Everything about Ramon Emeterio Betances totally explained
Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán (
April 8 1827 –
September 16 1898) was a
Puerto Rican nationalist. He was the primary instigator of the
Grito de Lares revolution, and as such, is considered to be the father of the
Puerto Rican independence movement. Since the
Grito galvanized a burgeoning nationalist movement among Puerto Ricans, Betances is also considered
"El Padre de la Patria" (Father of the Puerto Rican Nation). Because of his many donations and help to people in need, he also became known as "The Father of the Poor."
Betances was also the most renowned
medical doctor and
surgeon of his time in Puerto Rico, and one of its first
social hygienists. He had established a successful surgery and
ophthalmology practice. Betances was also a
diplomat,
public health administrator,
poet and
novelist. He served as representative and contact for
Cuba and the
Dominican Republic in
Paris.
A firm believer in
Freemasonry, his political and social activism was deeply influenced by the group's philosophical beliefs. His personal and professional relationships (as well as the organizational structure behind the Grito de Lares, an event that, in theory, clashes with traditional Freemason beliefs) were based upon his relationships with Freemasons, their hierarchical structure, rites and signs.
Early years
Ancestry
Betances was born in
Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, in the building that now houses the
"Logia Cuna de Betances" (
"Betances' Cradle Masonic Lodge"). Betances' parents were Felipe Betanzos Ponce, a merchant born in
Hispaniola (in the part that would later become the
Dominican Republic; the surname
Betanzos transformed into Betances while the family resided there), and María del Carmen Alacán de Montalvo, a native of Cabo Rojo and of French ancestry. They were married in 1812.
Betances claimed in his lifetime that a relative of his, Pedro Betances, had revolted against the Spanish government of Hispaniola in 1808 and was tortured, executed, and his body burned and shown to the populace to dissuade them from further attempts. Meanwhile, Alacán's father, a sailor, led a party of volunteers that tried to apprehend
Roberto Cofresí in 1824 and did arrest some of Cofresí's crew, for which he was honored by the Spanish government.
Betances was the fourth of six children; the oldest of which would die shortly after birth; Betances was the only male among the surviving siblings. The family was described as being of
mixed race in records of the day. His mother died in 1837, when he was nine years old, and his father remarried in 1839; the five children he'd with María del Carmen Torres Pagán included Ramón's half-brother Felipe Adolfo, who wasn't involved in politics (according to Ramón) but was nevertheless arrested following the
Grito de Lares years later.
His father eventually bought the Hacienda Carmen in what would later become the nearby town of
Hormigueros, and became a wealthy landowner. He owned of land, a small
sugar mill, and some slaves, who shared their duties with free workers. There is speculation that he later freed his slaves, persuaded by his son Ramón.
First years in France
Primary education
The young Betances received his primary education from private tutors contracted by his father, a
Freemason who owned the largest private library in town. His parents' attitude towards religion and civil authority shaped his personal beliefs in both subjects. His father would eventually send him to
France, to study at the then-named
"Collège Royal" (later named the Lycée
Pierre de Fermat) in
Toulouse when he was ten years old. A Franco-Puerto Rican family, Jacques Maurice Prévost and María Cavalliery Bey (who also was a native of Cabo Rojo) were appointed as his tutors. Prévost opened a drug store in
Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, but was forced to return to France (particularly to his native town,
Grisolles) for not having finished his
pharmacy studies. There is also speculation that Prévost was a Freemason, as was Betances' father.
Legal "whitening" of family
While Ramón was in France, his father sought to move the family's registration from the "mixed race" to the "white" (
Caucasian) classification of families in Cabo Rojo. The process, when successful, entitled the requester to further legal and property rights for him and his family, and was necessary to allow his daughter, Ana María, to marry José Tió, who was a Caucasian.
Medicine studies
In 1846, Betances obtained his "bachelors degrees" (equivalents to a modern
high school diploma). After an extended vacation in Puerto Rico, he went on to study
medicine at the
University of Paris (then-named the
University of France) from 1848 until 1855, with a short interlude at the
University of Montpellier for specific courses in the summer of 1852.
At the time of his arrival in Paris, Betances witnessed the aftermath of the
1848 Revolution and its backlash, the
June Days Uprising, earlier that year. His future political views were directly shaped by what he saw and experienced at the time. He considered himself
"an old soldier of the French Republic". Inspired by the proclamation of the
2ème. République, he rejected Puerto Rican aspirations for
autonomy (sought from Spain by Puerto Rican politicians since 1810) in favor of
Puerto Rican independence.
In 1856, he graduated with the titles of Doctor in Medicine and
Surgeon. He was the second Puerto Rican to graduate from the University (after Pedro Gerónimo Goyco, a later political leader native of Mayagüez who would eventually interact with Betances when both returned to Puerto Rico). Among Betances' teachers were:
Charles-Adolphe Wurtz,
Jean Cruveilhier,
Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud,
Armand Trousseau,
Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau and
Auguste Nélaton.
