Ramón Emeterio Betances

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Persondata
NAME	Betances y Alacán, Ramón Emeterio
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Betances, Ramón Emeterio (Spanish); Betances, Ramón E. (Spanish)
SHORT DESCRIPTION	politician, medical doctor, diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH	April 8, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico
DATE OF DEATH	September 18, 1898
PLACE OF DEATH	Neuilly-sur-Seine, Île-de-France (region), France

Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán (April 8, 1827 – September 18, 1898), born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, was the main leader of the Grito de Lares revolution, and as such, he is considered by historians to be the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Since the Grito galvanized a burgeoning nationalism among Puerto Ricans, Betances is also considered "El Padre de la Patria" (Father of the Puerto Rican Nation). Besides being a medical doctor and surgeon, he was also a diplomat, public health administrator, poet and novelist.

Contents 1 Early years 1.1 Ancestry 1.2 Studies in France 1.3 Involvement in politics, history and literature 2 First return to Puerto Rico 2.1 The cholera epidemic of 1856 2.2 Betances as doctor and surgeon 3 Exiles from and returns to Puerto Rico 3.1 Abolitionist 3.2 La viérge de Boriquen 3.3 Simplicia Jiménez 3.4 Contributions to Mayagüez and environs 3.5 "El Antillano" (The Antillean One) 3.5.1 Involvement in the Dominican War of Restoration 3.5.2 "Padre de la Patria" (Father of the Puerto Rican Nation) 3.5.3 Organizer of the Grito de Lares 4 Return to France 4.1 Betances, the diplomat 4.1.1 For the United States of America 4.1.2 For the Dominican Republic 4.1.3 For the Cuban revolutionary government 4.2 The Morales Plan 4.3 The Cánovas Affair 4.4 Legion of Honor award 4.5 Betances' efforts to counter the U.S. annexation of Puerto Rico 5 Death 6 Legacy 6.1 Political and sociological 6.1.1 In Puerto Rico 6.1.2 In the Greater Antilles 6.2 Medical 6.3 Literary 7 Major works 8 Notes 9 References 9.1 Primary sources: 9.2 Secondary sources: 10 See also 11 External links

[edit] Early years

[edit] Ancestry

Betances parents were Felipe Betanzes Ponce (sic), a merchant born in Hispaniola (in the part that would later become the Dominican Republic), and María del Carmen Alacán de Montalvo, a native of Cabo Rojo of French ancestry. They were married in 1812. 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.^[1]

Betances was the fourth of six children; the oldest of which would be stillborn; Betances was the only male among the surviving siblings. The family would be described as being of mixed race in records of the day. His mother died in 1837, when he was 10 years-old, and his father remarried in 1839; the five children he had with María del Carmen Torres Pagán included Ramón's half-brother Felipe Adolfo^[2], who was not involved in politics (according to Ramón) but was nevertheless arrested following the Grito de Lares years later.^[3]

His father eventually bought the Hacienda Carmen in what would later become the nearby town of Hormigueros, and became a wealthy landowner. He owned 200 acres of land, a small sugar mill, and some slaves, who shared their duties with free workers.^[4] There is speculation that he later freed his slaves, persuaded by his son Ramón.

[edit] Studies in France

The young Betances received his primary education from private tutors contracted by his father, a freemason who owned the largest private library in town. The father would eventually send him to France, to study at the then-named "Collége 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 attempted to open 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. Betances accompanied the couple in Prévost's return to his country, and would be under their indirect tutelage while boarding at the school. He showed interest in natural and exact sciences early on, and would also become a good fencer.^[5]

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. In the case of Betances' father, the process lasted two years, and was formalized in 1840, but not before having to have the family's lineage and religious affiliations exposed to the general public, something that embarrassed them all. Betances was considerably annoyed by the entire ordeal, since he was the first to acknowledge that he and his entire family were not "blancuzcos" ("whiteish", a legal term) but "prietuzcos" ("blackish", as Betances mocked it in his letters) instead. To him the procedure reeked of hypocrisy.^[6]

In 1846, Betances obtained his "bachelors degrees" (equivalents to a modern high school diploma) and went on to study medicine in Paris from then until 1856, with a short interlude at the University of Montpellier for specific courses in the summer of 1852.^[7]

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.^[8]

In 1856, he graduated from the University of Paris (then-named the University of France) with the titles of Doctor in Medicine and Surgeon. Among his teachers were: Charles-Adolphe Wurtz, Jean Cruveilhier, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud, Armand Trousseau, Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau and Auguste Nélaton^[9]. 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, and 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 to modern-day theories on the matter.^[10]

