revolution of 1802-04, coming in the wake of the French Revolution that began in 1789, marked the first Black republic in history. The victory of African slaves who rebelled and broke away from French colonial domination inspired millions throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and the world. Slave owners everywhere became apprehensive about this event, especially in the United States.

In 1810, Indigenous people in Mexico under the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo launched a drive to force the Spanish out of that country. Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1824.

Throughout the 1810s and 1820s, Simón Bolívar led an army of Indigenous people and former African slaves in an effort to win the independence of South American colonies from Spain. These successful military campaigns shattered the prestige of the Spanish Army. Puerto Rico and Cuba were Spain’s only remaining colonies in Latin America.

In the 1848 revolutionary wars that took place in France, Germany and Italy, workers took to the streets against the feudal monarchies. Despite the monarchies’ desperate efforts to hold on to political power, the development of capitalism and the rising of the working classes meant the end of the centuries-long rule of feudal states.

In the United States, the Civil War of 1861-65 led to the overthrow of the slave-owning class in the South. And because slavery in the U.S. was the most lucrative and brutal of all it’s defeat served as a death blow to that system everywhere. Due to the vigorous efforts by the African American masses, especially when they fought in organized, armed detachments of the Union Army, the final destruction of the slave system was certain.

In all these struggles, the political demands of freedom and independence were meant to benefit the growing capitalist class, although it was the most oppressed social layers in society that fought the battles to destroy feudalism and chattel slavery.

The Puerto Rican nation

Under Spanish colonialism, the people of Puerto Rico—like the people in the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America—evolved to have the characteristics of self-identity typical of nationhood. The development of nations in the Americas inspired many to seek their freedom. Colonialism defined the class relationships that the newly formed nations would have to Spanish imperial power.

By 1867, there were close to 650,000 people in Puerto Rico. Half were of white Spanish background; the others were Black slaves, mulattos and mixed-race mestizos. The economy was largely centered on sugar production and the sugar trade, with a capitalist mode of production that gave rise to the Puerto Rican working class.

Spanish colonial rule in Puerto Rico was harsh and allowed for little political participation by the local elites. All policies relating to politics and economy were dictated by the Spanish monarchy. Taxes were heavy. Any expressions for more autonomy—not to mention independence—were brutally put down.

El Grito de Lares took place in the context of increasing resistance to foreign oppression and the socioeconomic developments in the Western Hemisphere.

The Revolutionary Committees

A central figure in El Grito de Lares uprising was Ramón Emeterio Betances. The son of an African mother and a white father, Betances was reared in a relatively wealthy and privileged family. However, Betances began to question the causes for the inequalities that existed under a slave-owning colonial system. He was active in the clandestine movement for independence and to abolish slavery. Today, Betances is considered the “father of the Puerto Rican nation”.

Betances and Segundo Ruiz Belvis founded the Revolutionary Committees of Puerto Rico on Jan. 6, 1868, while they were in exile in the Dominican Republic. Soon, Revolutionary Committees were formed throughout Puerto Rico to organize for an eventual revolt among all sectors of the population. Under the most secretive measures, organizers reached out to Africans slaves toiling the land. The punishment for slaves caught in seditious activity was harsh.

A significant portion of the Puerto Rican combatants galvanized by the Revolutionary Committees were escaped African slaves living in hiding. In some cases slaves were granted freedom in exchange for partaking in the planned war; Some slave owners also desired to break away with Spain. But the class interest of this privileged sector was different from most people in Puerto Rico, their class aspirations were to develop capitalism free of hindrance by a  foreign power.

Other freedom fighters were Tainos, the original Indigenous people of Puerto Rico who were living in the mountains and working as day laborers in the towns. Haitians, Dominicans and Jamaicans were also among the insurgents who fought in Lares.