Father's death and family's economic problems
While Betances was studying medicine in France, his father died (in August 1854) and his sister Ana María would be forced to take over the Hacienda Carmen's management. By 1857 the heirs were forced to give the operation's output to a holding company headed by Guillermo Schröeder.
First return to Puerto Rico
Cholera epidemic of 1856
Betances returned to Puerto Rico in April 1856. At the time, a
cholera epidemic was spreading across the island. The epidemic made its way to Puerto Rico's western coast in July 1856, and hit the city of
Mayagüez particularly hard. At the time, Betances was one of five doctors that would have to take care of 24,000 residents. Both he and Dr. José Francisco Basora (who became lifelong friends and colleagues from that point on) would alert the city government and press the city managers into taking preventive action.
An emergency subscription fund was established by some of the city's wealthiest citizens. Betances and Basora had the city slave
barracks torched and a temporary camp set up for its dwellers. A large field at a corner of the city was set aside for a supplementary cemetery, and Betances set and managed a temporary hospital next to it (which was later housed in a permanent structure and became the
Hospital San Antonio, the Mayagüez municipal hospital, which still serves the city). However, the epidemic struck the city soon after; Betances' stepmother and one of his brothers-in-law would die from it. By October 1856 Betances would have to take care of the entire operation on his own temporarily.
At the time, he'd his first confrontation with Spanish authorities, since Betances gave last priority of medical treatment to those Spanish-born military rank and officers who where affected by the disease (they demanded preferential and immediate treatment, and he openly despised them for it). For his hard work to save many Puerto Ricans from the ravages of the
cholera epidemic of 1856, Betances was commended by the city's government. However, when the central government established a Chief Surgeon post for the city, Betances (who was the acting chief surgeon) was passed over, in favor of a Spanish newcomer.
Basora and Betances were eventually honored with streets named after each in the city of Mayagüez. The main thoroughfare that crosses the city from north to south is named after Betances; a street that links the center of the city with the
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez is named after Dr. Basora.
Exile from and return to Puerto Rico
Abolitionist
Betances believed in the abolition of
slavery, inspired not only on written works by
Victor Schoelcher,
John Brown, Lamartine and Tapia, but also on personal experience, based on what he saw at his father's farm and in daily Puerto Rican life. Based on his beliefs, he founded a civic organization in 1856, one of many others that were later called the
Secret Abolitionist Societies by historians. Little is known about them due to their clandestine nature, but Betances and
Salvador Brau (a close friend who later became the official
Historian of Puerto Rico) describe them in their writings. Some of these societies sought the freedom and free passage of
maroons from Puerto Rico to countries where slavery had been abolished already; other societies sought to liberate as many slaves as possible by buying out their freedom.
The
baptismal font where these baptisms were performed still exists, and is owned by a local family of merchants, the Del Moral family, who keep it at their Mayagüez house.
La vierge de Boriquen (The Boriquén Virgin)
The Spanish governor of Puerto Rico, Fernando Cotoner, threatened Betances with exile in 1858 because of his abolitionist tactics. Betances took a
leave of absence from his duties as director of the local hospital and again left Puerto Rico for France, followed by Basora. Soon, his half-sister Clara and her husband, Justine Hénri, would also leave for Paris with his niece, María del Carmen Hénri.
María del Carmen, nicknamed
Lita, was born in 1838. She had met Betances when she was 10, and Betances became instantly fond of her. Once he returned to Puerto Rico from his medical studies he requested the necessary ecclesiastical permissions to marry her (due to the degree of
consanguinity between them), which were granted in
Rome (then part of the
Papal States) after an extended delay. Their marriage was supposed to occur on
May 5,
1859 in Paris, but Lita fell sick with
typhus and died at the
Mennecy house of Dr. Pierre Lamire, a friend from Betances' medical school days, on
April 22,
1859 (the
Good Friday of that year).
Betances was psychologically devastated by Lita's death. Accompanied by his sister, brother-in-law, local friends and a few Puerto Rican friends residing in Paris at the time (which included Basora,
Francisco Oller and another Cabo Rojo native, future political leader Salvador Carbonell), Betances had Lita buried on
April 25. Her body was later reburied in Mayagüez, on
November 13 of that year.
Salvador Brau, a historian and close friend, later wrote that once Betances returned to Puerto Rico with Lita's body, he suspended all personal activities besides his medical work, spent a considerable amount of time caring for her tomb at the Mayagüez cemetery, and assumed the physical aspect that most people identify Betances with: dark suit, long unkempt beard, and "
Quaker" hat.
Betances immersed himself in work, but later found time to write a short story in French,
La Vierge de Boriquén (The Boriquén Virgin), inspired in his love for Lita and her later death, and somewhat influenced by
Edgar Allan Poe's writing style.
Cayetano Coll y Toste later described the story of Lita and Betances in the story La Novia de Betances, from his book
"Leyendas y Tradiciones Puertorriqueñas" (Puerto Rican Legends and Traditions).
