Blanca Canales

Liberation

1906–1996

Nationalist leader who led the Jayuya Uprising (1950), declared the Republic of Puerto Rico

Blanca Canales was a Puerto Rican educator, social worker, and Nationalist Party leader who led the Jayuya Uprising of October 30, 1950. On that day, she led a group of Nationalists into the town square of Jayuya, raised the Puerto Rican flag in defiance of the Gag Law, and declared Puerto Rico a free republic. She was sentenced to life in prison plus sixty years, serving seventeen years before receiving a pardon in 1967.

Related Events

1950 Nationalist Insurrection of 1950

1950 Jayuya Uprising and the Republic of Puerto Rico (1950)

1950 Assassination Attempt on President Truman at Blair House

1950 The Suppression of the Nationalist Movement: State Terror in the 1950s