Nationalist Heroines

From the moment the United States seized Puerto Rico, in 1898, to the 1950s, the islanders employed various forms of resistance against American colonial rule. Starting in the 1930s a group of Nationalists was determined to free Puerto Rico, by armed struggle if necessary.

A Nationalist revolution took full force in 1950. A commando of men and women attacked the governor’s residence and assaulted police stations throughout the island. Others attempted to assassinate President Truman In Washington. In 1954, Dolores Lebrón led three male companions in an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in which five congressmen were shot for keeping Puerto Rico in bondage.

Massive arrests followed and forty-one women were detained, two of whom were sentenced to life in prison.

While the male Nationalists have been celebrated as heroes in Puerto Rico, the women have gone unmentioned This book seeks to rescue the stories of the women who gave up their freedom in the quest to liberate their homeland.