Hugo Margenat

Hugo Margenat
Noted poet and founder of the "Federación de Universitarios Pro Independencia" (FUPI)
Born	October 10, 1933 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Died	April 7, 1957 San Juan, Puerto Rico
Political party	Puerto Rican Nationalist Party
Movement	Puerto Rican Independence

Hugo Margenat (October 10, 1933 – April 7, 1957), was a Puerto Rican poet and Puerto Rican Independence advocate. His art was committed to serving a militant nationalistic agenda. He was the founder of the political youth pro-independence organizations "Acción Juventud Independentista" (Pro-independence Youth Action) and the "Federación de Universitarios Pro Independencia" (University Pro-Independence Federation of Puerto Rico).

Margenat lived during an era in Puerto Rico which was full of political turmoil. The island, which Spain ceded to the United States after the Spanish–American War was governed by an American appointed governor in accordance to the Treaty of Paris of 1898. Puerto Ricans were denied the right to elect a Puerto Rican governor until 1949, when Luis Muñoz Marín became the first Puerto Rican to be elected into said position.

Various events took place in Puerto Rico during the 1930s thru the 1950s, involving the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and the local government which influenced Margenat's political views and his way of thinking. The Río Piedras massacre on October 24, 1935, a confrontation with police at University of Puerto Rico campus in Río Piedras, in which 4 Nationalist partisans and one policeman were killed. On February 23, 1936, two Nationalists named Hiram Rosado and Elías Beauchamp, were arrested, transported to police headquarters, and executed within hours without trial for the murder of U.S. appointed Police Chief Francis Riggs. No policeman was ever tried or indicted for their deaths. On March 21, 1937, a peaceful march organized in the southern city of Ponce by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party turned into a bloody event when the Insular Police ("a force somewhat resembling the National Guard of the typical U.S. state" and which answered to the U.S.-appointed governor Blanton Winship) opened fire upon what a U.S. Congressman and others reported were unarmed and defenseless cadets and bystanders alike killing 19 and badly wounding over 200 more, many in their backs while running away. An ACLU report declared it a massacre and it has since been known as the Ponce massacre. The march had been organized to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to protest the incarceration by the U.S. government of nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos. Soon thereafter, the leadership of the Nationalist party, including Pedro Albizu Campos, were arrested and incarcerated for conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.