[edit] Involvement in politics, history and literature

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 2^ème. République, he rejected Puerto Rican aspirations for autonomy (sought from Spain by Puerto Rican politicians since 1810) in favor of Puerto Rican independence.^[11]

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 a 1854 book, for which Betances contributes. 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.^[12]

He also wrote poetry in both French and Spanish for literary magazines in Paris, chiefly inspired by Alphonse de Lamartine and Victor Hugo.^[13]

[edit] First return to Puerto Rico

[edit] The cholera epidemic of 1856

Betances returns to Puerto Rico in April 1856. At the time, a cholera epidemic was spreading across the island. The epidemic would make 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 him 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.^[14]

At the time, he had 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 would be 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 a Spanish newcomer.^[15]

For their service in dealing with the epidemic, Basora and Betances would eventually be honored with streets named after each in the city of Mayagüez. The main throughfare 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.

[edit] Betances as doctor and surgeon

Betances' experiences handling the Mayagüez 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. He wrote at least two other medical treatises while in France: one on elephantiasis (there is evidence about a surgery he performed in Mayagüez on a Spanish government official with elephantiasis of the scrotum the size of a grapefruit for which the costs were paid for by the local government) and another about surgical castration, or oscheotomy.^[16]

Betances had a very successful surgery and ophthalmology^[17] 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. With the assistance of Venezuelan anesthesiologist Pedro Arroyo, he performed the first ever surgical procedure under chloroform in Puerto Rico, in November 1862^[18].

At the same time he spent a considerable amount of time serving the city'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.^[19]

[edit] Exiles from and returns to Puerto Rico

[edit] Abolitionist

Betances believed in the abolition of slavery, inspired not only on written works by John Brown, Lamartine and Tapia, but also on personal experience, based on what he had seen at his father's farm and in daily Puerto Rican life. He described in one of his writings an event that happened in a nearby town where a slave, who had bought his own liberty from his owner, was denied his freedom by a Spanish bureaucrat. The slave then proceeded to kill the owner, his wife and son, and when he was arrested, he upbraided the bureaucrat by saying: "White man, had you given me my liberty this disgrace would not had happened".^[20]

Betances 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 Brau mention them in their writings. Some of them 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 objective of the particular society Betances founded was to free children who were slaves, taking advantage of their need to receive the sacrament of Baptism at the town church, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, which is now the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mayagüez . Since buying the freedom of slave children cost 25 pesos if the child was a slave, and 50 pesos if the child had been freed, Betances, Basora, Segundo Ruiz Belvis and other members of the society would wait next to the baptismal font on a Sunday, expecting a master to take a slave family to baptize their child. Before the child was baptized, Betances or his partners would give money to the parents, which they in turn would use to buy the child's freedom from his master. The child, once freed, would be baptized minutes after. This action would soon be described as having the child receive the "aguas de libertad" (waters of liberty). Similar events occured in the city of Ponce^[21]

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^[22].

[edit] La viérge de Boriquen

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 what would have been Betances' wife: his niece, María del Carmen Hénri.

María del Carmen, nicknamed Lita, was born in 1838. She had met Betances when she was 12, 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' medicine school days, on the Good Friday (April 22) of 1859.

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 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 unkept beard, and "Quaker" hat.^[23]

Betances immersed himself in work, but later found time to write a short story in French, La Viérge 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).^[24]

[edit] Simplicia Jiménez

Betances met his lifelong companion, Simplicia Isolina Jiménez Carlo, in 1864. Little is documented about her in history books, and Betances rarely mentions her in his works and correspondence. Historian Mario Cancel has assembled the following details:

Jiménez apparently was born in what would later become the Dominican Republic. 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." She would then become his common-law wife for thirty-five years, and survive his death in 1898. They would not have any children. ^[25]

[edit] Contributions to Mayagüez and environs

Betances and Ruiz proposed the establishment of Mayagüez's municipal hospital (finally constructed in 1865 with subscription funds and an assignment from the Spanish local government), founded the Logia Yagüez (Ruiz was a freemason, as was Betances), and attempted to establish a university, for which Ruiz mortgaged his house. However, the Spanish government actively discouraged the founding of secondary education institutions in Puerto Rico (as to not have "seedlings for revolt" come out of them), and the project had to be canceled.

Meanwhile, Betances built a house for himself and his wife, which they only lived for less than two years; the house still stands on the street that bears his name near the corner with Luis Muñoz Rivera street, south of the city's center.

