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

241 Pages·2013·1.1 MB·English

by  Kirwin R. Shaffer

Black Flag
B O R I C U A S
Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and the Left in Puerto Rico, 1897-1921
Kirwin R. Shaffer
Black Flag Boricuas

Black Flag
Boricuas
Anarchism,
Antiauthoritarianism,
and the Left in
Puerto Rico,
1897–1921
Kirwin R. Shaffer
University of Illinois Press
Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield
© 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 quan-
tity 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)

Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations and Style Notes xiii
Prologue xv
Introduction: Cultural Politics and
Transnational Anarchism in Puerto Rico 1
1. The Roots of Anarchism and Radical Labor Politics
in Puerto Rico, 1870s-1899 23
2. Radicals and Reformers: Anarchists, Electoral Politics,
and the Unions, 1900–1910 46
3. Anarchist Alliances, Government Repression:
Education, Freethinkers, and CESs, 1909–1912 76
4. Anarchists, Freethinkers, and Spiritists: The Progressive
Alliance against the Catholic Church, 1909–1912 92
5. Radicalism Imagined: Leftist Culture, Gender,
and Revolutionary Violence, 1900–1920 106
6. Politics of the Bayamón Bloc and the Partido Socialista:
Anarchism and Socialism in the 1910s 123
7. El Comunista: Radical Journalism and Transnational
Anarchism, 1920–1921 141