El Antillano (2014) - full transcript
A documentary about Puerto Rican iconic revolutionary, Ramon Emeterio Betances, that takes us to a journey to France, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico. He lived in and influenced important revolutionaries in all those countries. Even though he is well known in all of these countries, he is unknown in his own country of Puerto Rico.
On July 25, 1898...
...mi|itary troops of the government
of the United States of America...
...invaded the island of Puerto Rico.
To the false interpreters of the Monroe
Doctrine we must always answer...
Yesi, America for Americans;
but the Antilles for the Antilleans.
That is our salvation.
Betances.
Have you listened to some
leader of this country...
...to mention...
...Betances's figure?
Of course not.
Because he is a contradictory
figure to everything that exists here.
And then, he is...
...an unknown personality.
And the colonialism...
...will try to keep
hidden that figure...
...which is definitely the great figure
of Puerto Rican patriotism.
THE ANTILLEAN
He is the darkest of the west...
...the world healer...
...the pioneer of good
and brusque nationalism.
He is the one in MayagUez that
began to remove the garbage...
...guided by Ruiz Belvis,
Salvi Brao and Basora
He is the healer of the worker...
...and the one who was
hit in the gunmen's mutiny.
lt's him,
the one who's angered by cholera...
...because the poor goes first and
the soldiers of the navy to the line.
He is the abysmal angel in
front of the baptismal row.
He is the original super doctor.
The one in Santiago and Puerto Plata
dominated the falls by bicycle.
The one that from San Juan
to Havana defeated malaria.
The one who swept the hypocrites
from France to Jamaica.
The one who valued Hippocrates' oath.
He is the doctor of the Caribbean...
...the one who gave you the
10 commandments of free man.
He is the other face of Hostos...
...the surgeon of Haiti...
...the inspiration of Quisqueya...
...a bastion for French.
He is the great emancipator...
...who, from Paris, celebrated
that March 22, 1873.
He is the one who called Mariana to
make a flag that is still standing.
lt's him, it's him, the one who threw
on the board the Monroe Doctrine...
...the Platt Amendment,
the Manifest Destiny...
...and everything
the northern clown tried...
...to buy at the beginning
of his empire.
In medicine that does not
discriminate, ask Dona lsabel.
It is him, it's him the old soldier
of the French Republic...
...who always was for the Puerto Rican.
lt's him, he isthe revolution
personified in man.
He is the father of the poor.
lt's him, it's him.
He is the complication of Simplicia...
...and the substance of Salita
that is the virgin of Borinquen...
...and although he never had children...
...he is the father of the Homeland.
lt's him,
he is the blue of Manuel Rojas...
...the of Mathias Brugman...
...he who from beyond the seas...
...was the architect of that cry that
is still heard far beyond Lares.
lt's him, the one who
wanted a single giantAntilla...
...the real Christ of Albizu,
the Antillean is he.
What do Puerto Ricans do?
So they get out of the trance.
And Betances speakto them.
Son of a Dominican father
and a Puerto Rican mother...
...Ramon Emeterio Betances was born...
...on April 8, 1827...
...in the town of Cabo Rojo.
We are in the place
known in Cabo Rojo as
...La Pileta...
...La Pileta was originally
that jet of water...
...that goes back there...
...and the ladies came to wash their
clothes here, on some large stones...
...that were on this shore.
So, here...
...in the famous Pileta, it was
where Betances scampered as a child.
Onthis side...
...were the guava bushes...
...the famous bushes that are
mentioned in the life of Betances...
...where he apparently
entertained himself...
...eating guavas, because
this was a huge guayabal.
My Homeland is Puerto Rico
whose memory obsesses me...
My Homeland is Puerto Rico
whose memory obsesses me...
...and believe...
...thatl do not commit myself to die...
...without returning to
that unforgettable Cabo Rojo...
...to see again the guava bushes
where I ran around as a child...
...and soak in the waters of La Pileta
and perhaps rejuvenate my spirit.
His father...
...who by the way...
...had one of the most
important libraries...
...in the whole region of Puerto Rico...
...got private tutors...
...and these were the teachers...
...who shaped...
...the first years of education...
...of Ramon Emeterio...
...until he was 9 years old...
...and his mother died.
And that's when his father sent him...
...to develop educationally...
...in Toulouse...
...in southern France.
It was a Franco-Puerto Rican family...
...Prevost-Cavalliery...
...with whom there existed
masonic relations.
Which facilitated...
...the transfer of Ramon Emeterio
to the south of France.
There he was a student...
...an internal student of a school...
...the royal school of Toulouse...
...and when the holidays arrived...
...Christmas or Easter
or summer holidays...
...he returned to that friend family...
...which lived about 30 kilometers from
Toulouse, in a town called Grisolles.
When he obtained these degrees...
...which were the ones that enabled
him to enter French medical school...
...then he went in 1848...
...to study at the School of Medicine
of the University of Paris.
Fires, sticks, shotguns and stones...
..."Down monarchies!" he shouted
along with the people of 1848.
When it comes to freedom...
...all peoples are supportive.
In 1848 there was a...
...revolution in Europe.
Thousands...
...of...
...French...
...tookto the streets of Paris...
...erected barricades...
...some of three meters high.
Poverty was degrading.
That revolution that
was made in two stages...
...in February and June of 1848...
...is the Bourgeois Democratic
Revolution of France...
...which overthrew the monarchy...
...established universal suffrage...
...abolished slavery.
The 1848 revolution...
...was translated for the Antillean...
...as the emancipation
of the black slaves...
...of Guadeloupe, Martinique and other
French colonies of the Caribbean.
And it would be very good to indicate...
...that Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...started his political practice...
...by participating in the
French Revolution of 1848.
We are in the Latin Quarter...
...at least in the part...
...where the Faculty of Medicine is...
...which is on our right.
This is the same
neighborhood that existed...
...when young Betances
studied Medicine...
...here in Paris between 1848...
...and 1855.
The latter was the year
he defended his thesis.
Now we're going to where he entered
when he was a student...
He lived nearby...
...we will see it later,
about 200 meters from here.
That is why it was not difficult
to go to school...
Look at the name of the street:
Street of the School of Medicine.
In this street everything is historic.
Betances studied...
Betances studied...
...at the medical school
that was at the forefront...
...of medicine studies
at international level.
That was the medical school in Paris...
...and there he studied
with Broca, Dubois...
...with a series of geniuses...
...and in 1855...
...he finished his studies...
...defending a doctoral thesis...
...on the causes of abortion.
Betances not only looks
at the clinical aspects...
...or purely physical aspects...
...but he also includes
social motives...
...which put a woman
in a position to abort...
...overwork, relationships that
are not purely physical.
He introduced that social
dimension into medicine...
...which will be interesting
in the future...
...because we are going to
read in the 1890s...
...a series of articles on public
hygiene of his authorship.
Paris outraged, Paris destroyed,
Paris martyred, but Paris liberated.
- Are you French?
- Yes.
Would not you mind answering
in a minute ortvvo...
...a question about Charles de Gaulle?
Well, in general...
...he was president of the Republic...
...founder of the Fifth Republic.
He was a great fighter...
...who fought and led the
resistance in Great Britain...
...in France... but from
Great Britain, better said.
Charles de Gaulle is a person who...
...did a lot for France in the war.
He is a person that is still
very important today...
...because he knew how to lead
the country with intelligence...
...because he is someone
who had a military past...
...well... I do not know
what else to say.
And what else? although I remember,
I think he was in contact...
...with Marshal Petain, I think...
...orwas in conflict with him,
it is all I know about him.
And I know the French
appreciate him very much...
...this president...
...like Francois Miterrand
and Goerges Pompidou.
Thank you!
Betances in his idea...
...he had studied in France,
of course...
...but his intention was not...
...to settle in a developed country...
...but to return to his colonized...
...country, so the people...
...the poor people could
benefit from his knowledge.
Betances returned to
Puerto Rico in the year 1856.
Immediately after he returned...
...unfortunately...
...a terrible cholera epidemic occurred.
And in that epidemic...
...you know... those affected were...
...the slaves, the blacks and
the poor people of Puerto Rico.
And thousands of deaths
were accounted...
...for due to this epidemic.
However, in the MayagUez region...
...which is where Betances
was established as a doctor...
...a work team is also established...
...to tackle...
...the cholera epidemic.
There is discovered and shown,
notjust a doctor...
...a courageous doctor...
...who faces the disease,
but who also helps...
...the poorest people...
...particularly the black population...
...of MayagUez.
From there was born
the affectionate nickname...
...of doctor of the poor and blacks.
lfthe love of freedom...
...does not already have in our
Borinquen another refuge than...
...the heart of the
most unfortunate of all...
...the African's heart...
...slave of the slaves.
Let us shake off the yoke
of dishonor that bends us.
This old house that is...
...a historic house...
...built in 1867...
...was the residence...
...of Dr. Ramon Emeterio Betances.
Today so deteriorated...
...it needs more than ever...
...the prompt restoration...
...by the government of Puerto Rico...
...because this old house...
...of Dr. Betances...
...is, without a doubt...
...a historical relic.
Having a slave...
...was to have an animal...
...the slave was not considered a man.
It was more like a different animal.
It did everything.
And not only everything...
...but its owner had power
even to abuse them...
...sexually.
So, the one who was fighting
against that kind of situation...
...had serious problems and had
to face the first deportation.
Betances in Puerto Rico...
...his attitude looked suspicious...
...because he bought slave
children to set them free.
To the abolitionists of
the MayagUez region...
...that in the atrium
of this holy church...
...bought the children slaves
in the baptismal font...
...to reintegrate them to our society...
...as free men.
Betances was a man who had a
deep sense of social justice.
That social justice is evident
in his abolitionist sense.
That is, he was abolitionist because
that was simply social injustice.
It is unfair that a man is
the master of another man...
...or for a man to enslave another man.
Besides...
...it began to establish...
...the independence movement,
that Betances nationalism...
...through some organizations...
...grassroots organizations in cities...
...and in countrysides...
...contemplated in a constitution...
...drafted by...
...our independence fighters...
...of the 19th century.
Wake up Borinqueno because
they have given the signal...
...wake up from that dream,
it's time to fight.
