Episode 5 - El Don y La Princesa

This episode of Arroz con Crime discusses the life and sacrifices of Pedro Alviso Campo, a Puerto Rican freedom fighter and political figure. He spent a significant portion of his life in prison, enduring extreme torture. Despite his efforts to raise awareness about the mistreatment of Puerto Rico and its citizens, the United States refused to listen. Pedro's early life was marked by witnessing the U.S. invasion of Puerto Rico and dealing with family struggles. He excelled academically, graduating from Harvard and becoming a prominent attorney. Pedro joined the Nationalist Party and fought for better conditions for workers in Puerto Rico. He faced persecution and imprisonment, but refused to renounce his beliefs. Pedro's health deteriorated due to the torture he endured, and he eventually passed away. His story highlights the injustices faced by Puerto Ricans and the resilience of those who fought for their rights. Hello and welcome to the fifth episode of Arroz con Crime. Trigger warning, this episode contains descriptions of racism, violence, different forms of torture, and death. This past Sunday, April 21st, 2024, was the 59th anniversary of the death of Pedro Alviso Campo. He was a Puerto Rican freedom fighter, social activist, and prominent political figure whose beliefs and sacrifices to raise awareness on the barbarity in action and legislation against Puerto Rico and its citizens led to him spending almost half of his life in prison, the worst of which was La Princesa Penitentiary, which allegedly put its prisoners through some of the worst tortures imaginable. Today, I will be discussing his life, some of his accomplishments, because there are too many to discuss in one episode, and his inevitable death by the exacerbation of his already deteriorating health, which according to experts, including Nobel Prize winning chemists, was caused by the radiation torture he endured while in prison. His was a voice the United States refused to abide. This is the story of the man known as El Maestro and Don Pedro. This is the story of El Don y La Princesa. Pedro Alviso Campo was born September 12, 1891, in Machuelo Abajo, Ponce, Puerto Rico, seven years before the United States invaded Puerto Rico in 1898, claiming it for itself under the Treaty of Paris after the Spanish-American War, even though months before, the Spanish Prime Minister, Praxedes Mateos Agasta, signed the Charter of Autonomy, which was later ratified by the Spanish Parliament. Puerto Rico, after 400 years of colonization, was finally granted its freedom to then months later have the United States invade and claim Puerto Rico regardless. As you can imagine, this harbored a lot of resentment from Puerto Ricans who believed Puerto Rico no longer belonged to Spain, therefore wasn't theirs to give. Those who believed this eventually became the Nationalist Party. Don Pedro, who was seven, witnessed the United States invasion. He, along with many other Puerto Ricans, gathered upon their arrival, listening to General Miles speak in a language they had never heard before. And when he was done with his speech, young Pedro, unaware of what was transpiring, yelled in the middle of the crowd, Que Viva Puerto Rico. When everyone looked at this young child confused, he once again yelled, Que Viva Puerto Rico. No one looking upon this young boy, not even the young boy himself, could know that he would one day become the man leading the charge to fight for a free Puerto Rico. Don Pedro's mother, Juliana Campos, was a domestic worker of African descent. His father, Alejandro Alviso Romero, was of Spanish descent. Alejandro would eventually abandon Don Pedro and his mother until he tried to reconnect with Don Pedro after he was accepted to Harvard. Juliana suffered from mental illness and several times had to be stopped by family and friends from drowning herself with a small Pedrito in her arms, earning herself the nickname La Llorona. La Llorona was a character in Mexican folklore who in life drowned her children as revenge on her cheating husband, and after death was known as a weeping, vengeful ghost who would drown children as recompense for the death of her own. Eventually, Juliana Campos gave up trying to drown her son and settled on just drowning herself in the Portuguese River in Ponce. A four-year-old Pedro was taken in by his beloved aunt, Rosa Campos. His aunt Rosa ensured he went to the best schools possible, though it was hard as he was black and the good schools were in white affluent neighborhoods, but she managed to get him in anyway. He was a brilliant student and eventually got into Harvard University where he finished with the highest GPA in his graduating class. In 1921, Don Pedro became the first Puerto Rican man to graduate from Harvard. He was meant to be the valedictorian and make a speech during graduation, but that was stopped by one of his law professors who felt it would be an