Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán was a Puerto Rican nationalist. He was the primary instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution and is considered to be the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Since the Grito galvanized a burgeoning nationalist movement among Puerto Ricans, Betances is also considered "El Padre de la Patria" (Father of the [Puerto Rican] Nation).
Background
Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán was born into a wealthy family of landowners in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, on April 8, 1827, the youngest of six children of Maria del Carmen Alacán and Felipe Betances Ponce. Even though they were fi¬nancially well off, they were considered mulattos in a slave-owning society under Spam's rule. Defeating this system of racial inequity, particularly slavery, became young Betances' life mission, and the main avenue toward his goal was Puerto Rican independence.
Education
Betances grew up on the 200-acre Hacienda Carmen, his parents' sugarcane plantation, which included a small number of slaves. In 1837, when Betances was only ten years old, his mother died and he was sent to the Real College in Toulouse, France, where he competed his secondary education and where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1848. In addition to receiving an academic education, he experienced life as a man of color in France without slavery.
After a brief visit to Puerto Rico in 1848 he returned to France to pursue medical studies. While in France he began his political work through meetings with Caribbean compatriots. In addition, he published political and literary writings in Spanish, French and English. His translation of Wendell Phillips' essay commemorating Toussaint L'Ouverture, Los dos indios (The Two Indians), was published in 1852, and the socio-historical treatise Las cortesanas en Paris (The Courtesans of Paris) in 1853. In 1855 he completed his medical degree and returned to Puerto Rico.
Career
On his return to Puerto Rico he settled in the western city of Mayagüez, where he established the San Antonio Hospital, which was open to all but particularly to the poor and blacks who were disproportionately affected by the cholera epidemic that had broken out in that area. Equally important to Betances was his commitment to autonomy for the island; along with other supporters he founded a secret society committed to liberating slaves and fomenting violent revolution against the colonists. In 1867, the Spanish government charged him and his accomplices of sedition and they were exiled. He spent time in New York City, the Dominican Republic, and Paris practicing medicine and meeting with other Puerto Rican and Caribbean political leaders in search of a plan that would free the islands from colonial domination.
During that time he also worked with other revolutionaries in planning an armed pro-independence insurrection that was to take place in the town of Lares, Puerto Rico. From New York City and through his clandestine group "Society for the Independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico" Betances organized cells throughout Puerto Rico that would be involved in the revolt. On September 23, 1868, hundreds of insurgents invaded the city of Lares on foot and horseback, and African slaves staged an uprising that weakened the Spanish military garrison. They raised the flag of the newly proclaimed Republic of Puerto Rico, but the insurrection was short-lived and was brought to an end by a very bloody suppression from the Spanish military, which had discovered the plot beforehand. Even though the uprising failed, one of Betances' goals was eventually achieved in 1873 when the Spanish abolished slavery in Puerto Rico. The period between 1858 and 1869 was one of great political activity for Betances and resulted in his exile from Puerto Rico on three occasions.
Betances continued the struggle for Puerto Rican and Cuban autonomy by publishing numerous articles for newspapers and organizing meetings with other revolutionaries. By 1871 he had returned to Paris where he continued correspondence with Cuban patriot José Marti, who had solicited his help in Cuba's struggle for independence. During that time he served as a delegate to the Revolutionary Cuban Party, where he engaged in various diplomatic efforts with other European countries trying to establish solidarity for the Cuban independence movement. Throughout this period he continued his medical practice and research. In 1887 the French government, in recognition of his leadership, honored him with the prestigious Legion of Honor award, the first Puerto Rican to hold this distinction.
Politics
Betances spent the last years of his life actively engaged in political work in Paris. Between 1895 and 1898 his apartment on Chatcaudun Street in Paris was a principal meeting place for many visiting Caribbean intellectuals and journalists who sought information about the independence movements of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, and other Caribbean islands. Betances was known for using the foreign press as a vehicle to promote the cause of independence.
His revolutionary activism continued until September 16,1898, when he died in Neuilly. In 1920, his remains were returned to Puerto Rico and buried in his native town of Cabo Rojo, where they are now interred at the Plaza Ramón Emeterio Betances. His legacy of activism and political righteousness is kept alive by many contemporary followers. Political activists dedicated to the issue of Puerto Rican independence and advocating the end of the U.S. Navy's use of Vieques Island to conduct military practices publish their writings in a popular electronic site named after him known as the Red Betances (Betances Network).