Return to Mayagüez and second exile
Doctor and surgeon
After returning to Puerto Rico in 1859, Betances established a very successful
surgery and
ophthalmology practice in
Mayagüez. Even fierce political enemies such as Spanish pro-monarchy journalist José Pérez Morís regarded Betances as the best surgeon in Puerto Rico at the time. His good reputation in Puerto Rico would survive his stay in the island nation for many years. In 1895, while Betances was living in
Paris, the manufacturers of the
Emulsión de Scott (a
codfish liver oil product that's still sold today, manufactured by
GlaxoSmithKline in modern times), paid an endorsement fee to Betances to have him appear on advertisements on
Spanish language magazines and newspapers all over New York City and the Caribbean, based on his solid reputation as a doctor.
Betances introduced new surgical and
aseptic procedures to Puerto Rico. With the assistance of Venezuelan
anesthesiologist Pedro Arroyo, Betances performed the first ever surgical procedure under
chloroform in Puerto Rico, in November 1862.
At the same time he spent a considerable amount of time serving Mayagüez's disadvantaged on a
pro bono basis, He gave many donations to the poor, and because of this he became known as "The Father of the Poor" among "
Mayagüezanos" according to his contemporary,
Eugenio María de Hostos.
At the same time, the Spanish government, which ruled over Puerto Rico, attempted to banish Betances for a second time, but he and
Segundo Ruiz Belvis (a
lawyer and city administrator who became his closest friend and political companion) fled the island before they were apprehended. Both fled to the northern city of
Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic in 1861, where Betances established a close personal friendship with Gen.
Gregorio Luperón, the military leader of the northern pro-independence faction (also a one-time president of the Dominican Republic, and a Freemason, as was Betances) who led the efforts to restore Dominican sovereignty over their country. Betances was also a collaborator of Dominican priest (and later Archbishop of Santo Domingo and one-time president of the country), Fernando Arturo de Meriño, who was the revolt's ideological leader (as well as its delegate in Puerto Rico when he was himself exiled by the restored republican government). These two friendships would prove to be key to Betances' own efforts to achieve Puerto Rican independence later on.
The volatility of the Dominican situation was severe at the time: Luperón fought a guerrilla war against the Spanish and Santana and became vice-president of the country (in 1863), only to be exiled to
Saint Thomas because of his opposition to president
Buenaventura Baez' wishes to annex the country to the United States (in 1864), to later return, provoke a
coup d'état and be part of a three-way presidency (1866), only to be exiled once again (1868). Whenever Luperón was in the Dominican Republic, Betances could use it as a base of operations for his later political and military objectives, while offering Luperón logistical and financial assistance in return.
Since Betances' exile depended on who was governing Puerto Rico at the time, a change in government allowed him to return to Mayagüez in 1862. However, a few years later, (1868) Luperón and Betances would both end up exiled in Saint Thomas.
Simplicia Jiménez
Betances met his lifelong companion,
Simplicia Isolina Jiménez Carlo, in 1864. Jiménez apparently was born in what would later become the Dominican Republic. Her mother's last name, Carlo, rather common in Cabo Rojo, implies that her family had ties to the town. She worked for one of Betances' sisters between 1863 and 1864, and he met her once at his sister's house. Apparently she was infatuated with him strongly enough to appear at his door with a pair of suitcases, asking him to give her shelter, since "no gentleman would leave a woman alone on the street at night." Jiménez then became Betances' common-law wife for thirty-five years, and survived his death in 1898. They wouldn't have any children. Their
godchild, Magdalena Caraguel, was eventually adopted by the couple as their daughter." Little else is documented about Jiménez in history books, and Betances rarely mentions her in his works and correspondence.
While still living in Mayagüez, Betances built a house for himself and his wife, which they only lived in for less than two years; the house, named the
Casa de los Cinco Arcos (House of the Five Arches), still stands on the street that bears his name near the corner with
Luis Muñoz Rivera street, south of the city's center.
"Padre de la Patria" (Father of the Puerto Rican Nation)
Seeds for revolt in Puerto Rico
The Spanish government was involved in several conflicts across Latin America: war with the
Dominican Republic,
Peru and
Chile (see
below), slave revolts in
Cuba, a bad economic situation in its colonies, among others. It attempted to appease the growing discontent of the citizens of its remaining colonies in the continent by setting up a board of review that would receive complaints from representatives of the colonies and attempt to adjust legislation that affected them. This board, the
"Junta Informativa de Reformas de Ultramar" (Overseas Informative Reform Board) would be formed by representatives of each colony, in proportion to their collective population, and would meet in
Madrid. The Junta would report to the then Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Emilio Castelar.
The Puerto Rican delegation was freely elected by those eligible to vote (male Caucasian property owners), in a rare exercise of political openness in the colony.