The cry of Lares, really...
...militarily...
...was a failed movement...
...but its transcendence...
...does not stop there.
The cry of Lares has
a greater trascendence...
...ideologically, politically
and spiritually...
...why? because it represents the will
of the Puerto Rican people...
...to fight for their independence.
And that is the seed...
...that is sown as the flag of
struggle of the Puerto Ricans...
...which banishes the
attitude of total inertia.
They lacked a strong and capable boss...
...as Betances, who had been expelled...
...and what was missing, above all,
was that simultaneous movement...
...as planned.
A model of the Dominican flag is
the one that rises in Lares...
...to see how influenced they were by
the outbreak of these peasants.
Obviously...
...the central figure is Betances...
...and Segundo Ruiz Belvis...
...is out and even
Segundo Ruiz Belvis is killed...
There was a follow-up of the Spanish...
...although it is not reported...
...I even publish in my book...
...an agent in Cuba...
...and what he said about
espionage to Betances.
Then, Betances had
the responsibility...
...of carrying the ship,
called Telegrafo...
...but the breakout was discovered...
...and they had to overtake it.
A man named Calixto Romero Togores...
...who is related to Romero Basero.
That Calixto Romero was an traitor...
...of the revolutionaries
of Lares in 1868.
That is, in good Spanish we would say...
...that he was a creep...
...of the Puerto Rican
independence movement of '68.
Man is not essential...
...but there are times
when certain men...
...are basic.
And the lack of his presence due
to impossible circumstances...
...(at that time it was impossible...
...for Betances to get there)...
...contributed a lot.
His militant attitude and
his organizing capacity...
...would have been vital at that time.
When the Republic
of Lares is proclaimed...
...slavery is declared
abolished in Puerto Rico...
...improvements are declared
for braziers, peasants...
...and they were called free workers.
But they were not very free...
...because they were subject to
the ferreous law of patronage...
...and in particular
to the legal obligation...
...to keep a notebook, as it
was done in France before 48.
Then, the worker called
free had a notebook...
...where he wrote down which one
was his master, where he worked.
...where he wrote down which one
was his master, where he worked.
Undoubtedly, Lares revendication
is highly advanced...
...and proposed the equality
of all Puerto Rican citizens.
This fact would provoke later...
...that the Spanish government itself...
...without existing in Puerto Rico...
...the warlike urgencies
that occurred in Cuba...
...decided, to counteract the
constant rise of the struggle...
...extend the abolition of slavery.
Everything comes from there, from Lares.
Within that period
did not prosper...
...revolutionary projects...
...and it was very important then...
...the Betances solidarity
act of transferring...
...the money collected
by the patriots...
...weapons and ammunition deposited
in different hiding places...
...in the Caribbean region. Crossing
all this was an act of solidarity...
...extraordinary...
Keep in mind that the Spanish
crown, the Spanish metropolis...
...was living at the
moment, so to speak...
...from the riches they
brought from the Antilles.
The only two colonies
that were left to Spain...
...in the Antilles were
Puerto Rico and Cuba.
The Philippines was beyond, but in the
Antilles: Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Lares. ..
...personally for me...
...was not a failure.
Lares. ..
......was
...the definition of
something different...
...and this did not mean
that we were Spanish...
...here is a moment when
this began to be decided.
Compensate!
Doctor...
...Haiti is sick.
lts right breast...
...Dominican Republic...
...its oligarchs detest its dark nipple.
Its left wing...
...Cuba free...
...extended wing deals...
...and little embraces it.
If you were closer...
...you, my black Jamaica.
Doctor...
...Haiti is sick.
Its left wing...
...your homeland in chains...
...my younger sisters...
...the big ones, almost do
not speak each other.
Could your words make up leap years?
Doctor, your vision could
bring the Antilles closer.
Then, during that period...
...Betances arrived
and settled in Haiti.
But also the people who had
participated in the Cry of Lares...
...who had to leave Puerto Rico...
...after gaining freedom
in that period...
...they also went to...
...Haiti...
...to accompany Betances.
The great thing about
the project of Betances...
...is that at times when there
were undoubtedly prejudices...
...racial prejudices,
cultural prejudices...
...Betances incorporated
Haiti into this project...
...incorporated Dominican Republic...
...wrote about Toussaint Louverture...
...and about Petion.
What interest did Betances have?
He was trying...
...to highlight, to praise...
...the cultural and political
possibilities of the black man.
The first nation in Latin America...
...was the United States...
...which proclaimed its independence,
but it was the first nation...
...of former slaves.
I mean, it was a peculiar case.
In America, anyone who tried...
...a revolutionary movement...
...or an independence movement...
...had to seek the necessary help...
...from them.
The brother who
was also called Felipe...
...participated in Lares and...
...and settled in Jacmel.
And we still have then...
...a strain of the Betances...
...in Haiti...
...that comes from that brother...
...of Betances that remained forever...
...in that country.
And he never returned to Cabo Rojo...
...of his childhood.
What does Dessalines mean to you?
What does Dessalines mean to you?
For us Haitians,
Dessalines was a savior...
...in histime, because...
...when you look at...
...the Haitians who were
brought from Africa...
...and even Dessalines in histime
went through the slavery...
...and realized that
he could not stay there.
It was then that he rebelled to give
independence to his country.
That's why I can say today...
...he is a man who
will never be forgotten.
...and everything he has done
will be remembered.
Dessalines is a great hero for us...
...for the people.
And why do you think it was
important to have independence?
Itwas important to be free...
...to get us out of slavery...
...to have freedom.
Dessalines was a great man...
...who fought to get us out of...
...slavery.
Today we live a moment where...
...where white people
are directing us...
...we lost our power...
...we lost our goal.
When Betances returned to France...
...he supported young Haitians a lot...
...who acted to promote...
...the image of his land...
...by saying the past is the
result of colonial history...
...but that the black man was much
more worth than what was said then...
...and that there is evidence of this
in history as Toussaint Louverture...
...Petion and others.
His main political support
in the Dominican Republic...
...was the Dominican General
Gregorio Luperon.
This man, besides having
a political identification...
...with the revolutionary
ideology of Betances...
...was his compadre and
they were deeply identified.
Ramon Emeterio Betances and
General Gregorio Luperon...
...a figure of Dominican independence...
...a mulatto of modest origin...
...had a friendship born...
...during the war called Restauradora.
Betances was very identified...
...with the progressive struggles...
...of the Dominican people.
The Betances rifles...
...that is, the arms...
...of the Puerto Rican
independence movement...
...were put at the disposal of
General Gregorio Luperon...
...when the Dominican
were fighting against...
...the dictatorship
of Buenaventura Baez.
And they had a ship...
...a hired ship...
...called El Telegrafo.
Betances helped Luperon...
...getthis ship.
And Luperon traveled in El Telegrafo
and changed its name...
...and gave it the name Restauracion.
Thus, Luperon bombed San Felipe
fortress in Puerto Plata...
...and occupied militarily Samana.
In this document,
Betances calligraphy...
...is unmistakable.
His handwriting was
unmistakable, it was small.
And what's below is
not Betances calligraphy.
Here is the signature
of Gregorio Luperon...
...with the three points
of man of Masonry.
That is, Betances wrote the
letters of Gregorio Luperon...
...and Luperon signed them.
Luperon wrote a beautiful letter...
...against President Grant.
Many people have said it was
Betances who wrote that letter...
...but it was not really him.
And we know it because
the letter has that language...
...we have studied in Luperon.
Obviously, Luperon wrote it.
It was a letter to President Grant...
...which spoke of "you" as an
intellectual of the Betances category...
...and that's why we can't
deny Betances corrected it.
They were there and the letter has
a very high level of writing...
...and Betances corrected it and...
and who doubts...
...Betances said Luperon any idea?
Because they were together...
...permanently.
What we did conclude...
...is that they...
...established an agreement.
But a political agreement of war...
...a subversive war like this one...
...can not be left written.
There was an unspoken agreement...
...we are going to prevent the
annexation of the United States...
...the Dominican Republic and we
are going to overthrow Baez.
And the second step was...
...we are going to develop the struggle
for independence in Puerto Rico.
Oh, Sun, eternal luminary...
...laughing in the nest and
the portal of the palaces...
...incendiary spark
that shines immortal!
Oh, you of the innumerable fire...
...who shines in the universe...
...and pierces the
insurmountable shadow..
...giving light to the
captive there immersed!
That you bless, fruitful and you can...
...awaken the sleeping bush...
...that from above, in golden nets...
...you have the worlds suspended.
Your sweet splendor and
benefactor creates heat...
...dilates the day...
...but it does not have, I would say...
...the strength of a ray of love.
Can you tell me who
is Juan Pablo Duarte?
Can you tell me who
is Juan Pablo Duarte?
Of course. He isthe
father of our homeland.
He is the father of our homeland.
The one who gave independence
to each one of us.
For him we are free and independent.
Why is it important for you
to be free and independent?
Because we do not want any foreign
country to come and impose a yoke on us.
Or comes to submit us.
It is very good to be free and sovereign
beings. We are free and sovereign.
We do not want yoke, neither
foreigners, norAmericans...
...because the Americans, sorry,
since you're from Puerto Rico...
...the Americans always put their boots
in the countries of Latin America.
These countries are
always being trampled.
They live from the war.
Who was Juan Pablo Duarte?
Well, if you ask me,
you have difficulty...
...because I am "sanchizta",
not "duartista".
Juan Pablo Duarte appears as
the father of the Homeland...
...but for me the true father of the
country is Francisco del Rosario sanchez.
He was the one who was here
when the coup ocurred.
The one who struck was
Francisco del Rosario sanchez.
Duarte was in Curacao and he did not
even know what was being done here.
My criterion is that Duarte
is very meritorious...
...but the greatest merit he has is that
he was blond and Sanchez was black.
He was son of a butcher
and grandson of slave...
...and they were not going to give him
the Patriarchate of the Homeland.
And what can you tell
about Gregorio Luperon?
Ahh, that was a great man...
...a man with a lot of courage,
great integrity.
...and he was the hero
of the Restauracion...
...or one of them, because
there were several.
And do not you happen to know
Ramon Emeterio Betances?
Who was Ramon Emeterio Betances?
