Ponce massacre
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The Ponce Massacre is a violent chapter in the history of Puerto Rico. On March 21, 1937 (Palm Sunday) a march was organized in the southern city of Ponce, Puerto Rico by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. The march, organized to commemorate the end of Slavery in 1873, was also formed to protest the incarceration of nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos, as well as to demand Puerto Rico's independence from the United States.
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[edit] Chronology of events
Days before, the march organizers applied for and received permits for a peaceful protest with the municipality of Ponce, under Jose Tormos Diego. Upon learning of the protests, however, the colonial governor of Puerto Rico at the time, General Blanton Winship, demanded the immediate withdrawal of the permits. They were withdrawn a short time before the protest was scheduled to begin.
Colonel Orbeta went to Ponce and concentrated police from across the island, among which he included all the machine gunners. For many days, the government had planned to restrict the activities of the nationalists and their leader, Pedro Albizu Campos.
Chief of Police Guillermo Soldevilla, with 14 policemen, placed himself in front of the marchers. Chief Perez Segarra and Sgt. Rafael Molina, commanding 9 men who were armed with Thompson submachine guns and tear gas bombs, stood in the back. Chief of Police Antonio Bernardi, heading 11 policemen armed with machine guns, stood in the east; and another group of 12 police, armed with rifles, was placed in the west.
As "La Borinqueña," (the national song) was being played, the demonstrators began to march. They were then fired upon for over 15 minutes by the police from their four positions. About 100 were wounded and nineteen were killed, and the dead included 17 men, one woman, and a seven-year-old girl. Some of the dead were demonstrators, while others were simply passers-by. Many were chased by the police and shot or clubbed at the entrance of their houses. Others were taken from their hiding places and killed. Leopold Tormes, a member of the legislature, told reporters how a policeman murdered a nationalist with his bare hands. Dr. Jose N. Gandara, one of the physicians who assisted the wounded, testified that wounded people running away were shot, and that many were again wounded by the clubs and bare fists of the police. No arms were found in the hands of the civilians wounded, nor on the dead ones. About 150 of the demonstrators were arrested immediately afterward; they were later released on bail.
The people who were killed in the Ponce Massacre:
- Cotal Nieves, Juan Delgado
- Hernandez del Rosario, Maria
- Jimenez Morales, Luis
- Loyola Perez, Ceferino (insular police)
- Maldonado, Georgina (7-year-old)
- Marquez Telechea, Bolivar
- Ortiz Toro, Ramon
- Perea, Ulpiano
- Pietrantoni, Juan Antonio
- Reyes Rivera, Juan
- Rivera Lopez, Conrado
- Rodriguez Figueras, Ivan G.
- Rodriguez Mendez, Jenaro
- Rodriguez Rivera, Pedro Juan
- Rosario, Obdulio
- Sanchez Perez, Eusebio (insular police)
- Santos Ortiz, Juan
- Torres Gregory, Juan
- Velez Torres, Teodoro
[edit] The Investigation and the Hays Commission
Subsequent investigations of the event reached conflicting opinions on whether the police or the marchers fired the first shots. Governor Winship used his powers and requested that the public prosecutor from Ponce, Rafael Pérez Marchand, arrested more nationalists and that no charges were made against the police. Perez Marchand resigned his position as a result.
A government investigation into the incident drew few conclusions. A second, independent investigation ordered by the US Commission for Civil Rights(May 5, 1937) led by Arthur Garfield Hays (a member of the ACLU) with Fulgencio Pinero, Emilio Belaval, Jose Davila Rice, Antonio Ayuyo Valdivieso, Manuel Diaz Garcia, and Franscisco M. Zeno, could not conclude who incited the events but harshly criticized the repressive tactics and massive civil rights violations by the administration of Governor Blanton Winship, but also disowned the violent incitements of the Nationalist Party (see Bolivar Pagan, Historia de Partidos Politicos 1898-1956).
[edit] Ponce Massacre Museum
The Puerto Rican Culture Institute, a state agency, runs "La Casa de la Masacre de Ponce", a museum located in the same intersection (between Marina St. and Aurora St.) where the events took place. It contains photographs and various artifacts from the Ponce Massacre. A section of the museum is dedicated to Pedro Albizu Campos.
