Ramón Emeterio Betances

Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán (April 8, 1827 – September 16, 1898) was a Puerto Rican independence advocate and medical doctor. He was the primary instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution and is considered to be the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Since the ''Grito'' galvanized a burgeoning nationalist movement among Puerto Ricans, Betances is also considered ''"El Padre de la Patria"'' (Father of the uerto RicanNation). Because of his charitable deeds for people in need, he also became known as ''"El Padre de los Pobres"'' ("The Father of the Poor").

Betances was also a medical doctor and surgeon in Puerto Rico, and one of its first social hygienists. He had established a successful surgery and ophthalmology practice. Betances was also an abolitionist, diplomat, public health administrator, poet, and novelist. He served as representative and contact for Cuba and the Dominican Republic in Paris, France.

An adherent of Freemasonry, his political and social activism was deeply influenced by the group's philosophical beliefs.

Early years

Ancestry

Betances was born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, in the building that now houses the ''"Logia Cuna de Betances"'' (''"Betances' Cradle Masonic Lodge"''). Betances' parents were Felipe Betanzos Ponce, a merchant born in Hispaniola (in the part that would later become the Dominican Republic; the surname Betanzos transformed into Betances while the family resided there), and María del Carmen Alacán de Montalvo, a native of Cabo Rojo and of French ancestry. They were married in 1812.

Betances claimed in his lifetime that a relative of his, Pedro Betances, had revolted against the Spanish government of Hispaniola in 1808 and was tortured, executed, and his body burned and shown to the populace to dissuade them from further attempts.Dávila del Valle. Oscar G.
Presencia del ideario masónico en el proyecto revolucionario antillano de Ramón Emeterio Betances
/ref> Meanwhile, Alacán's father, a sailor, led a party of volunteers that tried to apprehend the pirate Roberto Cofresí y Ramírez de Arellano in 1824 and did arrest some of Cofresí's crew, for which he was honored by the Spanish government.

Betances was the fourth of six children; the oldest of which would die shortly after birth; Betances was the only male among the surviving siblings. The family was described as being of mixed race in records of the day. His mother died in 1837, when he was nine years old, and his father remarried in 1839; the five children he had with María del Carmen Torres Pagán included Ramón's half-brother Felipe Adolfo, who was not involved in politics (according to Ramón) but was nevertheless arrested following the Grito de Lares years later.

His father eventually bought the Hacienda Carmen in what would later become the nearby town of Hormigueros, and became a wealthy landowner. He owned of land, a small sugar mill, and some slaves, who shared their duties with free workers. There is speculation that he later freed his slaves, persuaded by his son Ramón.

First years in France

Primary education

The young Betances received his primary education from private tutors contracted by his father, a Freemason who owned the largest private library in town. His parents' attitude towards religion and civil authority shaped his personal beliefs in both subjects. His father would eventually send him to France, to study at the then-named ''"Collège Royal"'' (later named the Lycée Pierre-de-Fermat) in Toulouse when he was ten years old. A Franco-Puerto Rican family, Jacques Maurice Prévost and María Cavalliery Bey (who also was a native of Cabo Rojo) were appointed as his tutors. Prévost opened a drug store in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, but was forced to return to France (particularly to his native town, Grisolles) for not having finished his pharmacy studies. There is also speculation that Prévost was a Freemason, as was Betances' father.

Betances accompanied the couple in Prévost's return to his country, and would be under their indirect tutelage while boarding at the school. He showed interest in natural and exact sciences early on, and also became a good fencer.

Legal "whitening" of family

While Ramón was in France, his father sought to move the family's registration from the "mixed race" to the "white" (Caucasian) classification of families in Cabo Rojo. The process, when successful, entitled the requester to further legal and property rights for him and his family, and was necessary to allow his daughter, Ana María, to marry José Tió, who was a Caucasian. In the case of Betances' father, the process lasted two years, and was formalized in 1840, but not before having to have the family's lineage and religious affiliations exposed to the general public, something that embarrassed them all. Betances was considerably annoyed by the entire ordeal, since he was the first to acknowledge that he and his entire family were not ''"blancuzcos"'' ("whitish", a legal term) but ''"prietuzcos"'' ("blackish", as Betances mocked it in his letters) instead. To him the procedure reeked of hypocrisy.