Segundo Ruiz Belvis was elected to the Junta representing Mayagüez, something that horrified the then governor general of the island. To the frustration of the Puerto Rican delegates, including its leader,
José Julián Acosta, the Junta had a majority of Spanish-born delegates, which would vote down almost every measure they suggested. However, Acosta could convince the Junta that
abolition could be achieved in Puerto Rico without disrupting the local economy (including its Cuban members, who frowned upon implementing it in Cuba because of its much higher numbers of slave labor). Once he became prime minister in 1870, Castelar did approve an abolition bill, praising the efforts of the Puerto Rico members, sincerely moved by Acosta's arguments.
However, beyond abolition, proposals for autonomy were voted down, as were other petitions to limit the unlimited power the governor general would have upon virtually all aspects of life in Puerto Rico. Once the Junta members returned to Puerto Rico, they met with local community leaders in a famed meeting at the Hacienda El Cacao in
Carolina, Puerto Rico in early 1865. Betances was invited by Ruiz and did attend. After listening to the Junta members' list of voted-down measures, Betances stood up and retorted:
"Nadie puede dar lo que no tiene" (No one can give others what they don't have for themselves), a phrase that he'd constantly use through the rest of his life when referring to Spain's unwillingness to grant Puerto Rico or Cuba any reforms. He would then suggest setting up a revolt and proclaim independence as soon as possible. Many of the meeting's attendants sided with Betances, to the horror of Acosta.
Organizer of the Grito de Lares
In late June 1867 Betances and at least 12 more potential "revolutionaries" were exiled from Puerto Rico by then governor Gen. José María Marchessi y Oleaga as a preventive measure, including Betances, Goyco and Ruiz. A battalion of local soldiers had revolted in San Juan earlier, protesting about their poor pay, compared to that of their Spanish counterparts living in Puerto Rico. Betances later stated that the revolt (called the
"Motín de Artilleros" by historians) was unrelated to his revolutionary plans, and that he actually didn't mind the troops stationed in Puerto Rico that much, since they'd have been ill-prepared for stopping a well-developed pro-independence revolt at the time anyway. Marchesi feared that the
United States, which had made an offer to purchase what were then the Danish Virgin Islands, would rather instigate a revolt in Puerto Rico so as to later annex the island—which would make a better military base in the Caribbean—at a lesser economic cost. His fears were not without base, since the then American consul in the island, Alexander Jourdan, suggested precisely this to then Secretary of State
William H. Seward, but only after the expulsions (September 1867).
Some of the expelled (such as Carlos Elías Lacroix and José Celis Aguilera) set up camp in Saint Thomas. Betances and Ruiz, on the other hand, left for
New York—where Basora had previously gone—soon after. They soon founded the
"Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico", along with other Puerto Ricans living in the city. After signing a letter that could serve as proof of his intentions of becoming a
United States citizen (mainly to prevent his arrest elsewhere) Betances then returned to the Dominican Republic in September 1867, where he attempted to organize an armed expedition that was to invade Puerto Rico. However, under threat of arrest by
Buenaventura Báez—who saw Betances as siding with his enemies and wanted him executed—Betances took asylum at the
United States embassy in
Santo Domingo, and headed for
Charlotte Amalie soon after.
The Ten Commandments of Free Men
Betances was responsible for numerous proclamations that attempted to arouse Puerto Rican nationalistic sentiment, written between 1861 and his death. The most famous of these is
"Los Diez Mandamientos de los hombres libres"
(The
Ten Commandments of Free Men), written in exile in Saint Thomas in November 1867. It is directly based on the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted by France's National Assembly in 1789, which contained the principles that inspired the French Revolution.
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Meanwhile, Ruiz Belvis, who headed the Committee, was supposed to gather financial support for the incoming Puerto Rican revolution though a tour of South America. He had received an invitation from
Benjamín Vicuña MacKenna, a Chilean diplomat, to coordinate a common front against Spanish interests in all of Latin America (Spain was still threatening Chile after the
Chincha Islands War, and any revolution in the Caribbean would have been a welcome distraction). Vicuña promised to gather necessary support in Chile,
Peru,
Ecuador and
Venezuela to help the Puerto Rican independence cause.
Betances was shaken psychologically by news of Ruiz's death, and also literally soon after: he and his wife also experienced an
earthquake in November 1867, while in Saint Thomas. According to a letter he wrote, he and his wife vacated the building just before it collapsed, and were forced to live in a camp while
aftershocks kept shaking the island for close to a month.
After the failed insurrection, Betances didn't return to Puerto Rico, except for "secret" visits, according to the obituary written about him by the
New York Herald after his death.
