The Shadow of Barbosa: Reexamining Historical Memory of Early Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Shadow of Barbosa: Reexamining Historical Memory of Early Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico 1 2 Introduction Jose Celso Barbosa is important. In Puerto Rican history he is known as the father of Puerto Rican statehood, as a prócer,1 and the undisputed rival to Luis Muñoz Rivera, leader of what became known as autonomism and father to the first elected governor of Puerto Rico. I knew this going into my research on political history during Puerto Rico’s colonial transition, but as I immersed myself in the island’s history I was unable to build a strong image of Barbosa in my mind despite his many appearances in the literature. The key facts were there-that he was a leading figure, highly educated, of humble origins, and nearly universally respected, but I wasn’t seeing him nor hearing his voice. I was seeing his memory, his shadow. Despite the appearance of his name in books, histories and discussions of the time, he maintains a ghostly presence in popular and intellectual debates. I thus set out to historicize the place Barbosa occupies in Puerto Rican history, particularly his comparative marginalization vis-à-vis his rival Muñoz Rivera. During my research I worked in the collections at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. I drove there on many mornings on the Avenida Baldorioty de Castro to a bridge that took me to Rio Piedras and the connecting highway. After a few minutes on the highway, I exited to an off-ramp and reached a stop light that hasn’t worked since at least late 2017. While I waited for my opportunity to merge into the lane alongside the cars crawling into the bisecting avenue, I always glanced at the upside-down, spray painted street sign that labeled this avenue as Avenida Barbosa. As soon as I saw an opening, I pounced to veer into the lane and drive up the avenue until I could glimpse the university. Passing-down bookstores and midcentury architecture I reached the main entrance of the university, several blocks parallel to Avenida Barbosa. There I saw the old façade of the university and its clock tower, with gates opening to 1 Similar to a “Founding Father” or “National Hero.” 3 the Avenida Universidad perpendicular to Avenida Ponce de Leon running the length of the universities front. The University gates almost stared down the Avenida Universidad; past student dorms, bookstores and trendy restaurants to the prominent Highway 1, the Avenida Luis Muñoz Rivera that runs parallel to the Avenida Barbosa. Roads are important in that they represent the honored past and industrial progress for Puerto Rico.2 The naming and purpose of roads serves to physically demonstrate the construction of historical memory as both a national and cultural project. The Avenidas named after Barbosa and Muñoz Rivera speak to the perceived relationship between these men, as does their relative positioning. Avenida Muñoz Rivera was built first, and it leads into the main entrance of the university, extending past the main commercial areas and into Old San Juan where it intersects with Avenida Baldorioty de Castro.3 Running though the city’s commercial center, this Avenida symbolizes the preeminence of Muñoz Rivera as a liberal leader and his connection to capitalist progress. On the other hand, Avenida Barbosa is nestled between parking lots and partially maintained greenery before continuing to Barrio Obrero, a poorer working class neighborhood, speaking to his connection to the working class. The juxtaposition of these two roads demonstrates the position of Barbosa in Puerto Rican history, and its distinct politicization in the twentieth century. His memory went through various phases of politicization from his death in 1921 to the present. In the decades immediately following his death, he was recognized as a leader on par with his rival Munoz Rivera in public discourse and popular culture.4 However, as the 2 Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, La Memoria Rota (San Juan, P.R.: Huracán, 1996), 34. 3 Baldorioty de Castro is the undisputed liberal leader of the late Spanish period in Puerto Rico. He is responsible for the liberal coalition and the transition from pursuing assimilation as an equal province into Spain to Autonomy under Spanish governance. 4 Carmen Marrero, El pensamiento de José Celso Barbosa (Hato Rey, P.R.: Esmaco, 1976). 