Puerto Rican Nationalist Party insurgency

The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, under its president Pedro Albizu Campos, launched a series of coordinated uprisings aimed at breaking Puerto Rico’s ties with the United States. The party rejected the “Free Associated State” (Estado Libre Asociado) status enacted in 1952, viewing it as a colonial arrangement. The uprisings occurred on October 30, 1950, across several Puerto Rican cities. They were put down by a combination of ground and air forces, including U.S. military units, commanded by Major General Luis R. Esteves of the Puerto Rico National Guard. The following day, two Nationalists from New York City attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at Blair House. Truman had backed the Puerto Rican government’s effort to draft a constitution that would rename the local government a commonwealth and grant limited autonomy. In 1952, nearly 82% of Puerto Rican voters approved that constitution in a yes/no referendum. The Nationalists, however, dismissed the referendum as a farce because it offered only a yes/no vote on the constitution itself—with no option for independence or statehood. On March 1, 1954, four Nationalists opened fire from the visitors’ gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives during a floor debate, wounding five congressmen, one seriously. They were protesting what they saw as the continuation of colonial rule.

Puerto Rico had been a Spanish colony for 400 years before receiving sovereignty in 1898 through a Carta de Autonomía (Charter of Autonomy), signed by Spanish Prime Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta and ratified by the Spanish Cortes. But the Spanish-American War ended that same year, and the United States, acting on imperialist ambitions and Manifest Destiny, claimed the island under the Treaty of Paris. The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party formed in opposition to this transfer, arguing that the treaty could not legally give Spain the right to cede what it no longer controlled. The U.S. initially governed Puerto Rico as a territory under military rule. In 1901, the first civilian U.S. governor, Charles Herbert Allen, became president of the American Sugar Refining Company (later Domino Sugar), which dominated Puerto Rico’s economy. Allen effectively used his governorship to gain control over the island’s entire economy.