Medicine studies

In 1846, Betances obtained his ''baccalauréat'' (high school diploma). After an extended vacation in Puerto Rico, he went on to study medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Paris from 1848 until 1855, with a short interlude at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier for specific courses in the summer of 1852.

At the time of his arrival in Paris, Betances witnessed the aftermath of the 1848 Revolution and its backlash, the June Days Uprising, earlier that year. His future political views were directly shaped by what he saw and experienced at the time. He himself ''"an old soldier of the French Republic"''. Inspired by the proclamation of the 2 République, he rejected Puerto Rican aspirations for autonomy (sought from Spain by Puerto Rican politicians since 1810) in favor of Puerto Rican independence.Ojeda Reyes, Félix (as told to Collado Schwarz, Ángel)
Ramón Emeterio Betances: Padre de la Patria, Médico de los Pobres, Poeta, Diplomático de Puerto Rico y Cuba en Francia.
/ref>

In 1856, he graduated with the titles of Doctor in Medicine and Surgeon. He was the second Puerto Rican to graduate from the University (after Pedro Gerónimo Goyco, a later political leader native of Mayagüez who would eventually interact with Betances when both returned to Puerto Rico). Among Betances' teachers were: Charles-Adolphe Wurtz, Jean Cruveilhier, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud, Armand Trousseau, Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau and Auguste Nélaton.

Father's death and family's economic problems

While Betances was studying medicine in France, his father died (in August 1854) and his sister Ana María would be forced to take over the Hacienda Carmen's management. By 1857 the heirs were forced to give the operation's output to a holding company headed by Guillermo Schröeder.

First return to Puerto Rico

Cholera epidemic of 1856

Betances returned to Puerto Rico in April 1856. At the time, a cholera epidemic was spreading across the island. The epidemic made its way to Puerto Rico's western coast in July 1856, and hit the city of Mayagüez particularly hard. At the time, Betances was one of five doctors that would have to take care of 24,000 residents. Both he and Dr. José Francisco Basora (who became lifelong friends and colleagues from that point on) would alert the city government and press the city managers into taking preventive action.

An emergency subscription fund was established by some of the city's wealthiest citizens. Betances and Basora had the city's unsanitary slave barracks torched and a temporary camp set up for its dwellers. A large field at a corner of the city was set aside for a supplementary cemetery, and Betances set and managed a temporary hospital next to it (which was later housed in a permanent structure and became the ''Hospital San Antonio'', the Mayagüez municipal hospital, which still serves the city). However, the epidemic struck the city soon after; Betances' stepmother and one of his brothers-in-law would die from it. By October 1856 Betances would have to take care of the entire operation on his own temporarily.

At the time, he had his first confrontation with Spanish authorities, since Betances gave last priority of medical treatment to those Spanish-born military rank and officers who were affected by the disease (they demanded preferential and immediate treatment, and he openly despised them for it). For his hard work to save many Puerto Ricans from the ravages of the cholera epidemic of 1856, Betances was commended by the city's government. However, when the central government established a Chief Surgeon post for the city, Betances (who was the acting chief surgeon) was passed over, in favor of a Spanish newcomer.

Basora and Betances were eventually honored with streets named after each in the city of Mayagüez. The main thoroughfare that crosses the city from north to south is named after Betances; a street that links the center of the city with the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez is named after Dr. Basora.

Exile from and return to Puerto Rico

Abolitionist

Betances believed in the abolition of slavery, inspired not only on written works by Victor Schœlcher, John Brown, Lamartine and Tapia, but also on personal experience, based on what he saw at his father's farm and in daily Puerto Rican life. Based on his beliefs, he founded a civic organization in 1856, one of many others that were later called the ''Secret Abolitionist Societies'' by historians. Little is known about them due to their clandestine nature, but Betances and Salvador Brau (a close friend who later became the official Historian of Puerto Rico) describe them in their writings. Some of these societies sought the freedom and free passage of maroons from Puerto Rico to countries where slavery had been abolished already; other societies sought to liberate as many slaves as possible by buying out their freedom.

The objective of the particular society Betances founded was to free children who were slaves, taking advantage of their need to receive the sacrament of Baptism at the town church, ''Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria'', which is now the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mayagüez. Since buying the freedom of slave children cost 50 ''pesos'' if the child had been baptized, and 25 ''pesos'' if the child had not, Betances, Basora, Segundo Ruiz Belvis and other members of the society waited next to the baptismal font on Sundays, expecting a master to take a slave family to baptize their child. Before the child was baptized, Betances or his partners gave money to the parents, which they in turn used to buy the child's freedom from his master. The child, once freed, was baptized minutes after. This action was later described as having the child receive the ''"aguas de libertad"'' (waters of liberty). Similar events occurred in the city of Ponce.