In New York
Betances fled to
New York City in April 1869, where he again joined Basora in his efforts to organize Puerto Rican revolutionaries into additional activities leading to independence. He joined the Cuban Revolutionary Junta, whose members were more successful at their drive for armed revolution for Cuba, which had started with the
"Grito de Yara", just two weeks after the Grito de Lares. He also befriended Venezuelan military leader and former president
José Antonio Páez in his final days. Betances stayed in New York from April 1869 through February 1870.
| The Antilles now face a moment that they'd never faced in history; they now have to decide whether 'to be, or not to be'. (...) Let us unite. Let us build a people, a people of true Freemasons, and we then shall raise a temple over foundations so solid that the forces of the Saxon and Spanish races won't shake it, a temple that we'll consecrate to Independence, and in whose frontispiece we'll engrave this inscription, as imperishable as the Motherland itself: "The Antilles for the Antilleans"
|
| Speech to the Masonic Lodge of Port-au-Prince,1872 |
In Hispaniola
Somewhat disillusioned by his experience in New York City (he had philosophical differences with some leaders of the Antillean liberation movements, particularly with
Eugenio María de Hostos), Betances spent a short interlude in
Jacmel,
Haiti in 1870 at the request of its then-president, Jean Nissage-Saget, who supported Betances' efforts to have a liberal government for the Dominican Republic take power. He later spent some time in the Cibao valley (in both
Santiago de los Caballeros and
Puerto Plata) where Luperón and Betances attempted to organize another revolt, this time against conservative elements in the Dominican Republic.
While in New York, Betances wrote and translated numerous political treatises, proclamations and works that were published in the newspaper
"La Revolución", under the
pseudonym "El Antillano" (The Antillean One). He was vehement about the need for natives of the Greater Antilles to unite into an
Antillean Confederation, a regional entity that would seek to preserve the sovereignty and well-being of
Cuba,
Haiti, the
Dominican Republic and
Puerto Rico.
Betances also promoted direct intervention of Puerto Ricans in the Cuban independence struggle, which eventually happened in the
Cuban War of Independence (1895–98). Spain had promoted political reform in Puerto Rico, and the local political climate wasn't conducive to a second revolution at the time. Therefore, Betances and the Puerto Rican revolutionaries ceded their caches of firearms hidden in Saint Thomas, Curacao and Haiti to the Cuban rebels in October 1871, since their struggle was deemed as a priority.
Betances admired the
United States of America for its ideals of freedom and democracy, but despised
Manifest Destiny and the
Monroe Doctrine, and sensed that both philosophies were being used as excuses for American interventions on the continent. When Cuban revolutionaries requested help from the United States for reinforcing their armed struggle against Spain, Betances warned them against giving too much away. He feared American
interventionism in the affairs of a free Cuba, and vehemently attacked Cuban leaders who suggested the
annexation of Cuba by the United States. Some of his fears became reality years later, when the
Platt Amendment became a "
de facto" part of the Cuban constitution (1901).
Return to France
Expecting to bring some stability to his personal life, Betances had Simplicia Jiménez meet him again in Haiti (she had been living in
St. Croix since he was evicted from Saint Thomas, to ensure her safety), and returned with her to
Paris where he continued to fight for Puerto Rico's independence for close to 26 years. He established his medical office at
6(bis), Rue de Châteaudun, four streets away from the city's
Palais Garnier.
One of the events that gave Betances great satisfaction was the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico, which was made official on
March 22,
1873. He reminded people that abolition wouldn't have happened without the direct intervention of Puerto Ricans in the Spanish political process, and was thus hopeful that the islanders would assume a more proactive role in seeking their freedom from Spain. With time, Betances became essentially the representative of the liberal governments of the Dominican Republic for as long as they lasted, and the representative of the Cuban "government in arms", or insurrection.
Diplomat
Dominican Republic
Soon after his return to France, Betances became the first secretary to the
Dominican Republic's diplomatic mission to France, but virtually assumed the role of ambassador. He also became the commercial representative of the Dominican government in Paris,
Berne and
London. At one time Betances attempted to be a
venture capital partner on a failed enterprise that attempted to commercialize the use of
Samaná Bay to benefit the Dominican Republic, and also to prevent foreign interests (particularly the
United States) from taking over the bay, which was considered a primary strategic geographical feature of
Hispaniola, in both commercial and military terms.
Luperón would eventually arrive in Paris as a named ambassador, but Betances' connections in the city proved to be key to whatever success Luperón had as a diplomat in France. They would assume this role until political turmoil in the Dominican Republic forced Luperón to return and lead yet another revolt, which had another Puerto Plata native,
Ulises Heureaux, installed as president. Betances sought support for Luperón's efforts, and gave him tactical and financial assistance from France.
Heureaux, however, became a
despot once he assumed the presidency. Luperón felt betrayed and went again into exile in Saint Thomas. Eventually he died of cancer, not before visiting Betances in France for a last time and being allowed to return to the Dominican Republic to die, as a gesture of good will from Heureaux. Due to Heureaux's protracted presidency and blatant acts of corruption, Betances (who had called Heureaux his "grandson" in letters he'd previously written to him) was forced to cut ties to the Dominican Republic for good (two plots of land that he owned both there and in
Panama were used for agricultural experiments, but were later left unattended). Betances writes in his letters that he'd spent the equivalent of USD$20,000 (in 1880
dollars) on expenditures on behalf of the Dominican diplomatic office. He didn't expect the Dominican government to be able to reimburse him.
