Summary Of The Francisco Massacre

The Ponce Massacre took place in Ponce, Puerto Rico on March 21, 1937, when the American colonial police opened fire on a civil manifestation organized by the Partido Nacionalista of Puerto Rico. The Partido Nacionalista (Nationalist Party) organized a march to protest for the jailing of their leaders and commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the island by Spanish courts. That morning, Colonel Orbeta, the chief of police, traveled to Ponce with the intention of prohibiting the Nationalist activity. He interviewed attorneys Parra Capó and Parra Toro, the military assistant to Governor Blanton Winship, and Captain Felipe Blanco, the head of the Police Force in Ponce, to whom he gave orders to stop the march. These arrangements made met with the governor and Mr. José Ramón Quiñones, an assistant to the governor, at Fortaleza (the Governor’s mansion), where they decided that the parade was military in character and illegal.
William Gelpí as acting mayor. The Nationalists had filed the request despite the fact that the laws of Puerto Rico allowed parades or public acts to be held without the need to ask permission. When Tormos Diego returned to Ponce on March 20, Nationalists Plinio Graciany and Lorenzo Piñeiro visited him at his home, and the mayor promised them that he would issue permission on Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning, as police reinforcements armed with rifles and machine guns were arriving in Ponce, two Nationalists went to the office of the mayor for the permit that they were