Women also played an important role in the leadership of this revolutionary movement, such as Mariana Brecetti Cuevas and Lola Rodriguez De Tio. Both of these women partook in organizing the clandestine Revolutionary Committees. Mariana Bracetti Cuevas created what the revolutionaries hoped would become the flag of an independent Puerto Rican republic. Lola Rodriguez De Tio was the author of the Puerto Rican National Anthem — not the revised, non-revolutionary version approved by the U.S. colonizers.

Betances sailed on a ship with a cargo of rifles, cannons and other weapons from the island of Española (Haiti & Dominican Republic). These were weapons obtained during the Haitian Revolution’s defeat of French colonialism on January 1, 1804. Haiti had such an abundance of captured weapons that much of it was provided to other liberation struggles in the Western Hemisphere, especially to Simon Bolivar’s military campaign to expel Spanish colonialism.

But the Spanish colonial authorities discovered the plans. On his return from the neighboring island as he entered the harbor of Arecibo, the Spanish Navy surrounded the rebel ship, capturing the cargo and arresting the crew.

News of the ship’s capture reached the revolutionaries in the mountains who were preparing for the rebellion. With Betances in Spanish custody, the leading organizers of the movement decided to call for the rebellion ahead of schedule.

The Uprising Begins

At about 2 AM on September 23, 1868, 900 hundred insurgents on foot and horseback stormed the city of Lares. The army of freedom fighters entered the city, and as the sounds of shouts and gunfire were heard, the city awakened, crowds of people poured onto the streets, and the African slaves staged a revolt. The people were emboldened to fight which weakened the ability of the Spanish military forces to maintain control.

The principal demands of the revolutionaries were the abolition of chattel slavery, an end to the “libreta” (notebook) system and the independence of Puerto Rico. They called for the right to bear arms, the right to determine taxes and freedom of speech and of the press.

After an hour of gun battle, the Spanish authority was overwhelmed. Government and military officials were forced by the fury of the people to lay down their weapons and surrender. The rebels then declared the Republic of Puerto Rico.

The Spanish prisoners were then paraded and displayed for all to view as trophies of war. Colonial officials guilty of heinous crimes against the people were dealt with accordingly. What was unimaginable at one time—defeating by force an oppressor that projected itself as invincible—was now a reality.

The people rejoiced at the power they now had over their oppressors. With jubilant emotions the revolutionaries held their weapons in the air as crowds gathered at the town plaza in the center of the city. The Spanish flag, the despised symbol of tyranny, was lowered, stepped on and burned. In its place, the flag of the newly proclaimed Puerto Rican republic (shown below) was raised on a pole at the municipal building.

It was on this occasion that the people heard for the first time the solemn words of the Puerto Rican liberation struggle: “¡QUE VIVA PUERTO RICO LIBRE!”—long live a free Puerto Rico!

The revolutionaries’ plans were to capture Lares, then attack the surrounding cities where other groups of revolutionaries awaited instructions. Lares was chosen for the initial attack because of what was believed to be a strategically advantageous location for a starting point, in the mountainous region.

But because the Spaniards were better equipped and more experienced in the techniques of war, the victory at Lares was short-lived. What followed was the suppression of the independence and abolitionist movement throughout Puerto Rico. Many were imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Madrid issued new decrees and sent troop reinforcements to secure its domination over the Puerto Rican people.

But the uprising did lead to some concessions. For example, amid continued turmoil over the question of slavery — something which politically troubled Madrid did not want — the Spanish National Assembly abolished the hated system on March 22, 1873. In addition, the Spanish government granted a limited form of home rule to Puerto Rico in 1897. But one year later, in the course of the Spanish-American war, U.S. troops invaded Puerto Rico which remains a U.S. colony to this day.

Before his death on September 16, 1898—a few months after the U.S. invasion—Betances stated, “I do not want to see Puerto Rico under the colonial domination of Spain nor the United States.”

A Symbol of Struggle

El Grito de Lares is today a celebrated and respected holiday in the U.S.-colonized Caribbean island. Even the U.S.-installed colonial government recognizes El Grito de Lares as an official holiday, closing schools and government offices — while trying to strip the holiday of its revolutionary content.