Cuba and elsewhere
Immediately after returning to Paris, Betances became a key contact for the Cuban insurgency in Paris. He made several fund raising efforts, including one that attempted to fund
quinine shipments to the Cuban rebels, to ease their pain when infected by
malaria in the island battlefields. These efforts outlasted the
Pact of Zanjón, which ended the
Ten Years' War in 1878. Betances also used his diplomatic contacts to guarantee humane treatment (and eventually freedom from imprisonment) to José Maceo, the brother of
Antonio Maceo, the later military leader of the
Cuban War of Independence, when both Antonio and José were arrested by the Spanish government in 1882. The Maceo brothers both escaped imprisonment, were recaptured in
Gibraltar and turned over to the Spanish authorities, but José remained in jail long after Antonio regained his liberty and fled to
New York City. Betances even used
Lord Gladstone as a mediator, and attempted to convince him of having
Jamaica (where his family had properties) join an Antillean Federation.
When Puerto Rico experienced a period of severe political repression in 1887 by the Spanish governor of the time, Romualdo Palacio (which led to the arrest of many local political leaders, including
Román Baldorioty de Castro),
Máximo Gómez, who was living in Panama at the time (at the time, he supervised a laborers' brigade during the construction of the
Panama Canal) offered his services to Betances, sold most of his personal belongings to finance a revolt in Puerto Rico, and volunteered to lead any Puerto Rican troops had such revolt occur. The revolt was deemed unnecessary later in the year, when the Spanish government recalled Palacio from office to investigate charges of abuse of power from his part, but Gómez and Betances established a friendship and logistical relationship that lasted until Betances' death in 1898.
Years later, due to Betances' experience as a logistics facilitator of armed revolts, a fund raiser for the Cuban independence cause, and as a diplomat,
José Martí asked Betances to become the leader of Cuban revolutionaries in France. Betances never met Martí personally, but Martí did know Betances' younger sister,
Eduviges, who lived in New York City and shared her brother's revolutionary ideals. Martí assisted her financially in her final days, out of admiration for the Betances' family. Betances accepted the assignment out of gratitude towards Martí. Soon after, Martí died in battle in Cuba in 1895, an event that brought
Tomás Estrada Palma to the leadership of the Cuban insurrection movement.
In April 1896 Betances was granted diplomatic credentials on behalf of the revolutionary government of Cuba. He became an active fund raiser and recruiter on behalf of the Cuban pro-independence movement. He also served as press officer and intelligence contact for the Cuban rebels in exile, and attempted to coordinate support for the pro-independence movement in the
Philippines.
Betances openly hated Estrada when he first met him in the late 1870s, but grew more tolerant of him with time, and even defended Estrada's actions as leader when he assumed control of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
Morales Plan
Through coordination with Betances and local pro-independence leaders in Puerto Rico, a Dominican military leader, Gen. José Morales, made plans to invade Puerto Rico in the late 1890s, to supply local revolutionaries with supplies and mercenaries, and take advantage of the weak Spanish military presence in Puerto Rico (there were only 4,500 Spanish soldiers in the island at the time, and 1,000 of them were later redirected to Cuba to fight the Cuban insurrection). However, the Cuban Revolutionary Party rejected the plan as being too expensive.
Betances' role in the Cánovas assassination is described by Puerto Rican (born in France) author Luis Bonafoux in his biography about Betances (written in 1901), and partially corroborated by later historians. These sources establish that Betances' circle of friends at the time included various Italian anarchists exiled in Paris, Domenico Tosti being one of them. Tosti and his friends would hold regular social events, during one of which Angiolillo was introduced to Betances.
Impressed by Betances' credentials, Angiolillo later approached Betances before the incident, and discussed his plans with him, which originally implied killing one or more young members of the Spanish royal family. Betances then dissuaded him from doing this. Angiolillo then apparently suggested Cánovas as a target instead. There is evidence that Betances financed Angiolillo's travel to Spain, and used his contacts to have Angiolillo reach and enter Spanish territory under a false identity.
Betances sympathized with anarchists like Angiolillo, and hated monarchists like Cánovas, but this alone wouldn't justify direct action from Betances into taking Cánovas' life. Betances did state at the time, however, that "in Spain theres is only one true retrograde and reactionary leader, and he's precisely the one who confronts Cuba with a policy of '(spending in a war up to) the very last man and the very last
peseta,' the one who tries to suffocate all efforts that her patriots do to free her, and that man is Antonio Cánovas del Castillo."
Angiolillo, in true solidarity with the European anarchist current, sought to avenge the execution and/or torture of those implicated in a bombing against a
Roman Catholic religious procession in
Barcelona, which occurred in 1896, and for which Cánovas sought the maximum penalties allowed by law.
The truth is that Puerto Rican liberal interests benefited directly from the Cánovas assassination, since by Cánovas' death a pact made (previous to the event) between the new Spanish prime minister,
Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, and Puerto Rican liberals headed by
Luis Muñoz Rivera would come into effect soon after. It allowed the establishment of a new autonomy charter for the island territory, which gave Puerto Rico broader political powers than at any other time before or since. When asked about his involvement in the Cánovas affair, Betances said:
"No aplaudimos pero tampoco lloramos" ("We don't applaud it, but we don't cry over it, either"), and added:
"Los revolucionarios verdaderos hacen lo que deben hacer" ("True revolutionaries do what they ought to do"). Betances' ambiguous response blurs the true level of his involvement in the Cánovas assassination.