He was a Puerto Rican
independence leader...
...who came here and
received help from Luperon.
Like Eugenio Maria de Hostos,
the great master.
...if I remember correctly,
in 1868 or 1869...
...not before that.
Why? Because Hostos...
...studied in Madrid...
...and in those years...
...1868, 1869...
...he thought there was
a reformist solution.
And within his ideology that
was federal at that time...
...Hostos thought of a great...
...Hispanic confederation
of the world...
...with Madrid as
the metropolitan capital...
...and La Habana and
San Juan as autonomies.
Betances is the radical man...
...the radical revolutionary...
...anti-imperialist...
...he is the revolutionary that
said at a given moment...
..."if you want revolution...
...as an omelet, you
have to beat the eggs".
"There is no revolutionary
without breaking eggs...
...or beating them
to cookthe omelet".
You can not be so forgiving, you
can not walk on average terms.
If you want an omelet, you have to
break and beat the eggs.
That's a very boricua
expression, very nice, but...
...but it lets us see that
sense of the radicality...
...of his revolutionary ideology.
Eugenio Maria de Hostos
was a great thinker...
...a consequential revolutionary...
...who thought very well about
the future of Puerto Rico...
...the potentialities of its people...
...but in some aspects, perhaps,
he had more patience.
So, between the initial
radicalism of Betances...
...we are talking about the
years 1860 and 1865...
...and the initial
reformism of Hostos...
...there is a frontier. Now...
...when the independence
movement began...
...Hostos soon realized his mistake...
...and he also became
another independentist...
...of the same ideological force...
...and the same temper as Betances.
And Hostos would say in his memories...
..."At least,
Betances learned one thing...
...and that is to make an omelet...
...you have to breakthe eggs first".
When Hostos...
...invited Betances...
...to accompany him on a revolutionary...
...project against
colonialism in Puerto Rico...
...they both were cited...
...in Santo Domingo.
And then, Betances who already knew...
...the great Dominican
revolutionaries...
...headed by Gregorio Luperon...
...is the one who introduced
Luperon to Hostos.
From that moment...
...from that year forward,
1875, I can say it...
...they treated each
other like what they were...
...tvvo great brothers.
Do you know who Ramon
Emeterio Betances was?
Of course I do.
Of course I do.
Who was he?
Ramon was a Puerto Rican hero...
...and he was a leader
of the revolution.
He fought hard for the
freedom of Puerto Rico...
...and here in this park
we have a statue of him...
...as a symbol of the
freedom of the Americas.
What else do you know about Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico is the island
of enchantment.
As the old saying goes...
Cuba and Puerto Rico are,
from a bird, the two wings.
Do you know who Jose Marti was?
Yes, Jose Marti is the
hero of the Homeland.
What did he do?
Jose Marti fought for
our people to be free...
...and he is currently
the idol of our people.
That is, today he is the one who
has emerged from the battles...
...little by little, that is the
idol that has all the ideas...
...and we carry his ideas
and fight with them.
The idea of being free.
And what is the phrase that
you like most about him?
The phrase that! like
most about him is...
..."that a people has to
be cultured to be free".
Jose Marti...
Jose Marti is our National Hero.
He, like Ramon for Puerto Rico, fought
hard for the freedom of Cuba...
...he organized many battles, we can
say that he was the thinking head...
...of the revolutionary
group of the time.
He traveled to the United States
and he was the one who said...
..."I lived in the monster
and I know the entrails".
- He met the United States and
lived there. - He is the Apostle.
The Apostle Jose Marti was
the greatest man Cuba had.
He died in Dos Rios.
Thank you.
He was a man of ideas, yes.
Send a message to Puerto Rico.
Long live Puerto Rico, brother of Cuba.
We love you very much,
someday we can meet and...
...link hand in hand, because...
...it is a beloved brother country.
Puerto Rico has the same flag as us,
but its colors are inverted.
We are very similar and that is why
we love Puerto Ricans very much.
Long live Puerto Rico.
Jose Marti, our hero, the
apostle of our independence...
...referred to Betances and called him:
"that wonderful old man".
When Betances was already
a venerable fighter...
...anti-imperialist, Marti was in the
beginning of his struggle.
That's when he requested
Betances effort...
...and help for support in the
Cuban Revolutionary Party.
Marti and Betances could
never shake their hands...
...they could never hold each other...
...but the love and admiration...
...that Marti had for Betances...
...can be seen in the writings...
...of Jose Marti.
When you read Marti' woks...
...you can appreciate...
...that extraordinary feeling.
From Paris, Betances
performed as revolutionary...
...the most effective,
most radical work...
...and the most consistent work
that had made any other revolutionary...
...in emigration.
...in Paris.
And from Paris, from all
over the world, because...
...we have to keep in mind that
Betances was writing there...
...not only his newspaper
called El Antillano...
...whose articles he signed
with the same name...
...but from there
he was sending articles...
...to other publications that
already knew his name.
That environment is what makes...
...EI Antillano become spokesman...
...almost unofficial ambassador...
...of three republics that
had not been born yet.
Of 26 in a thousand seas,
one remains in the Caribbean...
...which does not understand the
mishaps that await the Caribbean.
That the Yankees are gossipers,
cheaters and troublemakers...
...and to this day carry the
luck of getting away with it.
There are 100 thousand Puerto Ricans
who do not love their country...
...promoting this life to uproot...
...the long tradition
of Caribbean struggle...
...the blood spilled
quisquellana and borinquena.
In the middle ofthe war in Cuba...
...Spain had an extremely
aggressive attitude...
...and this attitude...
...was raised by Canovas del Castillo...
...prime minister.
He even said that the war in Cuba...
...could end with two happy shots.
One to Maceo and another to Gomez.
That was the slogan
of Canovas del Castillo.
So we can see how good he
was, do not you think?
Two happy shots!
One to Maceo and another to Gomez!
Then, this warwas
followed internationally...
...an Italian anarchist
named Angiolino...
...took Canovas' words...
...and said: if with two happy
shots the war is over...
...then with a happy shot
we can counteract this.
In that moment...
...went through England...
...this Italian man...
...and acquired there...
...a revolver...
...a homemade revolver.
Then, he arrived in Paris...
...and met Betances there.
What happened?
Well, everyone knew the representative
of Cuba Libre in Europe...
...was Betances.
There is a historical interview..
...prior to the events...
...betvveen Betances and Agiolino.
You can not say that Betances
ordered him, it's impossible...
...what we are sure is that Betances...
...did not dissuade him either.
Canovas del Castillo was...
...enjoying...
...some thermal baths...
...in Spain...
...and Agiolino...
...arrived there.
And by three shots of that revolver...
...Angiolino ended the life
of the prime minister...
...of Spain.
Ultimately it can be said that...
...it was an act of anarchy.
It was not anarchy...
...it was individual heroism...
...because whatAngiolino did was...
...to represent the indignation
of all the peoples...
...before these abuses
of Canovas del Castillo.
When the French press asked Betances...
...about all these matters...
...he replied:
"No, we do not applaud it...
...but we do not reject it either".
Where is your light?
Where are your eyes?
Where is your resolution?
Where is that attitude
of gallantry and courage...
...and greatness that brings
us to this rostrum...
...which brings us to the presence of the
venerated ashes of the great Patricio...
...of the great father of the Homeland?
Where are we?
Here, as the great
poet said a moment ago...
...the earth shook...
...so that a petal emerged from it...
...so that a cocoon
would emerge from it!
A cocoon must be the precious flower
of the greatest soul of the Nation...
...of the soul of Betances.
Where are the hearts here?
Where are the village chants?
Where are the big children of this town?
That could be the Virgin of Betances.
How to give up our greatness?
Why bury us in a world of filth...
...in a world of material greed...
...in a world of bribes...
...in a world of slaves?
Why does not this town get up...
...to the greatness that called
the father of the Homeland?
Get up, men from Cabo Rojo!
Get up, Puerto Ricans!
Get up, Puerto Rico's women!
Reject the courtship of cowards!
Reject the courtship of the
traitors of the Homeland!
Those who do not love the Homeland
are unworthy of the sweet look...
...of a great woman born on the land.
FREEDOM
The great love of his life...
...was an unhappy love, as we know
After his studies in Paris, Betances...
...returned to Puerto Rico...
...and in one of these returns...
...he fell in love with
his niece Carmencita.
And on this same avenue...
...called Boulevard Boulangerie...
...Don Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...rented an apartment...
...of course,
bigger and more beautiful...
...than the one in which
he lived before...
...so he could marry his girlfriend
Carmen Henry.
And now maybe it surprises us...
"How is it going to be that of
falling in love with his niece"?
What happens is that they had
grown up absolutely separated...
...they did not know each other...
...and she was a niece
on the part of a sister, in short.
These are unusual things...
...which perhaps should not be...
...but they are.
While the wedding was being
prepared, Carmen Henry...
...was living in a house...
...of friends outside Paris...
...near Fontainebleau,
about 50 km south.
It was at that time...
...when she contracted
the terrible typhoid fever...
...which at that time had no cure.
Then, Betances brought her to Paris...
...to be closer to the doctors...
...and especially closer to him...
...who was a doctor.
And she lived in this house...
...attended by some friends...
...and there she died...
...as we already know
on April 23, 1858.
What should be my sights?
What my hopes?
My dead hopes...
...have been buried with her,
who inspired them.
I do not know what curse
has fallen on me.
I have to live in despair without ever
understanding so much injustice.
After she died...
...Betances idealized her...
...and he wrote a story... called...
...The Virgin of Borinquen.
And, of course,
she isthe virgin of Borinquen...
...the beloved who
had died in his arms...
...and he was so sad because...
...not only for having
taken her to that place...
...but also because he had not
been able to take care of her...
...and cure her.
Carmencita would notjust
be the lost beloved...
...but the Puerto Rican Homeland...
...that he could not lose at that time.
He had to give his life for
that Borinquena Homeland.
This was a beautiful symbol
and so he assumed it.
We knew later...
...that Betances married a
good Puerto Rican woman...
...named Simplicia...
...who was good, consistent...
...with Betances,
she was a good partner...
...for his life.
Dear Simplicia...
"I have been thinking
of you since I got here.