The baptismal font where these baptisms were performed still exists, and is owned by a local family of merchants, the Del Moral family, who keep it at their Mayagüez house.

As of 2007 the baptismal font has been donated to the Mayagüez Cathedral, Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, by Doña Elda Del Moral. It had been in conservation from 1963 until donated.

''La vièrge de Boriquén'' (The ''Boriquén'' Virgin)

The Spanish governor of Puerto Rico, Fernando Cotoner, threatened Betances with exile in 1858 because of his abolitionist tactics. Betances took a leave of absence from his duties as director of the local hospital and again left Puerto Rico for France, followed by Basora. Soon, his half-sister Clara and her husband, Justine Hénri, would also leave for Paris with his niece, María del Carmen Hénri.

María del Carmen, nicknamed ''Lita'', was born in 1838. She had met Betances when she was 10, and Betances became instantly fond of her. Once he returned to Puerto Rico from his medical studies he requested the necessary ecclesiastical permissions to marry her (due to the degree of consanguinity between them), which were granted in Rome (then part of the Papal States) after an extended delay. Their marriage was supposed to occur on May 5, 1859, in Paris, but Lita fell sick with typhus and died at the Mennecy house of Dr. Pierre Lamire, a friend from Betances' medical school days, on April 22, 1859 (the Good Friday of that year).

Betances was psychologically devastated by Lita's death. Accompanied by his sister, brother-in-law, local friends and a few Puerto Rican friends residing in Paris at the time (which included Basora, Francisco Oller and another Cabo Rojo native, future political leader Salvador Carbonell), Betances had Lita buried on April 25. Her body was later reburied in Mayagüez, on November 13 of that year. Salvador Brau, a historian and close friend, later wrote that once Betances returned to Puerto Rico with Lita's body, he suspended all personal activities besides his medical work, spent a considerable amount of time caring for her tomb at the Mayagüez cemetery, and assumed the physical aspect that most people identify Betances with: dark suit, long unkempt beard, and "Quaker" hat.

Betances immersed himself in work, but later found time to write a short story in French, ''La Vièrge de Boriquén'' (The Boriquén Virgin), inspired in his love for Lita and her later death, and somewhat influenced by Edgar Allan Poe's writing style. Cayetano Coll y Toste later described the story of Lita and Betances in the story La Novia de Betances,

Return to Mayagüez and second exile

Doctor and surgeon

After returning to Puerto Rico in 1859, Betances established a very successful surgery and ophthalmology practice in Mayagüez. Even fierce political enemies such as Spanish pro-monarchy journalist José Pérez Morís regarded Betances as the best surgeon in Puerto Rico at the time. His good reputation in Puerto Rico would survive his stay in the island nation for many years. In 1895, while Betances was living in Paris, the manufacturers of the ''Emulsión de Scott'' (a codfish liver oil product that is still sold today, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline in modern times), paid an endorsement fee to Betances to have him appear on advertisements on Spanish language magazines and newspapers all over New York City and the Caribbean, based on his solid reputation as a doctor.

Betances introduced new surgical and aseptic procedures to Puerto Rico. With the assistance of Venezuelan anesthesiologist Pedro Arroyo, Betances performed the first ever surgical procedure under chloroform in Puerto Rico, in November 1862.

At the same time he spent a considerable amount of time serving Mayagüez's disadvantaged on a pro bono basis. He gave many donations to the poor, and because of this he became known as "The Father of the Poor" among "''Mayagüezanos''" according to his contemporary, Eugenio María de Hostos.

Exile in the Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic had its second war for independence in 1844, which was successful in obtaining independence from Haiti. Spain reannexed the country at the request of its then-dictator, Gen. Pedro Santana (who attempted to benefit personally from the event), in 1861. A third revolt, the '' War of Restoration'', sought independence from the Spanish in 1863. Its leaders used Haiti as a guerrilla base, since the Haitian government feared a Spanish takeover and the restoration of slavery in the occupied territories, and was thus sympathetic to their cause. Their stronghold, however, was the Cibao valley in the northeastern part of Hispaniola.