Legion of Honor award
Betances was awarded the "
Legion of Honor" by the
French government in July 1887, for his work as a diplomat for the Dominican Republic, and for his work as a medical doctor in France. He had been offered the award as early as 1882, but had repeatedly declined the honor out of
humility, until friends from Puerto Rico persuaded him to accept it as a tribute to Puerto Rico, and not as a personal award. The French Legion of Honor (Légion d'honneur) is the premier order of France, and its award is one of great distinction.
Efforts to counter the U.S. annexation of Puerto Rico
In 1898 Betances attempted to use his diplomatic contacts to impede a Puerto Rico annexation by the United States, which was deemed imminent by the events following the sinking of the
USS Maine. He knew that Puerto Ricans would welcome an American invasion, but was vehement about the possibility of the United States not conceding independence to Puerto Rico.
Betances' last days were chaotic, not only because of the events in the Caribbean, but also because of what happening in his own household. Jiménez' mental state is reported as dubious by then. Some even suggest that she'd become an
alcoholic (probably) or even a
morphine addict (unlikely) by then, and she even wished for her husband to die in tantrums reported by his doctors. Political foes attempted to gain possession of Betances' intelligence dossiers, as did Spanish intelligence agents in Paris. Betances asked personal friends to keep personal guard of him, which they did until he died.
Death
Betances died at 10:00 a.m., local time, in
Neuilly-sur-Seine on
September 16,
1898. His remains were
cremated soon after and entombed at the
Père Lachaise Cemetery of Paris. His common law-wife Simplicia survived him for over twenty years. A look at his
will implies that, besides a
life insurance policy payout and two parcels of land in the
Dominican Republic, Betances died almost in
poverty.
As early as in February 1913, poet and lawyer
Luis Lloréns Torres had publicly requested that Betances' wishes to have his ashes returned to Puerto Rico be fulfilled. The
Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, under the presidency of
José Coll y Cuchi, was able to convince the Puerto Rican Legislative Assembly to approve an act that would allow the transfer of the mortal remains of Puerto Rican patriot Ramón Emeterio Betances from
Paris,
France to Puerto Rico. Seven years after the act's approval, the Legislative Assembly commissioned one of its delegates, Alfonso Lastra Charriez, to serve as an emissary and bring Betances' remains from France.
Betances' remains arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico on
August 5,
1920, and were honored upon arrival by a crowd then estimated at 20,000 mourners. The large crowd, which had assembled near the port of San Juan as early as 4:00 a.m. (
AST) that morning, was the largest ever assembled for a funeral in Puerto Rico since the death of
Luis Muñoz Rivera three years earlier. Media reporters of the day were surprised by the size of the crowd, given the fact that Betances hadn't visited Puerto Rico (at least in the open) for the 31 years before his death, and had been dead over 21 years afterwards.
A funeral caravan organized by the Nationalist Party transferred the remains from the capital to the town of
Cabo Rojo. It took the caravan two days to make the route. Once Betances' remains reached the city of Mayagüez, 8,000 mourners paid their respects. Betances' remains were laid to rest in Cabo Rojo's municipal cemetery. A few decades later his remains were moved to a monument designed to honor Betances in the town's plaza. There is a bust created by the Italian sculptor Diego Montano alongside the
Grito de Lares revolutionary flag and the
Puerto Rican flag in the plaza, which is also named after Betances.
A
marble plaque commemorating Betances was unveiled at his Paris house by a delegation of Puerto Rican, Cuban and French historians on the 100th. anniversary of his death, on
September 16,
1998.
Legacy
According to Puerto Ricans and French historians in three different fields (medicine, literature and politics), Betances left a legacy that has been considerably understated, The first volume features most of Betances' written works about medicine; the second features intimate letters and document excerpts Betances wrote to family and friends over a span of 39 years.
The
Voz del Centro Foundation in Puerto Rico released a series of youth-oriented books named "Voces de la Cultura - Edición Juvenil" that same year; its first title being
"Doctor Ramón Emeterio Betances: Luchador por la libertad y los pobres" (
"Doctor R. E. Betances, Fighter for Liberty and the Poor").
In the United States
There is an elementary school in
Hartford, Connecticut, named in honor of Betances and Hartford's Puerto Rican community.