I have so many
achievements to fulfill...
...that the best of all is to feel
that I have conquered you.
There is no poetry
that describes my love.
I will never be anything without you.
I promise to write you more".
Betances was exiled three times...
...he did not return to Toulouse...
...but to Paris.
And there he settled...
...for 26 years...
...and then hejoined...
...as an assistant...
...to some famous doctors...
...of the faculty.
That is, he not only
satisfied himself with...
...healing...
...but he also became
a medical researcher.
It must be said that Betances...
...became one of the
best doctors in Paris.
This is easily said...
...but it must be assumed
in the 19th century.
Betances had several
medical specialties...
...one of them was obstetrics...
...and the other was about the
general problems of surgery...
...and internal medicine.
When the Spanish Republic...
...displaced Queen
Elizabeth II in 1868...
...she went to France.
There she got sick...
...and knowing that
Betances was one of her enemies...
...more agressive enemies...
...accepted that he was the
doctor who treated her.
How an individual,
registered as an enemy...
...deals with someone's own health...
...and makes that someone
recover its health.
And the thing is she had a record of
how formidable this doctor was...
...and therefore faced
with the dilemma...
...she accepted that he treated her...
...and obviously,
without hesitation...
...he took great pains
to take care of her.
When the cause of Cuba's independence
was already well advanced...
When the cause of Cuba's independence
was already well advanced...
...and Betances was somehow...
...monitored for living in France...
...which was the cradle of freedom...
...supposedly already.
Blasco stopped going, he only
went there when he was sick...
...but he suffered an accident...
...his horse carriage overturned...
...and he received bruises,
had a fracture...
...and all this came out in the press
because Blasco was a political figure.
Betances quickly went to see him.
He did not wait for
Blasco to call him.
He went there and treated
him as a patient.
And Blasco never forgot that.
He even said: "You do not want
to come see an integrist"...
...and Betances answered...
"And it is not convenient for you...
...that a revolutionary independentist
come to see you.
Shall we have a coffe?
Or what?"
Betances was named
holy doctor in Puerto Plata...
...because people believed that
his cures were miraculous...
...when he operated from a
possible cataract to a lady...
...who had never seen sunlight before.
It is possible that she suffered
from congenital cataracts...
...and he practiced surgery...
...on this lady that
resulted in a miracle.
But without a doubt, the miracle was
the scientific capacity of this man.
There are those who thought...
...and why did not he dedicate
himself exclusively to medicine?
Because he had a social
and political commitment...
...that was unavoidable for him.
Hence its greatness.
Early 1898...
...ocurred the explosion...
...of the battleship Maine...
...right on the port of Havana.
There, immediately...
...the tabloid press
of the United States...
...began to agitate the military
intervention in Cuba.
We can say that the final line of life
of Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...the great Antillean...
...was truly dramatic, I think.
Everything he had been fighting for...
...so that the United States would
not intervene Puerto Rico...
...and the Antilles...
...all that for which
he had been fighting...
...which had been, of course,
the dream of Jose Marti...
...with the Cuban Revolutionary Party...
...he saw it was imminent
that it happened.
He is appealing to everything he can.
Why do Puerto Ricans do not rebel?
Betances was a permanent fighter...
...against that idea of delivering
the island to a foreign potency.
Actually, at any potency...
...because he knew that the most
dangerous for the future...
...was United States ofAmerica.
For the vision of this country
of domination, expansion...
...throughout the Caribbean.
He knew very well he was dying...
...he had serious kidney problems...
...and at that time, 1898...
...there was no dialysis process...
...the artifitial cleaning
of the kidney...
...to help it function...
...there was no dialysis and
Betances as a good doctor...
...knew he was dying.
He knew it.
He was perfectly lucid.
And of course,
he was a little abandoned...
...he was alone...
...but not that much.
Imagine, just one or two
months after his death...
...a survey was made...
...in a Puerto Rican newspaper...
...to say in people's opinion...
...what is the person
that best represented...
...the aspiration of independence
in our country?
The number one of that
survey was Betances.
He was number one and that way
it was shown he was well known...
...when the peace treaty of Paris
had not been signed yet.
And from his bed...
...agonizing...
...he said the following...
..."I believe in the
future independence...
...of my country.
She alone, by agreement
of the other Antilles...
...is capable to save us from
the American minotaur.
I believe in freedom
and in the Republic.
I believe in them for my Homeland...
...where the intelligent men abound...
...and good men too.
The big ones are not big but
because we are on our knees.
Let's get up!
And after that he said...
But...
Why do Puerto Ricans do not rebel?
Because already in the year 1898...
...the invasion of the Yankees by
the Guanica was quite advanced.
And Betances was desperate.
He wrote to Lola Rodriguez de Tio...
...and he told other
Puerto Ricans to talkto Lola...
...and said:
why do Puerto Ricans do not rebel?
And in that last agony...
...for his Homeland was that
Betances closed his eyes forever...
...on September 16, 1898.
That is, until the
last moment of his life...
...Betances was energetic,
passionate, in love...
...with the freedom of his country.
- Were you on Betances avenue?
- Yes.
And who was Betances?
I don't know.
- This is Betances avenue?
- Right.
Here in Bayamon.
That's right!
And you don't have any
information about Betances?
No.
I've been working
here for two weeks.
I will call the owner for you.
We are in front of the house of
Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...can you tell us who was Betances?
No, I can't.
I have no idea.
Well, this street is called
Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...and that was the
house where he lived.
- Don't you know anything about him?
- No, not right now
Excuse me, we are here, in front of
Betances. Can you tell us who was he?
Who was Ramon Emeterio
Betances, Sergio?
They are filming me, Sergio.
Hello, we are here in Betances street...
...can you tell us who Betances was?
We are investigating.
I learned that in fourth grade...
You don't remember?
No, I do not remember.
You have no idea?
Nothing at all?
- Are you Puerto Rican?
- Of course.
- Have you lived your whole life
in Puerto Rico? - Yes.
And they did not teach you
at school who was Betances?
Yes.
- But you don't remember.
- I forgot about it.
Excuse me!
I was wondering if you
can tell us who was...
...Don Ramon Emeterio Betances?
Can you tell us?
You don't know?
I know he was a leader...
Hey, hey...
...do you want
to talk to the camera?
Paito. ..
...I'm in a bad moment in
the game now and I can not...
Just a little question.
We are working on a
documentary about Betances...
...and we wanted to know if you could
tell us something about him.
Anyhting about Betances you can tell us.
Well, he is the Father of our Homeland.
- We do not know much about him. - I
know he is very important in Puerto Rico.
Really important!
I will most likely recognize
him if! hear abouthim...
...but right now! do not remember.
Why is that?
Why do you think people
don't remember him?
Because it depends on Puerto
Rican education and politics.
We study in the Faculty
of Natural Sciences...
...and we do not have
such an education...
...specific to Puerto Rican culture...
...what we really know is
science, mathematics...
...that are systematic things.
We are also aware of other things...
...but the history of Puerto Rico...
I think it's something that...
It's great that you're doing
that documentary because...
...we need the history of
Puerto Rico in education.
- Thank you.
- You're welcome!
If you had the opportunity to travel
to any country on the planet...
...and someone ask you...
...who is the most important
Puerto Rican character in history...
...who would you say it is?
I believe that Puerto Rico has
moments that marked milestones...
...which represent course
changes in the country.
Ramon Power y Giralt
is our first hero...
...where it is galvanizes
the existence...
...of a different nation...
...of a different people...
...separated from any metropolis
and this is the Puerto Rican people.
50, 60 or 70 years later...
...the deed of Ruiz Belvis
and Betances...
...consolidated what had begun at
the beginning of the 19th century...
...by Ramon Power in
the courts of Spain.
Then, Baldorioty
de Diego Munoz Rivera...
...and later, the main transformation...
...the deepest social change
the country has had...
...was under Luis Munoz Marin. And if
I had to choose one, it would be him.
On July, 25, 1952...
...the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico is established.
This political condition has been
denounced as a colonial condition.
What do you think of the Commonwealth...
...which is the current relationship
between Puerto Rico and the USA?
What do you think?
Puerto Rico is or is not a colony?
No, Puerto Rico is not a colony...
This goes against the
very definition of colony...
...because the status form that exists
in this country was not imposed...
...but it has been chosen
by Puerto Ricans, so...
Do you believe that mostAmericans...
...would be in favor of Puerto Rico
being the 51st state?
Puerto Rico has the capacity to be a
free, sovereign and independent country?
Puerto Rico has the capacity to be it.
Now it is important
to understand that...
...in my opinion, there are differences
that must be highlighted.
Puerto Rico has the capacity
to be it, but freedom of a formula...
...of a country's relationship
with the rest of the world...
...the legitimacy of that formula...
...does not arise from the texts...
...but arises from the
will of those peoples.
What happens is that Puerto Rico...
...has decided freely not
to opt for that formula.
Betances. ..
...is the most important figure
that this country has had...
...in its history.
That is without a doubt.
I do not have the slightest doubt.
For more than 30 years...
...I have been studying the
life and work of Betances.
There is no figure like him.
It is not about that image of a crude...
...rude revolutionary, who shouts...
...who, to convince, offends...
...and that ultimately tells you:
"if you do not think like me...
...go away!" and then he pushes you.
Betances is a gentleman...
...as Jose Marti was...
...that is why they are men who must
be paradigms for all revolutionaries...
...and ethically for all people.
We must see Betances
as one of the Iiberators.
The Iiberator is not only
the military commander...
...who arrives after
a series of campaigns...
...and battles...
...to expel the foreign master...
...but Betances is a Iiberator...
...of ideas...
...of people...
...of values...
...and Iefts.
That's why I say that
he is in a certain way...
...the last Iiberator
of the 19th century.
And that's why he fought...
...and that's why he sacrificed himself.
His professional ability...
...is the struggle to bequeath...
...with the example of his attitudes...
...that Puerto Rico was viable.
And I thinkthat's
the most important thing.
That is the legacy of Betances.
That is the legacy
that sooner or later...
...that self-determination will come.
He is the father of the
Puerto Rican Homeland!
...that generous people...
...attribute to...
...their most sacrificed son.
And that was Betances.
He was the most sacrificed...
...of the children of this nation...
...throughout the 19th century.
THE ANTILLEAN
I am Antillean.
Translated and subtitled by: YMH.
...mi|itary troops of the government
of the United States of America...
...invaded the island of Puerto Rico.
To the false interpreters of the Monroe
Doctrine we must always answer...
Yesi, America for Americans;
but the Antilles for the Antilleans.
That is our salvation.
Betances.
Have you listened to some
leader of this country...
...to mention...
...Betances's figure?
Of course not.
Because he is a contradictory
figure to everything that exists here.
And then, he is...
...an unknown personality.
And the colonialism...
...will try to keep
hidden that figure...
...which is definitely the great figure
of Puerto Rican patriotism.
THE ANTILLEAN
He is the darkest of the west...
...the world healer...
...the pioneer of good
and brusque nationalism.
He is the one in MayagUez that
began to remove the garbage...
...guided by Ruiz Belvis,
Salvi Brao and Basora
He is the healer of the worker...
...and the one who was
hit in the gunmen's mutiny.
lt's him,
the one who's angered by cholera...
...because the poor goes first and
the soldiers of the navy to the line.
He is the abysmal angel in
front of the baptismal row.
He is the original super doctor.
The one in Santiago and Puerto Plata
dominated the falls by bicycle.
The one that from San Juan
to Havana defeated malaria.
The one who swept the hypocrites
from France to Jamaica.
The one who valued Hippocrates' oath.
He is the doctor of the Caribbean...
...the one who gave you the
10 commandments of free man.
He is the other face of Hostos...
...the surgeon of Haiti...
...the inspiration of Quisqueya...
...a bastion for French.
He is the great emancipator...
...who, from Paris, celebrated
that March 22, 1873.
He is the one who called Mariana to
make a flag that is still standing.
lt's him, it's him, the one who threw
on the board the Monroe Doctrine...
...the Platt Amendment,
the Manifest Destiny...
...and everything
the northern clown tried...
...to buy at the beginning
of his empire.
In medicine that does not
discriminate, ask Dona lsabel.
It is him, it's him the old soldier
of the French Republic...
...who always was for the Puerto Rican.
lt's him, he isthe revolution
personified in man.
He is the father of the poor.
lt's him, it's him.
He is the complication of Simplicia...
...and the substance of Salita
that is the virgin of Borinquen...
...and although he never had children...
...he is the father of the Homeland.
lt's him,
he is the blue of Manuel Rojas...
...the of Mathias Brugman...
...he who from beyond the seas...
...was the architect of that cry that
is still heard far beyond Lares.
lt's him, the one who
wanted a single giantAntilla...
...the real Christ of Albizu,
the Antillean is he.
What do Puerto Ricans do?
So they get out of the trance.
And Betances speakto them.
Son of a Dominican father
and a Puerto Rican mother...
...Ramon Emeterio Betances was born...
...on April 8, 1827...
...in the town of Cabo Rojo.
We are in the place
known in Cabo Rojo as
...La Pileta...
...La Pileta was originally
that jet of water...
...that goes back there...
...and the ladies came to wash their
clothes here, on some large stones...
...that were on this shore.
So, here...
...in the famous Pileta, it was
where Betances scampered as a child.
Onthis side...
...were the guava bushes...
...the famous bushes that are
mentioned in the life of Betances...
...where he apparently
entertained himself...
...eating guavas, because
this was a huge guayabal.
My Homeland is Puerto Rico
whose memory obsesses me...
My Homeland is Puerto Rico
whose memory obsesses me...
...and believe...
...thatl do not commit myself to die...
...without returning to
that unforgettable Cabo Rojo...
...to see again the guava bushes
where I ran around as a child...
...and soak in the waters of La Pileta
and perhaps rejuvenate my spirit.
His father...
...who by the way...
...had one of the most
important libraries...
...in the whole region of Puerto Rico...
...got private tutors...
...and these were the teachers...
...who shaped...
...the first years of education...
...of Ramon Emeterio...
...until he was 9 years old...
...and his mother died.
And that's when his father sent him...
...to develop educationally...
...in Toulouse...
...in southern France.
It was a Franco-Puerto Rican family...
...Prevost-Cavalliery...
...with whom there existed
masonic relations.
Which facilitated...
...the transfer of Ramon Emeterio
to the south of France.
There he was a student...
...an internal student of a school...
...the royal school of Toulouse...
...and when the holidays arrived...
...Christmas or Easter
or summer holidays...
...he returned to that friend family...
...which lived about 30 kilometers from
Toulouse, in a town called Grisolles.
When he obtained these degrees...
...which were the ones that enabled
him to enter French medical school...
...then he went in 1848...
...to study at the School of Medicine
of the University of Paris.
Fires, sticks, shotguns and stones...
..."Down monarchies!" he shouted
along with the people of 1848.
When it comes to freedom...
...all peoples are supportive.
In 1848 there was a...
...revolution in Europe.
Thousands...
...of...
...French...
...tookto the streets of Paris...
...erected barricades...
...some of three meters high.
Poverty was degrading.
That revolution that
was made in two stages...
...in February and June of 1848...
...is the Bourgeois Democratic
Revolution of France...
...which overthrew the monarchy...
...established universal suffrage...
...abolished slavery.
The 1848 revolution...
...was translated for the Antillean...
...as the emancipation
of the black slaves...
...of Guadeloupe, Martinique and other
French colonies of the Caribbean.
And it would be very good to indicate...
...that Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...started his political practice...
...by participating in the
French Revolution of 1848.
We are in the Latin Quarter...
...at least in the part...
...where the Faculty of Medicine is...
...which is on our right.
This is the same
neighborhood that existed...
...when young Betances
studied Medicine...
...here in Paris between 1848...
...and 1855.
The latter was the year
he defended his thesis.
Now we're going to where he entered
when he was a student...
He lived nearby...
...we will see it later,
about 200 meters from here.
That is why it was not difficult
to go to school...
Look at the name of the street:
Street of the School of Medicine.
In this street everything is historic.
Betances studied...
Betances studied...
...at the medical school
that was at the forefront...
...of medicine studies
at international level.
That was the medical school in Paris...
...and there he studied
with Broca, Dubois...
...with a series of geniuses...
...and in 1855...
...he finished his studies...
...defending a doctoral thesis...
...on the causes of abortion.
Betances not only looks
at the clinical aspects...
...or purely physical aspects...
...but he also includes
social motives...
...which put a woman
in a position to abort...
...overwork, relationships that
are not purely physical.
He introduced that social
dimension into medicine...
...which will be interesting
in the future...
...because we are going to
read in the 1890s...
...a series of articles on public
hygiene of his authorship.
Paris outraged, Paris destroyed,
Paris martyred, but Paris liberated.
- Are you French?
- Yes.
Would not you mind answering
in a minute ortvvo...
...a question about Charles de Gaulle?
Well, in general...
...he was president of the Republic...
...founder of the Fifth Republic.
He was a great fighter...
...who fought and led the
resistance in Great Britain...
...in France... but from
Great Britain, better said.
Charles de Gaulle is a person who...
...did a lot for France in the war.
He is a person that is still
very important today...
...because he knew how to lead
the country with intelligence...
...because he is someone
who had a military past...
...well... I do not know
what else to say.
And what else? although I remember,
I think he was in contact...
...with Marshal Petain, I think...
...orwas in conflict with him,
it is all I know about him.
And I know the French
appreciate him very much...
...this president...
...like Francois Miterrand
and Goerges Pompidou.
Thank you!
Betances in his idea...
...he had studied in France,
of course...
...but his intention was not...
...to settle in a developed country...
...but to return to his colonized...
...country, so the people...
...the poor people could
benefit from his knowledge.
Betances returned to
Puerto Rico in the year 1856.
Immediately after he returned...
...unfortunately...
...a terrible cholera epidemic occurred.
And in that epidemic...
...you know... those affected were...
...the slaves, the blacks and
the poor people of Puerto Rico.
And thousands of deaths
were accounted...
...for due to this epidemic.
However, in the MayagUez region...
...which is where Betances
was established as a doctor...
...a work team is also established...
...to tackle...
...the cholera epidemic.
There is discovered and shown,
notjust a doctor...
...a courageous doctor...
...who faces the disease,
but who also helps...
...the poorest people...
...particularly the black population...
...of MayagUez.
From there was born
the affectionate nickname...
...of doctor of the poor and blacks.
lfthe love of freedom...
...does not already have in our
Borinquen another refuge than...
...the heart of the
most unfortunate of all...
...the African's heart...
...slave of the slaves.
Let us shake off the yoke
of dishonor that bends us.
This old house that is...
...a historic house...
...built in 1867...
...was the residence...
...of Dr. Ramon Emeterio Betances.
Today so deteriorated...
...it needs more than ever...
...the prompt restoration...
...by the government of Puerto Rico...
...because this old house...
...of Dr. Betances...
...is, without a doubt...
...a historical relic.
Having a slave...
...was to have an animal...
...the slave was not considered a man.
It was more like a different animal.
It did everything.
And not only everything...
...but its owner had power
even to abuse them...
...sexually.
So, the one who was fighting
against that kind of situation...
...had serious problems and had
to face the first deportation.
Betances in Puerto Rico...
...his attitude looked suspicious...
...because he bought slave
children to set them free.
To the abolitionists of
the MayagUez region...
...that in the atrium
of this holy church...
...bought the children slaves
in the baptismal font...
...to reintegrate them to our society...
...as free men.
Betances was a man who had a
deep sense of social justice.
That social justice is evident
in his abolitionist sense.
That is, he was abolitionist because
that was simply social injustice.
It is unfair that a man is
the master of another man...
...or for a man to enslave another man.
Besides...
...it began to establish...
...the independence movement,
that Betances nationalism...
...through some organizations...
...grassroots organizations in cities...
...and in countrysides...
...contemplated in a constitution...
...drafted by...
...our independence fighters...
...of the 19th century.
Wake up Borinqueno because
they have given the signal...
...wake up from that dream,
it's time to fight.
The cry of Lares, really...
...militarily...
...was a failed movement...
...but its transcendence...
...does not stop there.
The cry of Lares has
a greater trascendence...
...ideologically, politically
and spiritually...
...why? because it represents the will
of the Puerto Rican people...
...to fight for their independence.
And that is the seed...
...that is sown as the flag of
struggle of the Puerto Ricans...
...which banishes the
attitude of total inertia.
They lacked a strong and capable boss...
...as Betances, who had been expelled...
...and what was missing, above all,
was that simultaneous movement...
...as planned.
A model of the Dominican flag is
the one that rises in Lares...
...to see how influenced they were by
the outbreak of these peasants.
Obviously...
...the central figure is Betances...
...and Segundo Ruiz Belvis...
...is out and even
Segundo Ruiz Belvis is killed...
There was a follow-up of the Spanish...
...although it is not reported...
...I even publish in my book...
...an agent in Cuba...
...and what he said about
espionage to Betances.
Then, Betances had
the responsibility...
...of carrying the ship,
called Telegrafo...
...but the breakout was discovered...
...and they had to overtake it.
A man named Calixto Romero Togores...
...who is related to Romero Basero.
That Calixto Romero was an traitor...
...of the revolutionaries
of Lares in 1868.
That is, in good Spanish we would say...
...that he was a creep...
...of the Puerto Rican
independence movement of '68.
Man is not essential...
...but there are times
when certain men...
...are basic.
And the lack of his presence due
to impossible circumstances...
...(at that time it was impossible...
...for Betances to get there)...
...contributed a lot.
His militant attitude and
his organizing capacity...
...would have been vital at that time.
When the Republic
of Lares is proclaimed...
...slavery is declared
abolished in Puerto Rico...
...improvements are declared
for braziers, peasants...
...and they were called free workers.
But they were not very free...
...because they were subject to
the ferreous law of patronage...
...and in particular
to the legal obligation...
...to keep a notebook, as it
was done in France before 48.
Then, the worker called
free had a notebook...
...where he wrote down which one
was his master, where he worked.
...where he wrote down which one
was his master, where he worked.
Undoubtedly, Lares revendication
is highly advanced...
...and proposed the equality
of all Puerto Rican citizens.
This fact would provoke later...
...that the Spanish government itself...
...without existing in Puerto Rico...
...the warlike urgencies
that occurred in Cuba...
...decided, to counteract the
constant rise of the struggle...
...extend the abolition of slavery.
Everything comes from there, from Lares.
Within that period
did not prosper...
...revolutionary projects...
...and it was very important then...
...the Betances solidarity
act of transferring...
...the money collected
by the patriots...
...weapons and ammunition deposited
in different hiding places...
...in the Caribbean region. Crossing
all this was an act of solidarity...
...extraordinary...
Keep in mind that the Spanish
crown, the Spanish metropolis...
...was living at the
moment, so to speak...
...from the riches they
brought from the Antilles.
The only two colonies
that were left to Spain...
...in the Antilles were
Puerto Rico and Cuba.
The Philippines was beyond, but in the
Antilles: Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Lares. ..
...personally for me...
...was not a failure.
Lares. ..
......was
...the definition of
something different...
...and this did not mean
that we were Spanish...
...here is a moment when
this began to be decided.
Compensate!
Doctor...
...Haiti is sick.
lts right breast...
...Dominican Republic...
...its oligarchs detest its dark nipple.
Its left wing...
...Cuba free...
...extended wing deals...
...and little embraces it.
If you were closer...
...you, my black Jamaica.
Doctor...
...Haiti is sick.
Its left wing...
...your homeland in chains...
...my younger sisters...
...the big ones, almost do
not speak each other.
Could your words make up leap years?
Doctor, your vision could
bring the Antilles closer.
Then, during that period...
...Betances arrived
and settled in Haiti.
But also the people who had
participated in the Cry of Lares...
...who had to leave Puerto Rico...
...after gaining freedom
in that period...
...they also went to...
...Haiti...
...to accompany Betances.
The great thing about
the project of Betances...
...is that at times when there
were undoubtedly prejudices...
...racial prejudices,
cultural prejudices...
...Betances incorporated
Haiti into this project...
...incorporated Dominican Republic...
...wrote about Toussaint Louverture...
...and about Petion.
What interest did Betances have?
He was trying...
...to highlight, to praise...
...the cultural and political
possibilities of the black man.
The first nation in Latin America...
...was the United States...
...which proclaimed its independence,
but it was the first nation...
...of former slaves.
I mean, it was a peculiar case.
In America, anyone who tried...
...a revolutionary movement...
...or an independence movement...
...had to seek the necessary help...
...from them.
The brother who
was also called Felipe...
...participated in Lares and...
...and settled in Jacmel.
And we still have then...
...a strain of the Betances...
...in Haiti...
...that comes from that brother...
...of Betances that remained forever...
...in that country.
And he never returned to Cabo Rojo...
...of his childhood.
What does Dessalines mean to you?
What does Dessalines mean to you?
For us Haitians,
Dessalines was a savior...
...in histime, because...
...when you look at...
...the Haitians who were
brought from Africa...
...and even Dessalines in histime
went through the slavery...
...and realized that
he could not stay there.
It was then that he rebelled to give
independence to his country.
That's why I can say today...
...he is a man who
will never be forgotten.
...and everything he has done
will be remembered.
Dessalines is a great hero for us...
...for the people.
And why do you think it was
important to have independence?
Itwas important to be free...
...to get us out of slavery...
...to have freedom.
Dessalines was a great man...
...who fought to get us out of...
...slavery.
Today we live a moment where...
...where white people
are directing us...
...we lost our power...
...we lost our goal.
When Betances returned to France...
...he supported young Haitians a lot...
...who acted to promote...
...the image of his land...
...by saying the past is the
result of colonial history...
...but that the black man was much
more worth than what was said then...
...and that there is evidence of this
in history as Toussaint Louverture...
...Petion and others.
His main political support
in the Dominican Republic...
...was the Dominican General
Gregorio Luperon.
This man, besides having
a political identification...
...with the revolutionary
ideology of Betances...
...was his compadre and
they were deeply identified.
Ramon Emeterio Betances and
General Gregorio Luperon...
...a figure of Dominican independence...
...a mulatto of modest origin...
...had a friendship born...
...during the war called Restauradora.
Betances was very identified...
...with the progressive struggles...
...of the Dominican people.
The Betances rifles...
...that is, the arms...
...of the Puerto Rican
independence movement...
...were put at the disposal of
General Gregorio Luperon...
...when the Dominican
were fighting against...
...the dictatorship
of Buenaventura Baez.
And they had a ship...
...a hired ship...
...called El Telegrafo.
Betances helped Luperon...
...getthis ship.
And Luperon traveled in El Telegrafo
and changed its name...
...and gave it the name Restauracion.
Thus, Luperon bombed San Felipe
fortress in Puerto Plata...
...and occupied militarily Samana.
In this document,
Betances calligraphy...
...is unmistakable.
His handwriting was
unmistakable, it was small.
And what's below is
not Betances calligraphy.
Here is the signature
of Gregorio Luperon...
...with the three points
of man of Masonry.
That is, Betances wrote the
letters of Gregorio Luperon...
...and Luperon signed them.
Luperon wrote a beautiful letter...
...against President Grant.
Many people have said it was
Betances who wrote that letter...
...but it was not really him.
And we know it because
the letter has that language...
...we have studied in Luperon.
Obviously, Luperon wrote it.
It was a letter to President Grant...
...which spoke of "you" as an
intellectual of the Betances category...
...and that's why we can't
deny Betances corrected it.
They were there and the letter has
a very high level of writing...
...and Betances corrected it and...
and who doubts...
...Betances said Luperon any idea?
Because they were together...
...permanently.
What we did conclude...
...is that they...
...established an agreement.
But a political agreement of war...
...a subversive war like this one...
...can not be left written.
There was an unspoken agreement...
...we are going to prevent the
annexation of the United States...
...the Dominican Republic and we
are going to overthrow Baez.
And the second step was...
...we are going to develop the struggle
for independence in Puerto Rico.
Oh, Sun, eternal luminary...
...laughing in the nest and
the portal of the palaces...
...incendiary spark
that shines immortal!
Oh, you of the innumerable fire...
...who shines in the universe...
...and pierces the
insurmountable shadow..
...giving light to the
captive there immersed!
That you bless, fruitful and you can...
...awaken the sleeping bush...
...that from above, in golden nets...
...you have the worlds suspended.
Your sweet splendor and
benefactor creates heat...
...dilates the day...
...but it does not have, I would say...
...the strength of a ray of love.
Can you tell me who
is Juan Pablo Duarte?
Can you tell me who
is Juan Pablo Duarte?
Of course. He isthe
father of our homeland.
He is the father of our homeland.
The one who gave independence
to each one of us.
For him we are free and independent.
Why is it important for you
to be free and independent?
Because we do not want any foreign
country to come and impose a yoke on us.
Or comes to submit us.
It is very good to be free and sovereign
beings. We are free and sovereign.
We do not want yoke, neither
foreigners, norAmericans...
...because the Americans, sorry,
since you're from Puerto Rico...
...the Americans always put their boots
in the countries of Latin America.
These countries are
always being trampled.
They live from the war.
Who was Juan Pablo Duarte?
Well, if you ask me,
you have difficulty...
...because I am "sanchizta",
not "duartista".
Juan Pablo Duarte appears as
the father of the Homeland...
...but for me the true father of the
country is Francisco del Rosario sanchez.
He was the one who was here
when the coup ocurred.
The one who struck was
Francisco del Rosario sanchez.
Duarte was in Curacao and he did not
even know what was being done here.
My criterion is that Duarte
is very meritorious...
...but the greatest merit he has is that
he was blond and Sanchez was black.
He was son of a butcher
and grandson of slave...
...and they were not going to give him
the Patriarchate of the Homeland.
And what can you tell
about Gregorio Luperon?
Ahh, that was a great man...
...a man with a lot of courage,
great integrity.
...and he was the hero
of the Restauracion...
...or one of them, because
there were several.
And do not you happen to know
Ramon Emeterio Betances?
Who was Ramon Emeterio Betances?
He was a Puerto Rican
independence leader...
...who came here and
received help from Luperon.
Like Eugenio Maria de Hostos,
the great master.
...if I remember correctly,
in 1868 or 1869...