Although the martyrs of Lares did not achieve their quest, they provided the movement today with a sense of the necessity to build a people’s movement that can defeat U.S. colonialism. Their fierce attempt to end slavery is a continuing model for anti-racist struggle as well.

Betances and his fellow revolutionaries also provided a living example of the internationalism of oppressed peoples against colonialism. The “Society for the Independence of Cuba & Puerto Rico,” founded in the 1860s by exiled revolutionaries living in New York City is such an example.

Many of the Lares combatants that managed to survive the Spanish onslaught chose to continue their efforts by retreating to join the struggle in Cuba. About 2000 Puerto Ricans seized Spanish vessels in order to set sail to join their Cuban comrades in “El Grito de Yara” uprising, three weeks after El Grito de Lares. Among the Puerto Ricans to join this venture was Juan Rius Rivera, who became a commander in the Cuban rebel army.

It was this act of solidarity that solidified the centuries-long relationship between Cuban and Puerto Rican revolutionaries. This special collaboration became tradition. It is what motivated Lola Rodriguez De Tio’s famous poetic expression “Two Wings of the Same Bird”.

For many Puerto Ricans, the experience of Lares emphasis that the national salvation and liberation of the people can only be achieved with total independence and absolute freedom from foreign interference.

Added Meaning of El Grito De Lares

On September 23, 2005 Filiberto Ojeda Rios was killed in a gun battle with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. Filiberto was leader of the clandestine armed group Los Macheteros. The FBI chose the date to launch this vicious attack on the revered leader as an attempt to shatter the fighting spirit of the movement.

But U.S. colonialism’s efforts of psychological warfare came short of it’s goal. All that Washington officials managed to do was to give the annual El Grito De Lares commemorations an added meaning. Boricuas continue to wage the liberation struggle.

Today, Puerto Rico has a developed working class population with a long tradition of fighting the exploitative horrors typical in a colonial setting. And with the “Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA)”, a law designed to intensify U.S. colonial domination, the U.S. rulers hope to destroy this rebellious nation. Regardless what Washington officials throw against the Puerto Rican people, the historic instinct to rebel will allow them to persevere in the tradition of El Grito De Lares.

The continued struggle for an independent state is the only suitable direction and the only guarantee for the right to self-determination for a people that has endured five centuries of colonial oppression. The sacrifices and lessons made by the martyrs of El Grito De Lares shall one day prove to inspire a decisive battle to bring about the defeat of U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico.


July 25, 1898 — Invasion of Puerto Rico & the Emergence of U.S. Imperialism

By: Carlito Rovira





Imperialism was transforming from a policy into a global system. No capitalist power could stand on the sidelines. Eventually this scramble and competition for colonies led to the First World War in human history, from 1914 to 1918, involving all the major capitalist powers.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (the renown leader of the 1917 Russian socialist revolution) noted this trend in the very first sentence of his classic 1916 work Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. “During the last 15 to 20 years, especially since the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), the economic and also the political literature of the two hemispheres has more and more adopted the term ‘imperialism’ to describe the present era.”

Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin.

Until the Spanish-American War, capitalism in the United States was focused on expansion within North America. The expansion came from the push westward which came with seizure of Indigenous/First Nation people’s lands and the theft of nearly half of Mexico’s territory in the 1846-1848 U.S.-Mexican War.

Following the end of African chattel slavery and the conclusion of the U.S. Civil War in 1865, industrial capitalism was able to grow rapidly. Facilitating trade and the transfer of raw materials by laying railroad tracks throughout the entire stretch of the U.S. territory. Mining of raw materials increased. Factories, ports, bridges and dams were constructed at a greater pace.

