Utuado uprising

On October 30, 1950, a revolt against the United States government in Puerto Rico took place in the town of Utuado. This event is called the Utuado uprising, the Utuado revolt, or El Grito de Utuado. Similar uprisings happened on the same day in other parts of the island, including the capital San Juan, the cities of Mayagüez and Arecibo, and major clashes in Ponce, Peñuelas, and Jayuya.

Events leading to the revolt

The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was founded on September 17, 1922. Its first president was José Coll y Cuchí, a former member of the Union Party who pushed for radical economic and social welfare changes. In 1924, lawyer Pedro Albizu Campos joined the party and became its vice president.

Albizu Campos, the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard Law School, had served as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army during World War I. He believed Puerto Rico should be independent, even if that meant armed conflict. By 1930, Coll y Cuchí left the party due to disagreements with Albizu Campos over leadership. On May 11, 1930, Albizu Campos was elected party president.

During the 1930s, U.S.-appointed governor Blanton Winship and police colonel Riggs used harsh repression against the Nationalist Party. In 1936, Albizu Campos and other party leaders were arrested, jailed at La Princesa prison in San Juan, and later sent to the federal prison in Atlanta. On March 21, 1937, Nationalists held a parade in Ponce.

Police opened fire on the crowd, killing 19 people—two police officers and 17 unarmed Puerto Ricans, including a seven-year-old girl shot in the back. Although police fired the shots, Albizu Campos was arrested and sentenced to ten years in a U.S. federal prison. He returned to Puerto Rico on December 15, 1947, after completing his sentence.

On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced in the Puerto Rican Senate to restrict the independence and Nationalist movements. The Senate, controlled by the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and led by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved it that day. This law, similar to the U.S. Smith Act of 1940, became known as the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law) when U.S.-appointed governor Jesús T. Piñero signed it on June 10, 1948. Under this law, it became a crime to print, publish, sell, or display material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government, or to organize any group with similar intent.

Singing patriotic songs was outlawed, and displaying the Puerto Rican flag—already illegal under an 1898 law—was reinforced. Convictions could bring up to ten years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a member of the Partido Estadista Puertorriqueño and the only House representative not in the PPD, called the law repressive and a violation of the First Amendment’s free speech guarantee. On June 21, 1948, Albizu Campos gave a speech in Manatí explaining how the Gag Law violated the First Amendment. Nationalists from across the island gathered to hear him and to prevent his arrest.

Uprisings

From 1949 to 1950, Nationalists prepared for an armed revolution, originally planned for 1952—when the U.S. Congress was set to approve Puerto Rico’s new political status as a Free Associated State (Estado Libre Asociado). Albizu Campos called for revolution, viewing the status as a colonial farce. He chose Jayuya as the revolution’s headquarters due to its location, and weapons were stored in the home of Blanca Canales. On October 26, 1950, while meeting in Fajardo, Albizu Campos learned his San Juan house was surrounded by police waiting to arrest him, and that other Nationalist leaders had already been arrested.

He escaped and ordered the revolution to begin. On October 27, in Peñuelas, police surrounded and fired on a Nationalist caravan, killing four. On October 30, uprisings occurred in Ponce, Mayagüez, Naranjito, Arecibo, Utuado, San Juan, and Jayuya.

The first incident of the uprisings happened in the pre-dawn hours of October 29. Insular Police surrounded the house of Melitón Muñiz Santos’s mother in the barrio Macaná, claiming he was storing weapons for the revolt.

Without warning, police fired on the house, sparking a gunfight. Two Nationalists were killed and six police officers wounded. Muñiz Santos, Roberto Jaume Rodriguez, Estanislao Lugo Santiago, Marcelino Turell, William Gutirrez, and Marcelino Berrios were arrested and accused of ambushing the local police.