Blanca Canales
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Blanca Canales Torresola (1906 – 1996) was a Puerto Rican nationalist leader. Canales may possibly have been the first woman to have led a revolt against the United States when she led the The Jayuya Uprising.
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[edit] Early years
Blanca Canales Torresola was born born in Jayuya, Puerto Rico, into a politically active family. She was the younger sister of writer and politician Nemesio R. Canales Torresola. Their father was an active member of the "Unionist Party" of Puerto Rico which, notwithstanding its name, lobbied for the independence of the island. Their mother was a strong willed woman who encouraged her children to think for themselves.
As a child Canales read many books and stories about other nations and their heroes. She would often go with her father to political meetings where she became impressed with the speeches and enjoyed the patriotic nature of the flag waving in the meetings. She finished her primary and secondary education in Jayuya.
In 1924, her father died and her mother moved to Ponce. She graduated from Ponce High School and then enrolled in the University of Puerto Rico. In May 1930 she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Liberal Arts. Before graduating, she attended a conference given by the President of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Pedro Albizu Campos, and was very impressed. Canales returned to the university that same year to take a course in social work.
[edit] Nationalist Party
Canales returned to Jayuya and worked at a local rural school. In 1931, she joined the Nationalist Party and was active organizing the women's branch of that party. A series of events between the United States appointed government and the nationalists took place in the 1930s. In 1936, Albizu Campos was arrested and on March 31, 1937 the infamous Ponce Massacre took place.
During the 1940s, Canales' active political participation was limited to making collections because her job kept her busy traveling from San Juan to Ponce. Things changed when Albizu Campos was released from jail in 1947.
[edit] Uprising
In 1949, the Nationalist Party under Campos' leadership planned a revolution which was supposed to take place in 1952 when the United States Congress was to approve the concept of "Estado Libre Associado". The leaders of Jayuya included Canales, Elio Torresola (Griselio Torresola's brother) and the Irizarry brothers. Weapons for the planned revolution were stored at Canales' house.
On October 26, 1950, Albizu Campos held a political meeting in Fajardo. After the meeting Campos received word that he was going to be arrested and that his house in San Juan was surrounded by the police. The nationalists decided to go on with their planned revolution and instructed their members to raid the police stations in the island.
On October 30, 1950, Canales and her group entered the town of Jayuya by car, the men attacked the police station after making a left turn and ,in another car, canales made a right turn to the end of the main street were the telephone station was located and cut the phone lines. She led the group to the town's plaza where she raised the [[Puerto Rican Flag]which was outlawed to be carried by a civilian at the time] and declared Puerto Rico a Free Republic in a speech she gave from a balcony of a building around the town's plaza. Canales went to the town's hospital, after being notified by a fellow nacionalist of the town (whom she did not know but to whom she gave her revolver), that Carlos irizarry was wounded. There she found Carlos leaning against a light post after being wounded in the police station's armed confrontation, she took him to Utuado's (neighboring town) hospital because Jayuya's was closed. Jayuya was under the nationalists' control for three days until it was bombed by the planes and the artillery of the United States National Guard. The nationalists surrendered on November 1, 1950.
Canales was arrested and accused of killing a police officer and wounding three others. She was also accused of burning down the local post office; she was sentenced to life imprisonment plus sixty years of jail. In June 1951, she was sent to the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in Alderson, West Virginia, the same prison to which Lolita Lebron would be sent in 1954.
[edit] Later years
In 1956, Canales was transferred to the Women's Jail in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. In 1967, Canales was given a full pardon by Puerto Rican Governor Roberto Sanchez Vilella. She continued to be an active independence advocate until the day that she died. Canales died in 1996 in Jayuya. The house in which Blanca and Nemesio Canales were born and raised was turned into a museum by the City of Jayuya.