Beneath this supposed “progress” in U.S. society, there was a tremendous cost in human suffering. The consolidation and expansion of capitalism in the country could be measured by the many horrific acts of genocide on Indigenous/First Nation people.  What began at Plymouth Rock proceeded to become a tradition and custom of white supremacy. Outright murder and rape became a requirement for U.S. capitalism’s further development. By the late 1890’s, Indigenous people were virtually annihilated within continental United States, as the so-called “Indian Wars” came to a close.

However, the westward expansionist drive by the white supremacist policies of Washington officials encountered the resistance of many Indigenous tribal nations. Their fighting spirit shall forever be exemplary to the freedom struggles of oppressed people everywhere. Tribal figures like Chief Joseph, Crazy Horse, Captain Jack, Red Cloud, Cochise, Sitting Bull and Geronimo, all stood up with dignity and led their people in many fierce battles against the encroaching white racist conquerors.

The legendary Apache  leader Geronimo (far right) with three of his most trusted warriors. Geronimo lead his people in many battles against the encroaching U.S. Army.





Militarism and racist arrogance, in the centuries of campaigns to expel Indigenous people from their lands and enforce a genocidal system, were now utilized to justify imperialist expansion. The use of brutal force against people in the invaded lands was justified as “divine will” or “manifest destiny.”

With mounting tensions between Washington and Madrid, the U.S. Navy targeted and harassed any vessel flying the Spanish flag in the open sea. U.S. Navy warships were instructed to stop Spanish freighters, carry out searches, and in many cases seize the cargo. This was despite the fact that a state of war did not yet exist.



On the evening of February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded while docked in the harbor of Havana, Cuba. While 266 sailors were killed as they slept in their quarters the ship’s captain and his close officers were not harmed. None of the officers were on board.


The Battleship Maine in the Port of Havana before and after the explosion.


On April 25, 1898, the notorious U.S. President William McKinley, with the consent of the U.S. Congress, made his infamous declaration of war against Spain. The United States would now be recognized as a world imperialist power.



In the early morning hours of May 12, 1898 a fleet consisting of several U.S. Navy warship began the military campaign for the conquest of Puerto Rico. These Warships conducted a devastating bombardment on the port city of San Juan, by firing a volley totaling 1,360 shells. Several Spanish Navy vessels were sunk while in the interior of the municipality many buildings were destroyed. What came after the bombing of San Juan was a naval blockade of Puerto Rico’s principle ports.

On May 12, 1898 a fleet of U.S. Navy warships bombarded San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Attempts were made to repel the U.S. Navy bombing attack on San Juan.

On July 25, 1898, 26,000 U.S. soldiers stormed the shores of Guanica, Puerto Rico — the stepping-stone to the invasion of the entire island nation. The invasion was led by the war criminal U.S. Army General Nelson A. Miles — a reliable servant of the U.S. capitalist westward expansion.

Miles was infamous for his role in the vicious suppression of the 1894 Pullman strike and other labor struggles fighting for the eight hour day and the right to unionize. He was also known for his capture and mistreatment of Indigenous leaders like Geronimo and Sitting Bull. But Miles’ most outstanding crime was the December 29, 1890, massacre of 300 Indigenous men, women and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

On July 25, 1898 about 26,000 U.S. troops rampaged throughout Puerto Rico.
Puerto Ricans did not invite the U.S. invaders, Puerto Rico was militarily conquered.
The U.S. military invasion was a shock and disruption to the lives of the Puerto Rican people.
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While American troops began their onslaught on Guanica, U.S. warships entered the Bahia De Ponce (Ponce Bay). These warships threaten to use their destructive heavy guns on the city of Ponce if the inhabitants did not surrender.

As the U.S. Army marched through the mountains, they encountered peasants who had been forewarned of the invasion’s brutality. These mountain people (Jibaros), armed solely with machetes, valiantly attacked the U.S. soldiers. The peasants who were captured by the invading forces were often bound to trees and shot by firing squad.



U.S. troops were sent to Nicaragua in 1898 and again in 1899, 1907 and 1910, and from 1912 through 1933; to Panama from 1901 through 1914 and again in 1989; to Honduras in 1903 and again in 1911; to the Dominican Republic in 1903 and again in 1965; to Korea in 1904 and again in 1950; to China in 1911; to Mexico from 1914 through 1918; to Haiti from 1914 through 1934; to Cuba in 1906 to 1909, 1912 and again from 1917 through 1933; to the Soviet Union from 1918 through 1922; to Guatemala in 1920; to Vietnam from 1955 through 1975; to Grenada in 1983, and so on.

The list of U.S. military invasions continued throughout the 20th century. With hundreds of military bases and interventions around the world it became a constant feature of world affairs to the present day.

A depiction of  the tyrant Theodore Roosevelt conquering the Caribbean.


The corporate media has always made every effort to disguise the foreign subjugation of Puerto Rico. But events occasionally occur that push the truth to the surface, especially when the colonized people are driven to rise up and rebel.

The U.S. invasion of July 25, 1898, is the core reason as to why Puerto Ricans have no say in their fundamental civil and human rights. This insurgence by the U.S military included all aspects of economic and political life of our homeland. Moreover, the imposition of the 1917 Jones Act and the more recent 2016 Puerto Rico Oversight Management & Economic Stability Act — also known as “PROMESA”, have all contributed to the island’s current deplorable reality.

Due to colonial circumstances Puerto Rico is one of the most plundered inhabited territorial entities on the globe. Giant U.S. corporations extract an average of $30 billion dollars annually in profits. For a country with a population less than 4 million makes the rate of exploitation one of the highest per capita in the world. And because its resources are robbed by multi-billionaires in the U.S. Puerto Rico continues to suffer economic devastation, especially after Hurricane Maria and the present COVID-19 pandemic.

Because the United States is the most advanced capitalist country in the world, for it to use the oldest form of foreign subjugation dating back to the Assyrian, Greek, Byzantine and Roman Empires, says volumes about the barbarity and cruelty of U.S. colonial policy. That is why denying the right of self-determination and independence justifies the continued people’s resistance, in Puerto Rico and throughout the diaspora.


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by Carlito Rovira

Racist Oppression Gives Rise to Solidarity

The historical struggle of the African American people was the inevitable consequence of the introduction of slavery by capitalists in the Western Hemisphere. The collective experience of the African American people over the course of many generations ran parallel to the development of U.S. capitalism at every stage. Their plight, from the era of the slave trade to the present day, reveals the inherent oppression within capitalism.

Racist terror, degradation, and discrimination were the objective circumstances that compelled into existence the militant tradition of resistance in the African American masses. Their steadfastness in many key moments in history proved exemplary to the U.S. working-class movement, and particularly to other oppressed nationalities. African American history is replete with displays of genuine solidarity with other liberation struggles.

The Black press, the Black church and outspoken African American figures such as W.E.B. DuBois, openly condemned the motives behind the 1898 Spanish-American War. The U.S. government and giant banking enterprises sought military conflict with Spain to win colonial control of Guam, the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.

Black Puerto Rican scholar Arturo Alfonso Schomburg devoted his entire life to compiling vast collections of writings documenting significant events in Black history. Before moving to New York City’s Harlem community, Schomburg was a member of the clandestine Revolutionary Committees of Puerto Rico, which organized the famous 1868 Grito de Lares uprising  — a revolt that called for the abolition of slavery and the independence of Puerto Rico. Schomburg eventually became a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance, which challenged the ideological facets of white supremacy through the literary, visual and performing arts.

Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

At many of his performance appearances, renowned African American singer, actor and Communist Paul Robeson would call upon his audience for a moment of silence to express solidarity for the incarcerated Puerto Rican revolutionary Nationalist leader, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos.