At the same time, the Spanish government, which ruled over Puerto Rico, attempted to banish Betances for a second time, but he and Segundo Ruiz Belvis (a lawyer and city administrator who became his closest friend and political companion) fled the island before they were apprehended. Both fled to the northern city of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic in 1861, where Betances established a close personal friendship with Gen. Gregorio Luperón, the military leader of the northern pro-independence faction who led the efforts to restore Dominican sovereignty over their country. Betances was also a collaborator of Dominican priest (and later Archbishop of Santo Domingo and one-time president of the country), Fernando Arturo de Meriño, who was the revolt's ideological leader (as well as its delegate in Puerto Rico when he was himself exiled by the restored republican government). These two friendships would prove to be key to Betances' own efforts to achieve Puerto Rican independence later on.

The volatility of the Dominican situation was severe at the time: Luperón fought a guerrilla war against the Spanish and Santana and became vice-president of the country (in 1863), only to be exiled to Saint Thomas because of his opposition to president Buenaventura Báez' wishes to annex the country to the United States (in 1864), to later return, provoke a coup d'état and be part of a three-way presidency (1866), only to be exiled once again (1868).Moscoso, Francisco
Betances, El Grito y St. Thomas
Whenever Luperón was in the Dominican Republic, Betances could use it as a base of operations for his later political and military objectives, while offering Luperón logistical and financial assistance in return.

Since Betances' exile depended on who was governing Puerto Rico at the time, a change in government allowed him to return to Mayagüez in 1862. However, a few years later, (1868) Luperón and Betances would both end up exiled in Saint Thomas.

Second return to Mayagüez

After returning to Puerto Rico, Betances and Ruiz proposed the establishment of a municipal hospital to take care of the city's poor. The hospital, named ''Hospital San Antonio'', opened on January 18, 1865, with subscription funds and an assignment from the Spanish local government. The ''Hospital San Antonio'' is now an obstetrics and pediatrics hospital in the city.

Ruiz was a Freemason who invited Betances to join his lodge, the ''Logia Unión Germana'' in nearby San Germán. They both founded (or revived, depending on the source) the ''Logia Yagüez'', so as to have a local lodge in Mayagüez. Based on his Masonic beliefs, Ruiz also attempted to establish a university in the city, for which he mortgaged his house. However, the Spanish government actively discouraged the founding of secondary education institutions in Puerto Rico (so as not to have "seedlings for revolt" come out of them), and the project was canceled.

Simplicia Jiménez

Betances met his lifelong companion, Simplicia Isolina Jiménez Carlo, in 1864. Jiménez apparently was born in what would later become the Dominican Republic, on July 28, 1842. Her mother's last name, Carlo, rather common in Cabo Rojo, implies that her family had ties to the town. She worked for one of Betances' sisters between 1863 and 1864, and he met her once at his sister's house. Apparently she was infatuated with him strongly enough to appear at his door with a pair of suitcases, asking him to give her shelter, since "no gentleman would leave a woman alone on the street at night." Jiménez then became Betances' common-law wife for thirty-five years, and survived his death in 1898. They would not have any children. Their godchild, Magdalena Caraguel, was eventually adopted by the couple as their daughter. Little else is documented about Jiménez in history books, and Betances rarely mentions her in his works and correspondence.

While still living in Mayagüez, Betances built a house for himself and his wife, which they only lived in for less than two years; the house, named the ''Casa de los Cinco Arcos'' (House of the Five Arches), still stands on the street that bears his name near the corner with Luis Muñoz Rivera street, south of the city's center.

''"Padre de la Patria"'' (Father of the Puerto Rican Nation)

Seeds for revolt in Puerto Rico

The Spanish government was involved in several conflicts across Latin America: war with the Dominican Republic, Peru and Chile (see below), slave revolts in Cuba, a bad economic situation in its colonies, among others. It attempted to appease the growing discontent of the citizens of its remaining colonies in the continent by setting up a board of review that would receive complaints from representatives of the colonies and attempt to adjust legislation that affected them. This board, the ''"Junta Informativa de Reformas de Ultramar"'' (Overseas Informative Reform Board) would be formed by representatives of each colony, in proportion to their collective population, and would meet in Madrid. The Junta would report to the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Emilio Castelar.

The Puerto Rican delegation was freely elected by those eligible to vote (male Caucasian property owners), in a rare exercise of political openness in the colony. Segundo Ruiz Belvis was elected to the Junta representing Mayagüez, something that horrified the then governor general of the island. To the frustration of the Puerto Rican delegates, including its leader, José Julián Acosta, the Junta had a majority of Spanish-born delegates, which would vote down almost every measure they suggested. However, Acosta could convince the Junta that abolition could be achieved in Puerto Rico without disrupting the local economy (including its Cuban members, who frowned upon implementing it in Cuba because of its much higher numbers of slave labor). Once he became prime minister in 1870, Castelar did approve an abolition bill, praising the efforts of the Puerto Rico members, sincerely moved by Acosta's arguments.

However, beyond abolition, proposals for autonomy were voted down, as were other petitions to limit the unlimited power the governor general would have upon virtually all aspects of life in Puerto Rico. Once the Junta members returned to Puerto Rico, they met with local community leaders in a famed meeting at the Hacienda El Cacao in Carolina, Puerto Rico in early 1865. Betances was invited by Ruiz and did attend. After listening to the Junta members' list of voted-down measures, Betances stood up and retorted: ''" Nadie puede dar lo que no tiene"'' (No one can give others what they don't have for themselves), a phrase that he would constantly use through the rest of his life when referring to Spain's unwillingness to grant Puerto Rico or Cuba any reforms. He would then suggest setting up a revolt and proclaim independence as soon as possible. Many of the meeting's attendants sided with Betances, to the horror of Acosta.

Organizer of the Grito de Lares

In late June 1867 Betances and at least 12 more potential "revolutionaries" were exiled from Puerto Rico by then governor Gen. José María Marchessi y Oleaga as a preventive measure, including Goyco and Ruiz. A battalion of local soldiers had revolted in San Juan earlier, protesting about their poor pay, compared to that of their Spanish counterparts living in Puerto Rico. Betances later stated that the revolt (called the ''"Motín de Artilleros"'' by historians) was unrelated to his revolutionary plans, and that he actually did not mind the troops stationed in Puerto Rico that much, since they would have been ill-prepared for stopping a well-developed pro-independence revolt at the time anyway. Marchesi feared that the United States, which had made an offer to purchase what were then the Danish Virgin Islands, would rather instigate a revolt in Puerto Rico so as to later annex the island—which would make a better military base in the Caribbean—at a lesser economic cost. His fears were not without base, since the then American consul in the island, Alexander Jourdan, suggested precisely this to then Secretary of State William H. Seward, but only after the expulsions (September 1867).

Some of the expelled (such as Carlos Elías Lacroix and José Celis Aguilera) set up camp in Saint Thomas. Betances and Ruiz, on the other hand, left for New York—where Basora had previously gone—soon after. They soon founded the ''" Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico"'', along with other Puerto Ricans living in the city. After signing a letter that could serve as proof of his intentions of becoming a United States citizen (mainly to prevent his arrest elsewhere) Betances then returned to the Dominican Republic in September 1867, where he attempted to organize an armed expedition that was to invade Puerto Rico. However, under threat of arrest by Buenaventura Báez—who saw Betances as siding with his enemies and wanted him executed—Betances took asylum at the United States embassy in Santo Domingo, and headed for Charlotte Amalie soon after.

The Ten Commandments of Free Men

Betances was responsible for numerous proclamations that attempted to arouse Puerto Rican nationalistic sentiment, written between 1861 and his death. The most famous of these i
''"Los Diez Mandamientos de los hombres libres"''
(The Ten Commandments of Free Men), written in exile in Saint Thomas in November 1867. It is directly based on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted by France's National Assembly in 1789, which contained the principles that inspired the French Revolution.

The ''Grito'' and its aftermath

Meanwhile, Ruiz Belvis, who headed the Committee, was supposed to gather financial support for the incoming Puerto Rican revolution through a tour of South America. He had received an invitation from Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, a Chilean diplomat, to coordinate a common front against Spanish interests in all of Latin America (Spain was still threatening Chile after the Chincha Islands War, and any revolution in the Caribbean would have been a welcome distraction). Vicuña promised to gather necessary support in Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela to help the Puerto Rican independence cause.

However, Ruiz died in Valparaíso, Chile soon after his arrival in the country. He reportedly had uremia and a urethral obstruction, both of which deteriorated into Fournier gangrene, which killed him soon after. Later speculation that Ruiz had been poisoned or killed has been countered by three facts: that Ruiz's brother, Mariano Ruiz Quiñones (who was the coordinator of the revolution in Curaçao), died of the same condition soon after (suggesting a genetic predisposition to it), that Betances had used a catheter on Ruiz before he left Saint Thomas to bring him some relief from his condition, and that Betances published a medical article in France twenty years later, in 1887, that discussed the condition, out of what he had described as many years of second-guessing what could have been done to save Ruiz's life.