[edit] "El Antillano" (The Antillean One)

[edit] Involvement in the Dominican War of Restoration

See also: History of the Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic had its first war for independence in 1844, which was successful in obtaining independence from Haiti, although Haitian rule of parts of the country would last intermittently until 1856. Spain reannexed the country at the request of its then-dictator, Gen. Pedro Santana (who attempted to benefit personally from the event), in 1861. A second revolt, the War of Restoration, sought independence from the Spanish in 1863. Its leaders used Haiti as a guerrilla base, since the Haitian government feared a Spanish takeover and the restoration of slavery in the occupied territories, and was thus sympathetic to their cause. Their stronghold, however, was the Cibao valley in the northeastern part of Hispaniola.

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 fled the island before they were apprehended. Both fled to the northern city of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, where Betances established a close personal friendship with Gen. Gregorio Luperón, the military leader of the northern pro-independence faction (and one-time president of the Dominican Republic) 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 vicepresident of the country (in 1863), only to be exiled to St. 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).

While Luperón was in the Dominican Republic, Betances could use it as a base of operations, while offering Luperón logistical and financial assistance. Soon, however, Luperón and Betances would end up exiled in St. Thomas.

[edit] "Padre de la Patria" (Father of the Puerto Rican Nation)

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 St. 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. The translated text reads as follows:

Puerto Ricans

The government of Mme. Isabella II throws upon us a terrible accusation.

It states that we are bad Spaniards. The government defames us.

We don't want separation, we want peace, the union to Spain; however, it is fair that we also add conditions to the contract. They are rather easy, here they are:

The abolition of slavery

The right to vote on all impositions

Freedom of religion

Freedom of speech

Freedom of the press

Freedom of trade

The right to assembly

Right to bear arms

Inviolability of the citizen

The right to choose our own authorities

These are the Ten Commandments of Free Men.

If Spain feels capable of granting us, and gives us, those rights and liberties, they may then send us a General Captain, a governor... made of straw, that we will burn in effigy come Carnival time, as to remember all the Judases that they have sold us until now.

That way we will be Spanish, and not otherwise.

If not, Puerto Ricans - HAVE PATIENCE!, for I swear that you will be free.

R E. Betances - Saint Thomas, 1867.

[edit] Organizer of the Grito de Lares

Main article: 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 Marchesi as a preventive measure, since a batallion 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 would 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 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)^[26].

Some of the expelled (like Carlos Elio Lacroix and José Celis Aguilera) set up camp in St. Thomas. Betances and Ruiz, on the other hand, left for New York - to where Basora had left for previously- 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 where he attempted to organize an armed expedition that was to invade Puerto Rico, but 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.

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 threatening Chile with a war at the time, and any revolution in the Caribbean would have been a welcome distraction). However, Ruiz died in Valparaiso, Chile soon after his arrival in the country. He reportedly had uremia and a urethral obstruction, which degenerated into peritonitis and gangrene and killed him soon after.

Betances and his wife also experienced an earthquake in November 1867, while in St. 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.

Gregorio Luperón met Betances in St. Thomas, and offered to assist the Puerto Rican revolution, in exchange from help to overthrow Báez once the right circumstances were met. As a consequence, Betances organized revolutionary cells in Puerto Rico from exile, which would be led by leaders such as Manuel Rojas and Mathias Brugman. Betances instructed Mariana Bracetti to knit a flag for the revolution using the colors and basic design similar to that of the Dominican Republic (which in turn was almost identical to a French military standard). Betances was also supposed to send reinforcements to the Puerto Rican rebels through the use of a ship purchased by Puerto Rican and Dominican revolutionaries, "El Telégrafo" (which was to be shared by both), but the ship was confiscated soon after arrival by the Danish government of the then Danish (later United States) Virgin Islands.

Eventually all these factors led the way to the abortive insurrection known as the "Grito de Lares", whose date had to be brought forward to September 23, 1868. The Grito found Betances between Curaçao and St. Thomas, struggling to send reinforcements in time for the revolt.

After the failed insurrection, Betances did not return to Puerto Rico, except for "secret" visits, according to the obituary written about him by the New York Herald after his death. There is no evidence of these, although Betances suggests a visit did occur at some time between 1867 and 1869, and perhaps again in the 1880s.

[edit] Return to France

Betances then returned to New York City, and later to Paris where he continued to fight for Puerto Rico's independence for close to 35 years. He established his medical office at 6(bis), Rue de Châteaudun (Multimap, GlobalGuide,Google Maps), 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. 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.

