Background
José Celso Barbosa was born on 27 July, 1857 into a black family in Bayamon.
José Celso Barbosa was born on 27 July, 1857 into a black family in Bayamon.
He went to school there and at the Conciliar Seminary in San Juan. After studying a year in Bayamón, he sought higher education in the United States, obtaining a medical degree at the University of Michigan in 1880.
He practiced medicine in San Juan.
Barbosa joined the Liberal Reform Party, which advocated autonomy for Puerto Rico. In 1894 he became a director of the party, but shortly before the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico in July 1898, he withdrew from the party. After U.S. occupation, his followers, the “Puros,” decided to support statehood for Puerto Rico and to take the name Republican Party.
When the Foraker Act in 1900 set up an appointed Executive Council, Barbosa became a member of that council, remaining until 1917. Thereafter, he was in the insular Senate, provided for in the Jones Act, which in 1917 recognized the Puerto Rican government and made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens.