Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and th eLeft in Puerto Rico, 1897-1921

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© 2013 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America c 5 4 3 2 1 ∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Shaffer, Kirwin R. Black flag boricuas : anarchism, antiauthoritarianism, and the left in Puerto Rico, 1897–1921 / Kirwin R. Shaffer. pages cm ISBN 978-0-252-03764-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-252-09490-3 (ebook) 1. Anarchism—Puerto Rico—History—20th century. 2. Puerto Rico—Politics and government—1898–1952. 3. Puerto Rico—History—1898–1952. I. Title. HX864.S53 2013 320.5’709729509041—dc23 2012047402 To the history professors at the University of Kansas who introduced me to Latin America: Charley Stansifer, Betsy Kuznesof, Tony Rosenthal, and the late Robert Oppenheimer. Afterward they will say of us that we didn’t matter. But whether we matter depends on the scale by which they measure us. Doesn’t the atom in all its mysteries reproduce the universe? We are made of the same clay as the rest of humanity. There is some bit of everything in all of us. The scenario may seem tiny. But what if it’s a life we are talking about? There’s no such thing as a tiny life! —César Andreu Iglesias’s Los derrotados (The Vanquished) In that people [Puerto Ricans] there is such a quantity of resistance to all servitude that, as the great philosopher might well say to those who sought to dominate him: “Nothing and nobody can make me a slave because my freedom lies in myself.” —Belén de Sárraga’s El clericalismo en América a través de un continente(Clericalism across the American continent) ...