Two Puerto Ricans Shot Down In Attempt On President’s Life

Two Puerto Ricans Shot Down In Attempt On President's Life by vagabond ©

“La patria es valor y sacrifico.”
“The motherland is valor and sacrifice.”
- Don Pedro Albizu Campos

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
- Marcus Mosiah Garvey

On October 30th of 1950 Puerto Rican Nationalists began an armed insurrection against US colonialism. The uprisings in Jayuay, Utado, San Juan and Old San Juan were a response to the US planned designation of Puerto Rico as a “Free Associated State”. Puerto Rican Nationalists saw this as a ploy to avoid having Puerto Rico listed on the United Nations list of colonized non self-governing nations. The plans for the insurrection were betrayed to the US colonial powers in Puerto Rico and the uprisings in Utado, San Juan and Old San Juan were quickly and brutally cut down. Only the Uprising in Jayuya lasted.

The leader of the uprising in Jayuya was a woman named Blanca Canales. She took over Jayuya on October 30th and declared Puerto Rico an independent nation and held it for three days. The US sent in bombers and ground troops to put down the rebellion. Blanca Canales and the other Nationalists were overwhelmed and Jayuya was lost on November 1st.

While Blanca Canales was fighting to hold onto to Jayuya and the new republic of Puerto Rico, her brother Griselio Torresola and another Puerto Rican Nationalist Oscar Collazo decided that the time had come for them to do their part to end US colonialism in Puerto Rico. Their target was President Harry S. Truman. Griselio armed with a Luger and Oscar armed with a Walther P38 went to the Blair house, the President’s temporary home while the White House was being renovated, with hopes of assassinating him. On either side of the house there were two small guard houses. Griselio and Oscar came from opposite sides of the street and opened fire on the guards. A fierce gun battle ensued and Griselio and a White House police officer Leslie Coffeli were killed, Oscar Collazo and another officer are shot and wounded.

While Blanca Canales is arrested in Jayuya, her brother Griselio Torresola is shot and killed in Washington DC. While some 3000 Nationalists are arrested in Puerto Rico, Oscar Collazo is sent to a hospital and arrested. Blanca Canales was tired and imprisoned for 17 years in prison for her part in the Jayuya uprising. Oscar Collazo was tried for the attempted assassination of the President and was sentenced to death.

In 1952 Truman commuted Oscar Collazo’s sentence to life in prison. Curiously enough, 1952 is also the year that Puerto Rico became a “Free Associated State” of the US. It has remained in that contradictory designation since then. In 1979 Jimmy Carter pardoned Oscar Collazo along with Lolita Lebrón, Raphael Cancel Miranda, Irving Flores Rodríguez and Andres Figueroa Cordero who were responsible for the US House of Congress shooting that took place in 1954.

Don Pedro Albizu Campos, the leader of the Nationalist Party said that the motherland was both valor and sacrifice. When people think of that saying they have a tendency to look back on Albizu’s life and think about his valor and his sacrifice. After the Jayuya Uprising and the assassination attempt on Truman, Albizu was imprisoned for the second time in his life. This time he was sentenced to 80 years. While in prison radiation experiments were conducted on his body and he was released in 1964 only to die a few months later of radiation posioning in 1965.

It’s easy to see why people think of Albizu when they think of his statement on valor and sacrifice but we have to remember that Albizu was probably not thinking about himself when he spoke those words. Although looking back now, it may seem like some kind of prophetic statement for his life, there were many, many others who found the valor and made the sacrifice for Puerto Rican independence. Others like Blanca Canales, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo who thought beyond themselves to something greater.

This is not simply some history lesson but a foundation for the current events we live in today. There are Puerto Rican political prisoners and prisoners of war who are languishing in US prisons for answering the call of a motherland that demands valor and sacrifice. If you doubt the connections to today you don’t need to look any further than the two brothers Avelino Gonzalez Claudio and Norberto Gonzales Claudio who have recently been arrested and are serving sentences for the crime of desiring freedom for their country. Blanca Canales and Girselio Torresola were brother and sister who sacrificed everything for something greater than themselves. And now the Claudio brothers are facing similar fates.

If you think that the prison sentence of 80 years for Albizu and the 23 years he served in US prisons before dying, is a thing of the past then direct your attention to Oscar Lopez Rivera who has been behind the wall for over 30 years, serving a sentence of 70 years. For many Puerto Ricans who seek independence from US colonial rule it’s not the quantity of life for themselves that they seek but the quality of life for their country. When we look back on the history of this struggle do we isolate it to memory and remembrance? Or do we fixate that history within our present? When we look back at the valor and sacrifice of so many who have struggled, do we relegate it as some fixed point within the past? Or do we use it to chart our future?

“In this great future, you can’t forget your past.”
- Bob Marley

Two Puerto Ricans Shot Down In Attempt On President’s Life #nothingtobegainedhere
nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/two…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) November 01, 2011

Arm In Arm With Arms: The Puerto Rican Uprising Of 1950

Blanca Canales Rifle by vagabond ©

“Every man got a right to decide his own destiny
And in this judgement there is no partiality
So arm in arm with arms we’ll fight this little struggle
‘Cause that’s the only way we can over come our little trouble”
- Bob Marley from the song Zimbabwe

In the years that followed World War II colonized nations all over the world began actively seeking independence through the United Nations. The United Nations was forced to respond to these demands and so in 1946 a list of non self-governing nations was made. From time to time that list was revised.

Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the western hemisphere. It was a colony of Spain for almost 400 years and has been a colony of the US since 1898. Throughout that whole time Puerto Ricans have fought for their freedom. In the 1930′s the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party,  led by Don Pedro Albizu Campos, came to prominence by directly and openly challenging US authority in Puerto Rico. The US responded with increased repression against the Nationalists in the form of arrests, imprisonment and murder.

The situation between the Nationalists and the colonial Puerto Rican government was intense. In 1935 five Nationalists were killed by police at a demonstration at the University Of Puerto Rico in what became known as the Rio Piedras Massacre. In retaliation the Nationalists Hiram Rosado and Elias Beauchamp assassinated the Chief Of Police, Colonel Elisha Francis Riggs.  Rosado and Beuchamp were captured and executed without a trial by the police. Albizu Campos and other Nationalists were imprisoned for inciting violence. In 1937 the Nationalists held a demonstration in Ponce on Palm Sunday demanding Albizu Campos freedom. The demonstration turned into the Ponce massacre when the governor and the police responded by shooting into the crowd wounding 235 people and killing nineteen among them a seven-year old child.

The repression against those seeking independence did not end there. In 1948 it became illegal to display the Puerto Rican flag, speak of liberation, sing patriotic songs and fight for the cause of liberation. In 1950 the US Congress proposed making Puerto Rico a “Free Associated State” or “Commonwealth” of the US. The Nationalists saw this as a move by the US to keep Puerto Rico off the UN’s list of colonized nations and so the Nationalists planned a series of actions and uprisings to openly challenge the semantic game that the US was playing with Puerto Rico.

On October 30th of 1950 a Puerto Rican woman by the name of Blanca Canales led an uprising in the mountain town of Jayuya. Under her leadership the Nationalists took Jayuya and Blanca Canales declared Puerto Rico a free republic. At the same time in the town of Utado Nationalists were fighting the US National Guard and other Nationalists were attacking “La Forteleza” the governors mansion in San Juan and the Federal Court House in Old San Juan.

Blanca Canales and the Nationalists were successful in holding Jayuya for three days until the US military bombed them from the air and sent in ground troops. In Utado nine Nationalists were captured and summarily sent to be executed without a trial. Five of the nine survived in what would become the Massacre of Utado. In San Juan the attack on “La Fortaleza” and on the Federal Court building in Old San Juan failed because the Nationalists were betrayed by one of their own who warned the government of the attacks. The betrayal of the attacks led to the deaths of four, the wounding of two and the arrest of six Nationalists.

The next day on October 31st the police were tipped off to a cache of weapons in a barber shop in Santurce called Salon Boricua owned by Vidal Santiago who was a Nationalist and the personal barber for Albizu Campos. The police shot and bombed the barbershop fearing that there was a group of Nationalists in the shop. However the only person in the shop was Vidal Santiago who only had a pistol and used it to defend himself against the police aggression. After a three-hour firefight Vidal Sanitago was shot five times, once in the head, but he survived and was arrested. There police found no cache of weapons in the barber shop.

On November 1st of 1950, the assault by the Nationalist Party continued as Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola (who was the brother of Balnca Canales) attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Harry Truman. The assassination attempt took place at the Blair House. The White House was under renovation and Truman was staying in Blair House when Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola attacked the guards in an attempt to get into the house to kill the president. Oscar Collazo was wounded while Griselio Torresola was killed along with another policeman in the gun battle that took place just outside Truman’s bedroom window.

Some three thousand Puerto Ricans were rounded up and incarcerated for their role in the Nationalist uprisings of 1950. Among those who served the greatest amount of time in prison was Blanca Canales who served seventeen years in prison for her role in the Jayuya Uprising. Albizu Campos was arrested and sentenced to 80 years. Oscar Collazo was sentenced to death but Truman commuted his sentence to life in prison and he served 25 years there before being pardoned in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter.

Although the Nationalists uprising of 1950 did not succeed in freeing Puerto Rico they did succeed in catapulting the colonial situation of Puerto Rico onto a world stage. The US could rename its relationship with Puerto Rico as a “Free Associated State” or “Commonwealth” all it wanted but colonialism by any other name is still colonialism. No matter what the US did now, the world could no longer afford to see a Puerto Rico as being a “Free Associated State” as the US wanted it. Puerto Rico was not free to be associated with the US or anyone else… The Nationalists may have failed to free Puerto Rico but they succeeded in keeping the US from hiding it’s colonial possession with semantic Orwellian double speak like “Free Associated State”… The Nationalists succeeded in making it be known all over the world that Puerto Rico wanted to be free and was willing to fight to do so…

Sidebar:
To commemorate and honor the great Puerto Rican heroine Blanca Canales, RICANSTRUCTED, the design company dedicated to the supporting independence for Puerto Rico, has issued two Blanca Canales T-shirt designs… The first shirt design is reminiscent of a baseball T-shirt design. The NATIONALISTS are the team that Blanca Canales places on. The number 50 is symbolic of the 1950 Jayuya Uprising that Blanca Canales led.

NACIONALISTAS BLANCA CANALES 50

The second design is of Blanca Canales herself with a Nationalist Cross design element on her face. The back of the shirt also features the RICANSTRUCTED logo.

BLANCA CANALES by vagabond for RICANSTRUCTED

Arm In Arm With Arms: The Puerto Rican Uprising of 1950 #nothingtobegainedhere
nothingtobegainedhere.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/arm…—
vagabond (@vgbnd) October 30, 2011

For more information on the Puerto Rican independence struggle check out September23.org