[edit] Betances, the diplomat

[edit] For the United States of America

Technically speaking, Betances was once a diplomat for the United States of America. Soon after the Grito de Lares (in early 1869) he was saved from deportation to Puerto Rico by the Danish authorities in St. Thomas (in the then Danish Virgin Islands) when the American ambassador in Caracas gave him diplomatic credentials. These credentials certified Betances as a citizen of the United States (sic), who was serving as a courier for confidential information destined for Washington, D.C. Betances, who had been deported to Venezuela a month earlier, was nevertheless arrested by the Danish authorities. However, even under vehement protests from the Spanish consul in Charlotte Amalie, he was not deported to Puerto Rico, but allowed to go on to New York City instead.

[edit] For the Dominican Republic

Soon after his return to France, Betances became a virtual ambassador to France for the Dominican Republic. Luperón would soon arrive to Paris and become 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 fight led yet another revolt, which had another Puerto Plata native, Ulises Hereaux, installed as president. Betances sought support for Luperón's efforts, and gave him tactical and financial assistance from France.

Hereaux, however, became a despot once he assumed the presidency. Luperón felt betrayed and went again into exile in St. Thomas. Due to Hereaux's protracted presidency, Betances was forced to cut ties to the Dominican Republic for good (two plots of land that he owned there were never developed in his lifetime).

[edit] For the Cuban revolutionary government

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.

The death of José Martí brought Tomás Estrada Palma to the leadership of the Cuban insurrection movement. Betances openly hated Estrada when he first met him in the late 1870's, 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. The Puerto Rican affiliates to the Party viewed Estrada's leadership with great skepticism, since Estrada sympathized with the idea of having the United States intervene in the Cuban independence war to have the Spanish evicted from Cuba. They suspected that his weak leadership allowed opportunists to profit from an invasion and even suggest that the United States keep Puerto Rico in exchange for independence for Cuba. Some written evidence points to the truth of their affirmations, at least to the extent of wanting to have the Puerto Rican section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party shut down, which eventually did happen.

[edit] The 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 1890's, as 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, who had collected more money in France for the Party than the plan's potential cost, grew weary of the Cuban revolutionary movement's diminishing support of the Puerto Rico independence cause. By then, some of the Party's followers stationed in France wanted Betances to be stripped of his posts and assignments. At least two of them insulted him publicly, and even took advantage of Simplicia Jiménez's mental health to have her harass her husband systematically.

Given the events happening in Cuba at the time, Betances thought that his diplomatic was more important than ever. However, his failing health (he had uremia, and since his lungs could not exchange oxygen properly this put extra burden to his heart and kidneys) prevented Betances from performing further diplomatic work from France on behalf of Puerto Rico or Cuba. His illness, which lasted more than a year, prevented him from performing medical work, and forced the Party to approve a stipend for Betances during his long illness, until his death.

[edit] The Cánovas Affair

There is some speculation that the assassination of Spanish prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo by Italian anarchist Michele Angiolillo in 1897 was at least supported or influenced by Betances, and possibly even planned by him (although there is no physical link that can be established that might link Betances to to the event itself).

A theory established by Puerto Rican (born in France) author Luis Bonafoux in his biography about Betances (written in 1901) is that Angiolillo visited 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, and 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. Further speculation that Angiolillo used a firearm that Betances himself furnished for him appears to be unfounded (although Betances was known for giving firearms as gifts to some of his acquaintances).

Betances sympathized with anarchists like Angiolillo, and hated monarchists like Cánovas, but this alone would not justify direct action from Betances into taking Cánovas' life. Angiolillo, in true solidarity with the European anarchist current, sought to avenge the execution and/or torture of those implied in a bombing against a Roman Catholic religious procession in Barcelona, which occured 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 assasination, 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")

[edit] Legion of Honor award

Betances was awarded the "Legion of Honor" by the French government in 1898, for his contributions to both medicine and literature. The French Legion of Honor (Légion d'honneur) is the premier order of France, and its award is one of great distinction.

[edit] Betances' 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 take the opportunity to not concede

Betances was willing to accept some political concessions to the American government in exchange for independence, and exchanged some privileged intelligence information (about the level of debt Spain had attained while fighting the Cuban insurrection) with the then-ambassador of the United States to France, Horace Porter, as to show goodwill towards the United States.