...not before that.
Why? Because Hostos...
...studied in Madrid...
...and in those years...
...1868, 1869...
...he thought there was
a reformist solution.
And within his ideology that
was federal at that time...
...Hostos thought of a great...
...Hispanic confederation
of the world...
...with Madrid as
the metropolitan capital...
...and La Habana and
San Juan as autonomies.
Betances is the radical man...
...the radical revolutionary...
...anti-imperialist...
...he is the revolutionary that
said at a given moment...
..."if you want revolution...
...as an omelet, you
have to beat the eggs".
"There is no revolutionary
without breaking eggs...
...or beating them
to cookthe omelet".
You can not be so forgiving, you
can not walk on average terms.
If you want an omelet, you have to
break and beat the eggs.
That's a very boricua
expression, very nice, but...
...but it lets us see that
sense of the radicality...
...of his revolutionary ideology.
Eugenio Maria de Hostos
was a great thinker...
...a consequential revolutionary...
...who thought very well about
the future of Puerto Rico...
...the potentialities of its people...
...but in some aspects, perhaps,
he had more patience.
So, between the initial
radicalism of Betances...
...we are talking about the
years 1860 and 1865...
...and the initial
reformism of Hostos...
...there is a frontier. Now...
...when the independence
movement began...
...Hostos soon realized his mistake...
...and he also became
another independentist...
...of the same ideological force...
...and the same temper as Betances.
And Hostos would say in his memories...
..."At least,
Betances learned one thing...
...and that is to make an omelet...
...you have to breakthe eggs first".
When Hostos...
...invited Betances...
...to accompany him on a revolutionary...
...project against
colonialism in Puerto Rico...
...they both were cited...
...in Santo Domingo.
And then, Betances who already knew...
...the great Dominican
revolutionaries...
...headed by Gregorio Luperon...
...is the one who introduced
Luperon to Hostos.
From that moment...
...from that year forward,
1875, I can say it...
...they treated each
other like what they were...
...tvvo great brothers.
Do you know who Ramon
Emeterio Betances was?
Of course I do.
Of course I do.
Who was he?
Ramon was a Puerto Rican hero...
...and he was a leader
of the revolution.
He fought hard for the
freedom of Puerto Rico...
...and here in this park
we have a statue of him...
...as a symbol of the
freedom of the Americas.
What else do you know about Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico is the island
of enchantment.
As the old saying goes...
Cuba and Puerto Rico are,
from a bird, the two wings.
Do you know who Jose Marti was?
Yes, Jose Marti is the
hero of the Homeland.
What did he do?
Jose Marti fought for
our people to be free...
...and he is currently
the idol of our people.
That is, today he is the one who
has emerged from the battles...
...little by little, that is the
idol that has all the ideas...
...and we carry his ideas
and fight with them.
The idea of being free.
And what is the phrase that
you like most about him?
The phrase that! like
most about him is...
..."that a people has to
be cultured to be free".
Jose Marti...
Jose Marti is our National Hero.
He, like Ramon for Puerto Rico, fought
hard for the freedom of Cuba...
...he organized many battles, we can
say that he was the thinking head...
...of the revolutionary
group of the time.
He traveled to the United States
and he was the one who said...
..."I lived in the monster
and I know the entrails".
- He met the United States and
lived there. - He is the Apostle.
The Apostle Jose Marti was
the greatest man Cuba had.
He died in Dos Rios.
Thank you.
He was a man of ideas, yes.
Send a message to Puerto Rico.
Long live Puerto Rico, brother of Cuba.
We love you very much,
someday we can meet and...
...link hand in hand, because...
...it is a beloved brother country.
Puerto Rico has the same flag as us,
but its colors are inverted.
We are very similar and that is why
we love Puerto Ricans very much.
Long live Puerto Rico.
Jose Marti, our hero, the
apostle of our independence...
...referred to Betances and called him:
"that wonderful old man".
When Betances was already
a venerable fighter...
...anti-imperialist, Marti was in the
beginning of his struggle.
That's when he requested
Betances effort...
...and help for support in the
Cuban Revolutionary Party.
Marti and Betances could
never shake their hands...
...they could never hold each other...
...but the love and admiration...
...that Marti had for Betances...
...can be seen in the writings...
...of Jose Marti.
When you read Marti' woks...
...you can appreciate...
...that extraordinary feeling.
From Paris, Betances
performed as revolutionary...
...the most effective,
most radical work...
...and the most consistent work
that had made any other revolutionary...
...in emigration.
...in Paris.
And from Paris, from all
over the world, because...
...we have to keep in mind that
Betances was writing there...
...not only his newspaper
called El Antillano...
...whose articles he signed
with the same name...
...but from there
he was sending articles...
...to other publications that
already knew his name.
That environment is what makes...
...EI Antillano become spokesman...
...almost unofficial ambassador...
...of three republics that
had not been born yet.
Of 26 in a thousand seas,
one remains in the Caribbean...
...which does not understand the
mishaps that await the Caribbean.
That the Yankees are gossipers,
cheaters and troublemakers...
...and to this day carry the
luck of getting away with it.
There are 100 thousand Puerto Ricans
who do not love their country...
...promoting this life to uproot...
...the long tradition
of Caribbean struggle...
...the blood spilled
quisquellana and borinquena.
In the middle ofthe war in Cuba...
...Spain had an extremely
aggressive attitude...
...and this attitude...
...was raised by Canovas del Castillo...
...prime minister.
He even said that the war in Cuba...
...could end with two happy shots.
One to Maceo and another to Gomez.
That was the slogan
of Canovas del Castillo.
So we can see how good he
was, do not you think?
Two happy shots!
One to Maceo and another to Gomez!
Then, this warwas
followed internationally...
...an Italian anarchist
named Angiolino...
...took Canovas' words...
...and said: if with two happy
shots the war is over...
...then with a happy shot
we can counteract this.
In that moment...
...went through England...
...this Italian man...
...and acquired there...
...a revolver...
...a homemade revolver.
Then, he arrived in Paris...
...and met Betances there.
What happened?
Well, everyone knew the representative
of Cuba Libre in Europe...
...was Betances.
There is a historical interview..
...prior to the events...
...betvveen Betances and Agiolino.
You can not say that Betances
ordered him, it's impossible...
...what we are sure is that Betances...
...did not dissuade him either.
Canovas del Castillo was...
...enjoying...
...some thermal baths...
...in Spain...
...and Agiolino...
...arrived there.
And by three shots of that revolver...
...Angiolino ended the life
of the prime minister...
...of Spain.
Ultimately it can be said that...
...it was an act of anarchy.
It was not anarchy...
...it was individual heroism...
...because whatAngiolino did was...
...to represent the indignation
of all the peoples...
...before these abuses
of Canovas del Castillo.
When the French press asked Betances...
...about all these matters...
...he replied:
"No, we do not applaud it...
...but we do not reject it either".
Where is your light?
Where are your eyes?
Where is your resolution?
Where is that attitude
of gallantry and courage...
...and greatness that brings
us to this rostrum...
...which brings us to the presence of the
venerated ashes of the great Patricio...
...of the great father of the Homeland?
Where are we?
Here, as the great
poet said a moment ago...
...the earth shook...
...so that a petal emerged from it...
...so that a cocoon
would emerge from it!
A cocoon must be the precious flower
of the greatest soul of the Nation...
...of the soul of Betances.
Where are the hearts here?
Where are the village chants?
Where are the big children of this town?
That could be the Virgin of Betances.
How to give up our greatness?
Why bury us in a world of filth...
...in a world of material greed...
...in a world of bribes...
...in a world of slaves?
Why does not this town get up...
...to the greatness that called
the father of the Homeland?
Get up, men from Cabo Rojo!
Get up, Puerto Ricans!
Get up, Puerto Rico's women!
Reject the courtship of cowards!
Reject the courtship of the
traitors of the Homeland!
Those who do not love the Homeland
are unworthy of the sweet look...
...of a great woman born on the land.
FREEDOM
The great love of his life...
...was an unhappy love, as we know
After his studies in Paris, Betances...
...returned to Puerto Rico...
...and in one of these returns...
...he fell in love with
his niece Carmencita.
And on this same avenue...
...called Boulevard Boulangerie...
...Don Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...rented an apartment...
...of course,
bigger and more beautiful...
...than the one in which
he lived before...
...so he could marry his girlfriend
Carmen Henry.
And now maybe it surprises us...
"How is it going to be that of
falling in love with his niece"?
What happens is that they had
grown up absolutely separated...
...they did not know each other...
...and she was a niece
on the part of a sister, in short.
These are unusual things...
...which perhaps should not be...
...but they are.
While the wedding was being
prepared, Carmen Henry...
...was living in a house...
...of friends outside Paris...
...near Fontainebleau,
about 50 km south.
It was at that time...
...when she contracted
the terrible typhoid fever...
...which at that time had no cure.
Then, Betances brought her to Paris...
...to be closer to the doctors...
...and especially closer to him...
...who was a doctor.
And she lived in this house...
...attended by some friends...
...and there she died...
...as we already know
on April 23, 1858.
What should be my sights?
What my hopes?
My dead hopes...
...have been buried with her,
who inspired them.
I do not know what curse
has fallen on me.
I have to live in despair without ever
understanding so much injustice.
After she died...
...Betances idealized her...
...and he wrote a story... called...
...The Virgin of Borinquen.
And, of course,
she isthe virgin of Borinquen...
...the beloved who
had died in his arms...
...and he was so sad because...
...not only for having
taken her to that place...
...but also because he had not
been able to take care of her...
...and cure her.
Carmencita would notjust
be the lost beloved...
...but the Puerto Rican Homeland...
...that he could not lose at that time.
He had to give his life for
that Borinquena Homeland.
This was a beautiful symbol
and so he assumed it.
We knew later...
...that Betances married a
good Puerto Rican woman...
...named Simplicia...
...who was good, consistent...
...with Betances,
she was a good partner...
...for his life.
Dear Simplicia...
"I have been thinking
of you since I got here.
I have so many
achievements to fulfill...
...that the best of all is to feel
that I have conquered you.
There is no poetry
that describes my love.
I will never be anything without you.
I promise to write you more".
