Juan Antonio Corretjer

His father and uncles were involved in the "Ciales Uprising" of August 13, 1898, against the United States occupation.

As a lad, he would often accompany his father and uncles to political rallies.

He received his primary and secondary education in his hometown.

It made it illegal to display a Puerto Rican flag, 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, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, the law was repressive and was in violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution which guarantees Freedom of Speech.

He pointed out that the law as such was a violation of the civil rights of the people of Puerto Rico.

Juan Antonio Corretjer Montes (March 3, 1908 – January 19, 1985) was a Puerto Rican poet, journalist and pro-independence political activist opposing United States rule in Puerto Rico.

Corretjer (birth name: Juan Antonio Corretjer Montes ) was born in Ciales, Puerto Rico, into a politically active pro-independence family.

His parents were Diego Corretjer Hernández and María Brígida Montes González.

In 1920, when he was only 12 years old, Corretjer wrote his first poem "Canto a Ciales" (I sing to Ciales).

In 1924, Corretjer published his first booklet of poems.

Corretjer joined the "Literary Society of José Gautier Benítez", which later would be renamed the "Nationalist Youth", while he was still in elementary school.

When he was in 8th grade, he organized a student protest against the United States in his town.

He was expelled from his local high school for organizing a strike to have it renamed for José de Diego.

Corretjer was then sent to school in the town of Vega Baja.

In 1927, he moved to San Juan and worked as a journalist for the newspaper "La Democracia".

He later moved to the city of Ponce where he published his first two books of poetry: "Agüeybaná" (1932) and "Ulises" (1933).

Throughout his life, he wrote for various newspapers and publications in Puerto Rico, Cuba and the United States.

In 1935, Corretjer travelled to Cuba and joined an anti-Batista group whose aim was to overthrow the U.S.-backed Cuban dictator.

He also traveled to Haiti and to the Dominican Republic looking for international support for Puerto Rico's independence movement.

In 1935, four Nationalists were killed by the police under the command of Colonel E. Francis Riggs.

The incident became known as the Río Piedras massacre.

The following year in 1936, two members of the Cadets of the Republic, the Nationalist youth organization, Hiram Rosado and Elías Beauchamp assassinated Colonel Riggs.

They were arrested and executed, without a trial, at police headquarters in San Juan.

In 1936, Corretjer met and became friends with the nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.

He was named Secretary General of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

On April 3, 1936, a Federal Grand Jury submitted accusations against Pedro Albizu Campos, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Luis F. Velázquez, Clemente Soto Vélez and the following members of the Cadets of the Republic: Erasmo Velázquez, Julio H. Velázquez, Rafael Ortiz Pacheco, Juan Gallardo Santiago, and Pablo Rosado Ortiz.

They were charged with sedition and other violations of Title 18 of the United States Code.

Title 18 of the United States Code is the criminal and penal code of the federal government of the United States.

It deals with federal crimes and criminal procedure.

As evidence, the prosecution referred to the creation, organization and the activities of the cadets, which the government made reference to as the "Liberating Army of Puerto Rico".

The government prosecutors stated that the military tactics which the cadets were taught was for the sole purpose of overthrowing the Government of the U.S. A jury composed of seven Puerto Ricans and five Americans ended with a hung jury.

Judge Robert A. Cooper called for a new jury, this time composed of ten Americans and two Puerto Ricans, and a guilty verdict was reached.

Corretjer was sent to the infamous La Princesa prison for one year in 1937, because he refused to hand over to the American authorities the Book of Acts of the Nationalists Party, as result of his political beliefs.

In 1937 a group of lawyers, including a young Gilberto Concepción de Gracia, tried in vain to defend the Nationalists, but the Boston Court of Appeals, which held appellate jurisdiction over federal matters in Puerto Rico, upheld the verdict.

Albizu Campos and the other Nationalist leaders were sent to the Federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia.

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, 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) 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 would be 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.