Ponce massacre

Ponce massacre
Outbreak of the Ponce Massacre
LocationPonce, Puerto Rico
Coordinates18°00′33.7″N 66°36′49.0″W / 18.009361°N 66.613611°W / 18.009361; -66.613611
Date21 March 1937[1]
3:15 pm[2] (EST)
TargetSupporters of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Attack type
Massacre
WeaponsThompson submachine guns, tear gas bombs, machine guns, rifles, pistols[3]
Deaths17 civilians; two police officers (from friendly fire)
Injuredover 200 civilians wounded[4]
PerpetratorsGovernor Blanton Winship via the Puerto Rico Insular Police[5]
Part of a series on the
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The Ponce massacre was an event that took place on Palm Sunday, March 21, 1937, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, when a peaceful civilian march turned into a police shooting in which 17 civilians and two policemen were killed,[6] and more than 200 civilians wounded. None of the civilians were armed and most of the dead were reportedly shot in their backs.[7] The march had been organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to commemorate the abolition of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873,[8] and to protest the U.S. government's imprisonment of the Party's leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, on sedition charges.[9]

An investigation led by the United States Commission on Civil Rights put the blame for the massacre squarely on the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Blanton Winship.[10][11] Further criticism by members of the U.S. Congress led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to remove Winship as governor in 1939.[12]

Governor Winship was never prosecuted for the massacre and no one under his chain of command – including the police who took part in the event, and admitted to the mass shooting – was prosecuted or reprimanded.[13]

The Ponce massacre remains the largest massacre in US imperial history in Puerto Rico.[11] It has been the source of many articles, books, paintings, films, and theatrical works.

  1. ^ Wagenheim, Kal; de Wagenheim, Olga Jiminez (2008). "The Grim Years". The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History. Markus Wiener Publishers. pp. 179–180. ISBN 9781558764767.
  2. ^ Millán, Reinaldo (21 March 2012). "Siete décadas no anulan tragedia" (in Spanish). La Perla del Sur.
  3. ^ Marcantonio, Vito. "Five Years of Tyranny". The Official Piri Thomas Website. Archived from the original on 12 January 2012.
  4. ^ Nelson A. Denis. War Against all Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony. New York: Nation Books, Perseus Books Group. 2015. pp.47, 49.ISBN 9781568585017
  5. ^ Meyer, Gerald J. (2011). "Pedro Albizu Campos, Gilberto Concepción de Gracia, and Vito Marcantonio's Collaboration in the Cause of Puerto Rico's Independence". Centro Journal. XXIII (1). New York: The City University of New York: 87–123. ISSN 1538-6279.
  6. ^ Wagenheim, Kal; Jiménez de Wagenheim, Olga (1998). The Puerto Ricans: A Documentary History. Maplewood, N.J.: Water Front Press. pp. 179–182.
  7. ^ "Declara al Gobernador que ha dado 'instrucciones terminantes' en el caso de Ponce". El Mundo (in Spanish). San Juan, Puerto Rico. 23 March 1937. p. 1.
  8. ^ Black, Timothy (2009). When a Heart Turns Rock Solid: The Lives of Three Puerto Rican Brothers On and Off the Streets. Pantheon Books. p. 5. ISBN 9780307377746.
  9. ^ Navarro, Sharon Ann; Xavier Mejia, Armando (2004). ABC-CLIO (ed.). Latino Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. ISBN 9781851095230.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference LMM was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ a b Garcia-Passalacqua, Juan-Manuel (22 March 2007). "Remembering Puerto Rico's Ponce Massacre". Democracy Now (Interview). Interviewed by Juan Gonzalez; Amy Goodman.
  12. ^ Hayes, Arthur Garfield; Commission of Inquiry on Civil Rights in Puerto Rico (22 May 1937). Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Civil Rights in Puerto Rico (Report). OCLC 304563805.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Hunter was invoked but never defined (see the help page).