The young Pedro Albizu Campos gained recognition among African American figures for being very critical of the racism within the United States. Campos’s mother was Black, which gave him first-hand insight into the impact of racist oppression. Campos’s outspoken oratory against the “racist practices in the house of the empire” caught the attention of Pan-Africanist leader Marcus Garvey, who traveled to Puerto Rico to meet the renowned leader.

Despite their differences in goals and tactics, this meeting was highly symbolic for that period in history. The Russian Revolution emboldened workers’ struggles and nationalist movements throughout the world, including the United States and Puerto Rico, and instilled a sense of vulnerability in the U.S. capitalist class.


Black Struggle Inspires Puerto Rican Militancy

The Spanish-American War had a significant impact on African Americans, especially Black soldiers who were sent to wage colonial war on behalf of U.S. imperialism. Black troops resented their white officers using racial slurs against Filipino people, which were reminiscent of their own experience in the United States. Many Black soldiers defected to join the anti-colonial Filipino guerrilla army. The most notable of them was David Fagan, of the 24th Infantry Division. Fagan won the admiration and respect of the Filipino people and was made a commander in their guerrilla army.

Puerto Ricans have migrated to New York City and surrounding counties since the mid-1800s—in most cases, to escape Spanish colonial persecution. But in the years after World War II and well into the 1960s, Puerto Ricans migrated to U.S. industrial centers at an annual average rate of 63,000 due to economic hardships caused by U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico.

What the Puerto Rican migrants encountered was not what they expected when they uprooted in search of a better life. In addition to the agony of having to come to a strange land, the Puerto Rican experience now included greedy racist landlords, housing and job discrimination, cultural stigmatization by the mass media, police brutality and the terror of racist white gangs.

While Puerto Ricans began their exodus in the late 1940s African Americans were already involved in their “Great Migration” from southern states where they had been historically concentrated. Fleeing racist Jim Crow laws and Ku Klux Klan terror, more than 5 million African Americans migrated to the North, Northeast and California between the 1920s and the 1960s.

The instinct of any oppressed people is to seek allies and find ways to resist. Puerto Ricans facing the realities of colonialism and impoverishment could relate to the Civil Rights movement and were attracted to its boldness.

The Nation of Islam began to approach the newly arrived immigrants with the aim of politicizing them. And when the Black Panther Party began organizing in the Puerto Rican community of Chicago, it caused the transformation of a street youth group (“gang”) known as the Young Lords.

The Young Lords were the first Puerto Rican revolutionary organization to arise in the United States based on the concrete political circumstances of this country. They were a decisive factor in the spread of militancy in Puerto Rican communities in various U.S. cities. Like the Black Panthers, they advocated for a multinational revolution in the United States.


As this movement gained momentum, Puerto Ricans gained a sense of hope and became inspired to fight for their political and economic rights. By the second half of the 1960s, Puerto Ricans in the United States had become much more politically adept, thanks to the struggles of the African American masses.

African Americans and Puerto Ricans further developed their mutual affinity based on a resistance to racist oppression. In cities like Chicago, Philadelphia and New York, at street demonstrations and on college campuses, African American and Puerto Rican masses instinctively aligned with each other in common struggle. It was not unusual for the Black liberation flag (red black & green) to be accompanied by the Puerto Rican flag.

A particularly significant examples of solidarity, one that became a great concern to the ruling class, is the 1969 student takeover of City College in New York City. African American and Puerto Rican students captured the attention of many throughout the U.S. when they defiantly seized control of campus buildings to demand free tuition in the City University system. To further demonstrate their boldness, these students lowered the U.S. flag from the tallest flagpole and hoisted the Black Liberation Flag and the Puerto Rican Flag. It was an imagery of defiance and resistance never seen before in this country.

The great lessons gained from this experience are still deeply relevant today. Black oppression was instrumental in the rise of U.S. capitalism, and the African American masses have confronted head-on some of its most oppressive manifestations. Their struggle will continue to be a source of inspiration to the working class and oppressed peoples, and help forge genuine solidarity with deep consequences for struggles at home and abroad.