Ponce Massacre - Definition and Overview

Carlos Torres Morales, a photo journalist for the newspaper El Imparcial was covering the march and snapped this now famous picture of when the shooting started.

The Ponce Massacre is regarded as one of the darkest and bloodiest chapters in Puerto Rico's history. 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 was organized to protest the incarceration of nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos and to demand Puerto Rico's independence from the United States.

Chronology of events

Days before, the march organizers applied for and received permits for a peaceful protest with the municipality of Ponce. 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 They were withdrawn moments before the protest was scheduled to begin. For reasons unknown, police surrounded the protesters and opened fire. Twenty-one people where killed and two hundred were injured in the incident. One of the dying protesters scribbled in a wall with his own blood "Viva la República. Abajo los asesinos."

See also

• List of famous Puerto Ricans
• Grito de Lares
• The Jayuya Uprising

External links

• Information on the Ponce Massacre Museum (http://www.icp.gobierno.pr/myp/m3.htm)