Betances was exiled three times...
...he did not return to Toulouse...
...but to Paris.
And there he settled...
...for 26 years...
...and then hejoined...
...as an assistant...
...to some famous doctors...
...of the faculty.
That is, he not only
satisfied himself with...
...healing...
...but he also became
a medical researcher.
It must be said that Betances...
...became one of the
best doctors in Paris.
This is easily said...
...but it must be assumed
in the 19th century.
Betances had several
medical specialties...
...one of them was obstetrics...
...and the other was about the
general problems of surgery...
...and internal medicine.
When the Spanish Republic...
...displaced Queen
Elizabeth II in 1868...
...she went to France.
There she got sick...
...and knowing that
Betances was one of her enemies...
...more agressive enemies...
...accepted that he was the
doctor who treated her.
How an individual,
registered as an enemy...
...deals with someone's own health...
...and makes that someone
recover its health.
And the thing is she had a record of
how formidable this doctor was...
...and therefore faced
with the dilemma...
...she accepted that he treated her...
...and obviously,
without hesitation...
...he took great pains
to take care of her.
When the cause of Cuba's independence
was already well advanced...
When the cause of Cuba's independence
was already well advanced...
...and Betances was somehow...
...monitored for living in France...
...which was the cradle of freedom...
...supposedly already.
Blasco stopped going, he only
went there when he was sick...
...but he suffered an accident...
...his horse carriage overturned...
...and he received bruises,
had a fracture...
...and all this came out in the press
because Blasco was a political figure.
Betances quickly went to see him.
He did not wait for
Blasco to call him.
He went there and treated
him as a patient.
And Blasco never forgot that.
He even said: "You do not want
to come see an integrist"...
...and Betances answered...
"And it is not convenient for you...
...that a revolutionary independentist
come to see you.
Shall we have a coffe?
Or what?"
Betances was named
holy doctor in Puerto Plata...
...because people believed that
his cures were miraculous...
...when he operated from a
possible cataract to a lady...
...who had never seen sunlight before.
It is possible that she suffered
from congenital cataracts...
...and he practiced surgery...
...on this lady that
resulted in a miracle.
But without a doubt, the miracle was
the scientific capacity of this man.
There are those who thought...
...and why did not he dedicate
himself exclusively to medicine?
Because he had a social
and political commitment...
...that was unavoidable for him.
Hence its greatness.
Early 1898...
...ocurred the explosion...
...of the battleship Maine...
...right on the port of Havana.
There, immediately...
...the tabloid press
of the United States...
...began to agitate the military
intervention in Cuba.
We can say that the final line of life
of Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...the great Antillean...
...was truly dramatic, I think.
Everything he had been fighting for...
...so that the United States would
not intervene Puerto Rico...
...and the Antilles...
...all that for which
he had been fighting...
...which had been, of course,
the dream of Jose Marti...
...with the Cuban Revolutionary Party...
...he saw it was imminent
that it happened.
He is appealing to everything he can.
Why do Puerto Ricans do not rebel?
Betances was a permanent fighter...
...against that idea of delivering
the island to a foreign potency.
Actually, at any potency...
...because he knew that the most
dangerous for the future...
...was United States ofAmerica.
For the vision of this country
of domination, expansion...
...throughout the Caribbean.
He knew very well he was dying...
...he had serious kidney problems...
...and at that time, 1898...
...there was no dialysis process...
...the artifitial cleaning
of the kidney...
...to help it function...
...there was no dialysis and
Betances as a good doctor...
...knew he was dying.
He knew it.
He was perfectly lucid.
And of course,
he was a little abandoned...
...he was alone...
...but not that much.
Imagine, just one or two
months after his death...
...a survey was made...
...in a Puerto Rican newspaper...
...to say in people's opinion...
...what is the person
that best represented...
...the aspiration of independence
in our country?
The number one of that
survey was Betances.
He was number one and that way
it was shown he was well known...
...when the peace treaty of Paris
had not been signed yet.
And from his bed...
...agonizing...
...he said the following...
..."I believe in the
future independence...
...of my country.
She alone, by agreement
of the other Antilles...
...is capable to save us from
the American minotaur.
I believe in freedom
and in the Republic.
I believe in them for my Homeland...
...where the intelligent men abound...
...and good men too.
The big ones are not big but
because we are on our knees.
Let's get up!
And after that he said...
But...
Why do Puerto Ricans do not rebel?
Because already in the year 1898...
...the invasion of the Yankees by
the Guanica was quite advanced.
And Betances was desperate.
He wrote to Lola Rodriguez de Tio...
...and he told other
Puerto Ricans to talkto Lola...
...and said:
why do Puerto Ricans do not rebel?
And in that last agony...
...for his Homeland was that
Betances closed his eyes forever...
...on September 16, 1898.
That is, until the
last moment of his life...
...Betances was energetic,
passionate, in love...
...with the freedom of his country.
- Were you on Betances avenue?
- Yes.
And who was Betances?
I don't know.
- This is Betances avenue?
- Right.
Here in Bayamon.
That's right!
And you don't have any
information about Betances?
No.
I've been working
here for two weeks.
I will call the owner for you.
We are in front of the house of
Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...can you tell us who was Betances?
No, I can't.
I have no idea.
Well, this street is called
Ramon Emeterio Betances...
...and that was the
house where he lived.
- Don't you know anything about him?
- No, not right now
Excuse me, we are here, in front of
Betances. Can you tell us who was he?
Who was Ramon Emeterio
Betances, Sergio?
They are filming me, Sergio.
Hello, we are here in Betances street...
...can you tell us who Betances was?
We are investigating.
I learned that in fourth grade...
You don't remember?
No, I do not remember.
You have no idea?
Nothing at all?
- Are you Puerto Rican?
- Of course.
- Have you lived your whole life
in Puerto Rico? - Yes.
And they did not teach you
at school who was Betances?
Yes.
- But you don't remember.
- I forgot about it.
Excuse me!
I was wondering if you
can tell us who was...
...Don Ramon Emeterio Betances?
Can you tell us?
You don't know?
I know he was a leader...
Hey, hey...
...do you want
to talk to the camera?
Paito. ..
...I'm in a bad moment in
the game now and I can not...
Just a little question.
We are working on a
documentary about Betances...
...and we wanted to know if you could
tell us something about him.
Anyhting about Betances you can tell us.
Well, he is the Father of our Homeland.
- We do not know much about him. - I
know he is very important in Puerto Rico.
Really important!
I will most likely recognize
him if! hear abouthim...
...but right now! do not remember.
Why is that?
Why do you think people
don't remember him?
Because it depends on Puerto
Rican education and politics.
We study in the Faculty
of Natural Sciences...
...and we do not have
such an education...
...specific to Puerto Rican culture...
...what we really know is
science, mathematics...
...that are systematic things.
We are also aware of other things...
...but the history of Puerto Rico...
I think it's something that...
It's great that you're doing
that documentary because...
...we need the history of
Puerto Rico in education.
- Thank you.
- You're welcome!
If you had the opportunity to travel
to any country on the planet...
...and someone ask you...
...who is the most important
Puerto Rican character in history...
...who would you say it is?
I believe that Puerto Rico has
moments that marked milestones...
...which represent course
changes in the country.
Ramon Power y Giralt
is our first hero...
...where it is galvanizes
the existence...
...of a different nation...
...of a different people...
...separated from any metropolis
and this is the Puerto Rican people.
50, 60 or 70 years later...
...the deed of Ruiz Belvis
and Betances...
...consolidated what had begun at
the beginning of the 19th century...
...by Ramon Power in
the courts of Spain.
Then, Baldorioty
de Diego Munoz Rivera...
...and later, the main transformation...
...the deepest social change
the country has had...
...was under Luis Munoz Marin. And if
I had to choose one, it would be him.
On July, 25, 1952...
...the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico is established.
This political condition has been
denounced as a colonial condition.
What do you think of the Commonwealth...
...which is the current relationship
between Puerto Rico and the USA?
What do you think?
Puerto Rico is or is not a colony?
No, Puerto Rico is not a colony...
This goes against the
very definition of colony...
...because the status form that exists
in this country was not imposed...
...but it has been chosen
by Puerto Ricans, so...
Do you believe that mostAmericans...
...would be in favor of Puerto Rico
being the 51st state?
Puerto Rico has the capacity to be a
free, sovereign and independent country?
Puerto Rico has the capacity to be it.
Now it is important
to understand that...
...in my opinion, there are differences
that must be highlighted.
Puerto Rico has the capacity
to be it, but freedom of a formula...
...of a country's relationship
with the rest of the world...
...the legitimacy of that formula...
...does not arise from the texts...
...but arises from the
will of those peoples.
What happens is that Puerto Rico...
...has decided freely not
to opt for that formula.
Betances. ..
...is the most important figure
that this country has had...
...in its history.
That is without a doubt.
I do not have the slightest doubt.
For more than 30 years...
...I have been studying the
life and work of Betances.
There is no figure like him.
It is not about that image of a crude...
...rude revolutionary, who shouts...
...who, to convince, offends...
...and that ultimately tells you:
"if you do not think like me...
...go away!" and then he pushes you.
Betances is a gentleman...
...as Jose Marti was...
...that is why they are men who must
be paradigms for all revolutionaries...
...and ethically for all people.
We must see Betances
as one of the Iiberators.
The Iiberator is not only
the military commander...
...who arrives after
a series of campaigns...
...and battles...
...to expel the foreign master...
...but Betances is a Iiberator...
...of ideas...
...of people...
...of values...
...and Iefts.
That's why I say that
he is in a certain way...
...the last Iiberator
of the 19th century.
And that's why he fought...
...and that's why he sacrificed himself.
His professional ability...
...is the struggle to bequeath...
...with the example of his attitudes...
...that Puerto Rico was viable.
And I thinkthat's
the most important thing.
That is the legacy of Betances.
That is the legacy
that sooner or later...
...that self-determination will come.
He is the father of the
Puerto Rican Homeland!
...that generous people...
...attribute to...
...their most sacrificed son.
And that was Betances.
He was the most sacrificed...
...of the children of this nation...
...throughout the 19th century.
THE ANTILLEAN
I am Antillean.
Translated and subtitled by: YMH.