Jayuya Uprising - Events Leading To The Revolt

Events Leading To The Revolt

On September 17, 1922, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was formed to work for Puerto Rican Independence. Jose Coll y Cuchi, a former member of the Union Party, was elected its first president. He wanted radical changes within the economy and social welfare programs of Puerto Rico. In 1924, Pedro Albizu Campos, a lawyer, joined the party and was named its vice president.

Albizu Campos was the first Puerto Rican graduate of Harvard Law School. He had served as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I, and believed that Puerto Rico should be an independent nation - even if that required an armed confrontation. By 1930, Coll y Cuchi departed from the party because of his disagreements with Albizu Campos as to how the party should be run and on May 11, 1930, Albizu Campos was elected president of the Nationalist Party.

In the 1930s, the United States-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Blanton Winship, and his police colonel Riggs applied harsh repressive measures against the Nationalist Party. In 1936, Albizu Campos and the leaders of the party were arrested and jailed at the La Princesa prison in San Juan, and later sent to the Federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia. On March 21, 1937, the Nationalists held a parade in Ponce and the police opened fire on the crowd killing 19 people in what came to be known as the Ponce Massacre. Albizu Campos returned to Puerto Rico on December 15, 1947, after spending ten years in prison.

On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and Nationalist movements in the island. The Senate, which at the time was controlled by the PPD and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill. This bill, also known as Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law) and Law 53, received the approval of the legislature on May 21, 1948. The bill, which resembled the anti-communist Smith Law passed by the United States Congress in 1940, was signed into law by the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico Jesús T. Piñero on June 10, 1948, and became known as Ley 53 (Law 53).

Under this new law it would be a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent. Anyone accused and found guilty of disobeying the law could be sentenced to ten years imprisonment, a fine of $10,000 dollars (U.S.), or both.

According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a member of the Partido Estadista Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Statehood Party) and the only member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives who was not a member of the PPD, the law was repressive and in violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of Speech. As such, the Law was seen as an assault on the civil rights of every Puerto Rican.

On June 21, 1948, Albizu Campos gave a speech in the town of Manati that explained how this Gag Law violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Nationalists from all over the island had gathered to hear Albizu Campos's speech and to prevent the police from arresting him.