Blanca Canales

It made it illegal to sing a patriotic song, and reinforced the 1898 law that had made it illegal to display the Flag of Puerto Rico, with anyone found guilty of disobeying the law in any way being subject to a sentence of up to ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to US$10,000, or both.

According to Leopoldo Figueroa, member of the Partido Estadista Puertorriqueño (Puerto Rican Statehood Party) and the only member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives who did not belong to the PPD, the law was repressive and in violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of Speech.

Blanca Canales (February 17, 1906 – July 25, 1996) was an educator and a Puerto Rican Nationalist.

In 1924, her father died and her mother moved to Ponce.

Canales graduated from Ponce High School and, in May 1930, earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Puerto Rico.

Before graduating, she attended a conference given by the President of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, Pedro Albizu Campos, and was impressed by the ideals of independence which he preached.

Canales returned to the university that same year, and took a course of study in social work.

Canales returned to Jayuya and worked at a local rural school.

After Canales joined the party, a series of increasingly hostile events between the U.S.-appointed government and the Nationalists took place in the 1930s.

Canales joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party in 1931 and helped organize the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

In 1931, she joined the Nationalist Party and was active in organizing the Daughters of Freedom, the women's branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

In 1936, Albizu Campos was arrested and on March 31, 1937 the infamous Ponce massacre took place.

During the 1940s, Canales' active political participation was limited to making monetary collections because her job kept her constantly traveling from San Juan to Ponce.

In 1947, Albizu Campos was released from jail.

On May 21, 1948, a bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and Nationalist movements on the archipelago.

The Senate, which at the time was controlled by the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and presided by Luis Muñoz Marín, approved the bill that day.

This bill, which resembled the anti-communist Smith Act passed in the United States in 1940, became known as the Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law, technically "Law 53 of 1948") when the U.S.-appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero, signed it into law on June 10, 1948.

Under this new law it became a crime to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material intended to paralyze or destroy the insular government; or to organize any society, group or assembly of people with a similar destructive intent.

On June 21, 1948, Albizu Campos gave a speech in the town of Manati, which explained how this Gag Law violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Nationalists from all over the island attended – to hear Campos's speech, and to prevent the police from arresting him.

As a leader of the Nationalist party in Jayuya, she stored arms in her house, which were used in a revolt in 1950 against United States rule over the island.

During the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s she led members in the Jayuya Uprising, in which Nationalists took control of the town for three days.

Canales was born in Jayuya, Puerto Rico, as Blanca Canales Torresola.

She was the younger sister of writer and politician Nemesio Canales.

Her family was politically active and her father was part of the "Partido Unión de Puerto Rico" (Union Party of Puerto Rico).

It lobbied for the independence of the island.

Her mother was a strong-willed woman who encouraged her children to think for themselves.

As a child, Canales read many books and stories about other nations and their heroes.

She often accompanied her father to political meetings, where she enjoyed the speeches, flag-waving, and patriotic fervor.

Canales finished her primary and secondary education in Jayuya.

On October 26, 1950, Albizu Campos held a political meeting in Fajardo.

After the meeting Albizu Campos received word that he was going to be arrested and that his house in San Juan was surrounded by the police.

He escaped from Fajardo and ordered the revolution to start.

On October 27, the police in the town of Peñuelas, intercepted and fired upon a caravan of nationalists, killing four.

On October 30, the nationalists were ordered to stage uprisings in the towns of Ponce, Mayagüez, Naranjito, Arecibo, Utuado, San Juan and Jayuya.

The first battle of the Nationalist uprisings occurred in the pre-dawn hours of October 29, in the barrio Macaná in the town of Peñuelas.

The police surrounded the house of the mother of Melitón Muñiz the president of the Peñuelas Nationalist Party, under the pretext that he was storing weapons for the Nationalist Revolt.

Without warning, the police fired upon the nationalists and a firefight between both factions ensued, which resulted with the death of two nationalists and six police officers wounded.

On October 30, 1950, the Nationalist leaders in Jayuya – including Canales, her cousin Elio Torresola (Griselio Torresola's brother) and Carlos Irizarry – entered the town of Jayuya with a group of nationalists in a bus and a car.

Canales led the group to her house in Barrio Coabey, a neighborhood of Jayuya, where she had been stockpiling arms and ammunition.