Political and sociological
In Puerto Rico
The political and sociological consequences of Betances' actions are definite and unequivocal. He was the first openly nationalistic political leader in Puerto Rico, and one of the first pro-independence leaders in the island nation's history (Among Puerto Ricans,
Antonio Valero de Bernabé and Andrés Vizcarrondo—earlier pro-independence leaders for the Latin American revolutions—could not achieve the success Betances had years later within Puerto Rico). The
Grito de Lares, using an often-quoted phrase that dates from 1868,
"was the birth of Puerto Rican nationality, with Betances as its obstetrician". Nationalistic expressions in Puerto Rico—be they public affirmations, newspaper articles, poems, town meetings or outright revolts—were almost nonexistent before 1810s election of
Ramón Power y Giralt to the Spanish Cortes, most of them were defined within the framework of loyalty to Spain as a metropolitan power (and thus subordinate to Spanish rule over Puerto Rico), and many of them were quickly suppressed by the Spanish government, which feared an escalation of nationalistic sentiment that, in other countries, led to the independence movements of Latin America. the level of cultural and social development of a collective Puerto Rican conscience was almost a direct consequence of the event. To put it simply, if there's any nationalistic sentiment in Puerto Rico in the present day, almost all of it can be traced back to Betances and his political work.
Those who have judged our Lares revolution with disdain are not aware of the dangers that the movement cost, or what was really done then, or the results obtained since, or the sorrows, the pains, the deaths, the mourning that followed. They are not aware of the sufferings of those who were outlawed, or the recognition that they deserve. But the world is full of ingratitudes, and the disdainful tend to forget that this revolutionary act is precisely the highest struggle of dignity that has been done in Puerto Rico in four centuries of the most opprobrious servitude, engraving in its flag the abolition of slavery and the independence of the island.
I'd rather not remember so much pain, so many efforts to illustrate those who pretend to disavow that great redemptive work. But this was the pride of the people, of the entire Puerto Rican people, of everyone who conspired for it and suffered for the future Motherland and the liberty of today.
May the holy day of revolution for the Spanish Antilles come, and I'll die satisfied!
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| Article written in the Cuban revolutionary monthly Patria, August 25, 1894 |
Betances is considered a pioneer of Puerto Rican
liberalism. His ideas resulted from his exposure to
republicanism and
social activism in France through the middle part of the 19th. century. These ideas, considered subversive in the severely restricted Puerto Rico of the era, had nevertheless a considerable impact in the island nation's political and social history. His ideas on race relations alone had a major impact on economics and the social makeup of the island.
José Martí considered Betances one of his "teachers", or sources of political inspiration, and his diplomatic and intelligence work in France on behalf of the Cuban revolutionary junta greatly aided the cause, before it was directly influenced by the intervention of Gen.
Valeriano Weyler as governor and commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, and by the Maine incident later on.
Paul Estrade, Betances' French biographer, assesses his legacy as an Antillean this way: "The Antilles have developed political, social and scientific ideas that have changed the world, and that Europe has used. Not everything has (an European) source. Betances is the maximum expression of this reality."
Medical
Betances wrote two books and various medical treatises while living in France. His doctoral
thesis,
"Des Causes de l'ávortement" (The Causes for
Miscarriage) examines various possible causes for the spontaneous death of a fetus and/or his mother, was later used as a textbook on gynecology at some European universities. According to at least one medical practitioner who examined it in 1988, his attempt to explain the theory behind spontaneous contractions leading to
childbirth were not very different from modern-day theories on the matter.
Betances' experiences handling the Mayagüez cholera epidemic led to another book,
"El Cólera, Historia, Medidas Profilácticas, Síntomas y Tratamiento", which he authored and published in Paris in 1884 and expanded in 1890. The book was later used as a public health textbook in dealing with similar cholera epidemics in Latin America.
Betances also wrote several medical articles while in France. One of the articles examines
elephantiasis; another deals with surgical
castration, called "oscheotomy" at the time. Both books were also based on personal experience: there's evidence about a surgery he performed in Mayagüez on a Spanish government official with an elephantiasis lesion of the
scrotum the size of a
grapefruit for which the costs were paid for by the local government; another patient he operated upon had a lesion that weighted 26 lb/11.8 kg. He also wrote an article on urethral obstructions in male patients (see
above).
Literary
Betances was also one of the first Puerto Rican "writers-in-exile". In 1851, a small group of Puerto Rican university students in Europe formed the
"Sociedad Recolectora de Documentos Históricos de la Isla de San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico", a society that attempted to research and catalog historical documents about Puerto Rico from firsthand government sources. Betances became the Society's researcher in France. The result of the Society's research was published in an 1854 book, for which Betances contributed. Inspired by
Alejandro Tapia y Rivera, the Society's organizer, who had written a novel inspired in Puerto Rican indigenous themes while studying in
Madrid, Betances writes his novel:
"Les Deux Indiens: Épisode de la conquéte de Borinquen" (The Two Indians: an episode of the conquest of
Borinquen), and publishes it in Toulouse in 1853, with a second edition published in 1857 under the pseudonym
"Louis Raymond". This novel would be the first of many literary works by Betances (most of which were written in
French), and is notable for its indirect praise of Puerto Rican nationhood which, he suggests, was already developed in pre-Columbian Puerto Rico. This type of
"indigenist literature" would become commonplace in Latin America in later years.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ramon Emeterio Betances'.
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