Betances was shaken psychologically by news of Ruiz's death, and also literally soon after: he and his wife also experienced an earthquake and tsunami on November 18, 1867, while in Saint Thomas. According to a letter he wrote, he and his wife vacated the building just before it collapsed, and were forced to live in a camp while aftershocks kept shaking the island for close to a month.Ojeda Reyes, Félix and Estrade, Paul, ''El Anciano Maravilloso'', TBR

Gregorio Luperón met Betances in Saint Thomas, and offered to assist the Puerto Rican revolution, in exchange for help to overthrow Báez once the right circumstances were met. As a consequence, Betances organized revolutionary cells in Puerto Rico from exile, which would be led by leaders such as Manuel Rojas and Mathias Brugman. Betances instructed Mariana Bracetti to knit a flag for the revolution using the colors and basic design similar to that of the Dominican Republic (which in turn was almost identical to a French military standard). Betances was also supposed to send reinforcements to the Puerto Rican rebels through the use of a ship purchased by Puerto Rican and Dominican revolutionaries, ''"El Telégrafo"'' (which was to be shared by both), but the ship was confiscated soon after arrival by the government of the then Danish (later United States) Virgin Islands.

Eventually all these factors led the way to the abortive insurrection known as the "''Grito de Lares''", whose date had to be brought forward to September 23, 1868. The ''Grito'' found Betances between Curaçao and Saint Thomas, struggling to send reinforcements in time for the revolt.

After the failed insurrection, Betances did not return to Puerto Rico, except for "secret" visits, according to the obituary written about him by the '' New York Herald'' after his death. There is no evidence of these, although Betances suggests a visit did occur at some time between 1867 and 1869, and perhaps again in the 1880s.

In New York

Betances fled to New York City in April 1869, where he again joined Basora in his efforts to organize Puerto Rican revolutionaries into additional activities leading to independence. He joined the Cuban Revolutionary Junta, whose members were more successful at their drive for armed revolution for Cuba, which had started with the ''"Grito de Yara"'', just two weeks after the Grito de Lares. He also lobbied the United States Congress successfully against an annexation of the Dominican Republic by the United States, requested in a vote by a majority of voters in a referendum in 1869. He also befriended Venezuelan military leader and former president José Antonio Páez in his final days. Betances stayed in New York from April 1869 through February 1870.

In Hispaniola

Somewhat disillusioned by his experience in New York City (he had philosophical differences with some leaders of the Antillean liberation movements, particularly with Eugenio María de Hostos), Betances spent a short interlude in Jacmel, Haiti in 1870 at the request of its then-president, Jean Nissage-Saget, who supported Betances' efforts to have a liberal government for the Dominican Republic take power. He later spent some time in the Cibao valley (in both Santiago de los Caballeros and Puerto Plata) where Luperón and Betances attempted to organize another revolt, this time against conservative elements in the Dominican Republic.

While in New York, Betances wrote and translated numerous political treatises, proclamations and works that were published in the newspaper ''"La Revolución"'', under the pseudonym "El Antillano" (The Antillean One). He was vehement about the need for natives of the Greater Antilles to unite into an Antillean Confederation, a regional entity that would seek to preserve the sovereignty and well-being of Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Betances also promoted direct intervention of Puerto Ricans in the Cuban independence struggle, which eventually happened in the Cuban War of Independence (1895–98). Spain had promoted political reform in Puerto Rico, and the local political climate was not conducive to a second revolution at the time. Therefore, Betances and the Puerto Rican revolutionaries ceded their caches of firearms hidden in Saint Thomas, Curaçao and Haiti to the Cuban rebels in October 1871, since their struggle was deemed as a priority.

Betances admired the United States of America for its ideals of freedom and democracy, but despised Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine, and sensed that both philosophies were being used as excuses for American interventions on the continent. When Cuban revolutionaries requested help from the United States for reinforcing their armed struggle against Spain, Betances warned them against giving too much away. He feared American interventionism in the affairs of a free Cuba, and vehemently attacked Cuban leaders who suggested the annexation of Cuba by the United States. Some of his fears became reality years later, when the Platt Amendment

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