4 relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico became more established yet remained colonial, the focus of politics shifted towards discussing the “status question.” This political shift necessitated a reimagining of the Puerto Rican identity and the foundations of political legitimacy. The politicization of Barbosa’s memory grew particularly potent following battles over Puerto Rico’s political status in the 1960s. At this time the three modern parties and their respective status proposals; autonomism, statehood and independence, were beginning to take on their modern form. The status question came to be the central issue of the political realm and the most distinguishing feature between the three parties. The greatest sources of this politicization were the PPD5 autonomists and nationalist independence factions during the popular and academic nation building project following the 1952 constitution. As a result, Barbosa disappeared from the historiography: his politics did not fit the assumptions underpinning Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States, and the dominant beliefs on the fundamental nature and course of the Puerto Rican people at the time. In this thesis, I argue that Barbosa and his contemporaries have been silenced in the Puerto Rican historiography due to the political developments over the last century that turned to history as a means of legitimization. Following the political shift towards a focus on status, and given the political dominance of the PPD, who claimed the mantle of autonomism, Barbosa was a threat to the PPD elite’s legitimacy. Barbosa and his ideology undermined many of the assumptions of the PPD state, including their views on capitalist progress, political participation and national identity while providing an alternative definition for autonomism and liberalism. Here I seek to understand Barbosa’s political vision in the context of his time: a moment in which Puerto Rico was undergoing radical changes in their relationship with Spain via liberal 5 Partido Popular Democrático 5 victories, where labor was beginning to organize, and new ideas were entering the island from the US, Cuba and the Atlantic world. Most fundamentally, in the early twentieth century figures like Barbosa were engaged in an intense debate over Puerto Rico’s future that was not solely restricted to the status question. This represented a moment of possibility in which the question was not whether independence, “autonomy” or statehood were possible, but rather how to define those terms in relation to Puerto Rico’s possible futures. Jose Celso Barbosa offers a particularly revealing point of entry onto the many other questions that informed such debates, from workers’ rights to education and democratization. He seems to contradict so much of what often defines the moment, being pro-urban, black and an advocate for statehood as opposed to the narrative of steady progress to the modern Puerto Rico. He is proof of an alternative. Proof that this moment between annexation in 1898 and the late 1910s is not simply a moment of transition, linearly moving to the 1950s, but instead a moment of possibility in which Puerto Rico was faced with a wide array of possibilities and options, stemming from both local and Federal choices. Historiography and Nation Formation through Historical Memory In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain and acquired their remaining colonial possessions in Puerto Rico and the Pacific Ocean. This marked the end of Spanish rule on the island, and was embraced by many as a new opportunity for Puerto Rico to continue their liberal projects. They had only just gained autonomy under Spain in the months before the war, where they maintained representation in the Spanish legislature, but enjoyed control over trade and tariffs as well as local governance via their elected legislature. This was the culmination of over a decade’s worth of effort on the part of elite creole leadership to establish a more favorable local government. The transition in 1898 represented a divergence, but there was a clear continuity in 6 leadership and ideologies past 1898, as well as a faith that annexation into the United States could mark the end of colonialism on the island. These late nineteenth-century debates within Puerto Rico’s political class echo earlier conversations in other parts of post-colonial Latin America. Across the region, independence from Spain during the early nineteenth century tended to represent the victory of creole and liberal advocates against peninsulares6 and Spanish loyalists. From these struggles emerged the leaders and ideas that would serve as the backbone of post-independence political leadership with the collapse of Spanish hegemony.7 However, in Puerto Rico, there is no post- independence, no revolutionary armed struggle, and not even a clear anti-colonial victory. Instead, these leaders based their legitimacy on short lived political achievements under Spain and claims to representing true liberalism. Liberalism as an ideology and political movement has a certain obviousness to it. Liberals want to expand individual freedom, are forward looking, and stand in contrast to conservatives. Under Spain this liberal vs conservative dichotomy worked well and liberals, despite differences, sought to unify for common goals. However, in the decades following annexation, peninsulares and Spanish loyalists seemed to have evaporated from the historiography. Suddenly, every political leader was a liberal and the struggle for legitimacy was one to become the heir of liberalism in the new era. The most relevant parties of the time were led by liberal leaders Barbosa and Muñoz Rivera.8 This characterized the struggle until around 6 The class of citizens in the New World that were born in the Metropolis and migrated to the colonies.