Río Piedras massacre
| 1935 Río Piedras massacre | |
|---|---|
| Location | Río Piedras, Puerto Rico |
| Coordinates | 18°23′59″N 66°03′00″W / 18.39972°N 66.05000°W |
| Date | October 24, 1935 |
| Target | Supporters of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party |
|
Attack type
|
School shooting, mass murder, Massacre |
| Deaths | 4 (all members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party) |
The Río Piedras massacre occurred on October 24, 1935, at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. Local police officers confronted and opened fire on supporters of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Four Nationalist Party members were killed, and one police officer was wounded during the shooting. As a result of this repression, in December 1935, Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Nationalist Party, announced that it would withdraw from electoral politics while the United States controlled the island.
In 1931, the U.S.-appointed Governor of Puerto Rico, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. named Dr. Carlos E. Chardón as Chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico. He was the first Puerto Rican to have this position. In 1935, Chardón initiated a project based on the ideas of Luis Muñoz Marín, who at the time was a Senator in the Puerto Rican legislature and member of the Liberal Party of Puerto Rico. It was known as the Reconstruction of Puerto Rico Project. The plan, which was within the New Deal criteria established by U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression, was well received and became known as Plan Chardón.
Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, knew that Roosevelt had been implicated as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in helping Secretary Albert Fall of the Department of Interior to arrange for private leasing of Navy oil fields, in what became known as the Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s. Albizu Campos worried that Plan Chardón would strip Puerto Rico of her natural resources. He believed that Chardón had been placed in charge of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) in order to "Americanize" the university with the support of the Liberal Party. On October 20, 1935, in a political meeting which the Nationalist Party held in the town of Maunabo and which was transmitted by radio, Albizu Campos denounced Chardón, the university deans and the Liberal Party as traitors, saying they wanted to convert the university into an "American" propaganda institution.
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