Frustrated by what he perceived as the unwillingness of Puerto Ricans demand their independence from the United States while the island territory was annexed (the event occured just days before his death), he uttered his final political stance: "No quiero colonia, ni con España, ni con los Estados Unidos" ("I don't want a colony status, neither with Spain nor with the United States"). When reminded by de Hostos through a letter of what was happening in the island, he responded, highly frustrated, with a phrase that has become famous since (and perceived by many as a rhetorical question, yet to be answered to this day): "¿Y qué pasa con los puertorriqueños que no se rebelan?" ("And what happens with Puerto Ricans that they haven't yet rebelled?")

Betances' last days were chaotic, not only because of the events in the Caribbean, but also because of what what happening in his own household. Jiménez mental state is reported as dubious by then. Some even suggest that she had 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 assume possession of Betances' intelligence dossiers, as was the Spanish intelligence in Paris. Betances asked personal friends to keep personal guard of him, which they did until he died.

[edit] Death

Betances died at 10:00 AM, local time, in Neuilly-sur-Seine on September 18, 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.

The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, under the presidency of José Coll y Cuchi, was able to convince the Puerto Rican Legislature 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. 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 AM (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 had not 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 120-mile 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 on 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.

[edit] 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^[27], and is only being assessed properly in recent times.

[edit] Political and sociological

[edit] 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 (if not the first one). The Grito de Lares, using an often-quoted phrase that dates from 1868, "was the childbirth of Puerto Rican nationality, with Betances as its obstetrician"^[28]. Nationalistic expressions in Puerto Rico -be them public affirmations, newspaper articles, poems, town meetings or outright revolts- were almost non-existent before 1810's 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.

Although the seeds of both pro-active government repression against the Puerto Rican independence movement had been planted before the Grito de Lares, and its aftermath only guaranteed the surge of autonomism as a political alternative in the island, 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 is any nationalistic sentiment in Puerto Rico in the present day, almost all of it can be traced back to Betances and his political work.

Because of his exposure to the liberal thinking prevalent in France through the second half of the 19th. century, Betances adopted ideas that were innovative to some, subversive to others, but radical nonetheless in the Puerto Rico of that era. His ideas on race relations alone had a major impact on economics and the social makeup of the island.

[edit] In the Greater Antilles

Political events in Puerto Rico and Cuba between the late 1860's and 1898 forced a liberalization of Spanish policy towards both territories, and Betances was directly involved as a protagonist in both circumstances. As a firm believer in "Antillanismo" (the common improvement and unity of the countries that formed the Greater Antilles) Betances was also a strong supporter of the sovereignty of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. A Dominican historian and political leader likened Betances' revolutionary work to that performed by Tadeusz Kościuszko for Poland, Lithuania and the United States of America.

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 commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, and by the Maine incident later on.

[edit] Medical

Betances was the most renowned surgeon of his time in Puerto Rico, and along José Basora, one of its first social hygienists. He founded Mayagüez's municipal hospital, which is now a Obstetrics and Pediatrics hospital in the city.

[edit] Literary

Betances was also one of the first Puerto Ricans "writers-in-exile". Some literature purists do not acknowledge Betances writings as Puerto Rican literature, in part because most of it was written in French, and physically away from Puerto Rico. However, their subject matter was decidedly influenced by Betances' ethnic and sociological origins, and therefore, can be catalogued as such.^[29]

[edit] Major works

• Toussaint Louverture, Les Deux Indiéns (1852)
• Un premio de Luis XIV (1853)
• Las cortesanas en París (1853)
• La Vierge de Borinquén (1859)
• La botijuela (aka Aulularia, translation from the Latin original by Plautus, 1863)
• Washington Haitiano (essay about Alexandre Pétion, 1871)
• Los viajes de Scaldado (1890)

[edit] Notes

All references are in Spanish unless otherwise noted.

[edit] References

[edit] Primary sources:

• Ojeda Reyes, Félix, El Desterrado de París: Biografía del Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances (1827-1898), Ediciones Puerto, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2001.

[edit] Secondary sources:

From "La Voz del Centro", a collection of podcasts hosted by Angel Collado Schwarz (all in Spanish, MP3 format):

• Ramón Emeterio Betances: Padre de la Patria, Médico de los Pobres, Poeta, Diplomático de Puerto Rico y Cuba en Francia. - with Félix Ojeda Reyes, Betances' biographer
• Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances: el médico - with Eduardo Rodríguez Vázquez
• Dr. Ramón Emeterio Betances: el literario - with Ramón Luis Acevedo
• Betances, El Grito y St. Thomas - with Francisco Moscoso

[edit] See also

• Grito de Lares
• List of famous Puerto Ricans

[edit] External links

• Ramón Emeterio Betances - Library of Congress
• Ramón Emeterio Betances