History
Dr. Ramon Emeterio Betances began in 1858, with some friends, in the atrium of the church of Mayagüez, to free enslaved children at the baptismal font on Sundays, when they cost 25 pesos, because after being Christianized they were worth 50 pesos. In 1867 he was the driving force of the Grito de Lares, which brought great reforms to this Antillean island. He actively supported the independence of the Dominican Republic, represented it diplomatically, and was recognized as foremost in the legion of the Antillean union and as a hero of that ideal, the Antillean par excellence. In the struggle for Cuban independence and sovereignty, during bitter times of fighting in the jungles, he served as Cuba's official representative in the capital of France and was honored as a defender of the Antillean confederation. An enthusiastic abolitionist of Black slavery and a determined liberator from white colonial servitude, he was born in Cabo Rojo in April 1827 and died in Paris in September 1898.
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Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico · United States