embarrassment to Harvard to have a black Puerto Rican as the valedictorian, so he postponed two of Don Pedro's exams so they wouldn't be completed in time for graduation. Though he was permitted to graduate, he did not graduate at that time with his law degree and instead moved back to Puerto Rico and took the exams there, and his law degree was later mailed to him. While in Harvard, he studied literature, philosophy, chemical engineering, and military science. Don Pedro also spoke several languages. He was fluent in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, and Greek, and often tutored other students. This all earned him the nickname El Maestro. During World War I, Don Pedro volunteered in the U.S. Infantry and eventually became a First Lieutenant. As the U.S. Army was segregated at the time, he was then sent to the 375th Infantry Regiment, which was an all-black unit. He was honorably discharged in 1919. 1924 was a big year for Don Pedro as he joined the Nationalist Party, took and passed his bar exam to become an attorney in Puerto Rico, and his wife, whom he married in 1921, Dr. Laura Meneses, a Peruvian biochemist he met at Harvard, gave birth to their first child, Pedro Jr. They went on to have a total of four children, Pedro Jr., Laura, Rosa Emilia, and Hector. He became the president of the Nationalist Party in 1930, and his slogan was, La Patria es Valor y Sacrificio, The Homeland is Valor and Sacrifice, which he very much lived up to. Due to the racism he endured both in school and in the military, his perspective on United States and Puerto Rican relations changed into more nationalistic views. He became interested in the Indian independence and Irish independence causes. He helped establish several centers in Boston for Irish independence and was able to meet with Irish leader, Eman de Valera. Don Pedro even assisted in drafting the constitution of the Irish Free State. As an attorney in Puerto Rico, he made quite a name for himself and was well known throughout the island. He was involved in many cases to assist Puerto Ricans in bettering work conditions on the island. He led the strike for sugarcane workers against the sugarcane industry. He also led a strike against the Puerto Rican Railway and the Light and Power Company for the monopoly of the island, which is still a problem on the island today. It was the agricultural strike during the Great Depression that really made the U.S. take notice of Don Pedro as a real threat. Workers in the sugarcane fields went from making 75 cents for a 12-hour work day to 45 cents by 1933. Don Pedro addressed over 6,000 people gathered in the rain where he recited the Pablo Neruda poem Puerto Rico, Puerto Pobre. It ended with a five-minute roar of applause. He, along with the sugarcane workers, then formed the Workers Association of Puerto Rico. President Roosevelt was panicked about anarchy on the island and the FBI assigned 42 agents to follow Don Pedro 24 hours a day, and this was to be their only focus during that time. The police chief of Puerto Rico, Colonel E. Francis Riggs, who was also heir to the Riggs National Bank, which had ties to the U.S. government and was affected negatively by the strikes, called to request a meeting with Don Pedro. At this meeting, Colonel Riggs offered Don Pedro a proposition. He told him, stop the strikes and I'll give you $150,000, which in today's money would be roughly around $3 million, and he guaranteed Don Pedro a win in the gubernatorial race. Don Pedro simply told him, Puerto Rico no se vende, Puerto Rico is not for sale, and he walked out. Colonel Riggs offered the same deal to Luis Marin Munoz, which he allegedly took, but was elected the first governor of Puerto Rico just a few years later, and Don Pedro became political enemy number one. Do with that information what you will. Well, after that, U.S. corporations created an organization called the Citizens Committee of a Thousand, with their mission statement being they were an organization for the, quote unquote, preservation of peace and order. Really? It was basically the opposite of a union, and they would just oppose and combat worker strikes. Don Pedro faced his first arrest in March of 1936, and on April 3rd, 1936, a grand jury incited him, along with other members of the Nationalist Party, for sedition and violation of federal laws. The first jury was made up of seven Puerto Ricans and five Americans, which led to a hung jury. They had a second trial. The second trial, the jury was made up of 10 Americans and two Puerto Ricans. That found them all guilty, and they were sentenced and sent to prison in Atlanta, Georgia. Congressman Vito Marcantonio called the trial one of the blackest pages in the history of American jurisprudence. In a speech he wrote, which he titled Five Years of Tyranny in Puerto Rico, he stated that the jury was prejudiced and, quote, had expressed publicly bias and hatred for the defendants, end quote, and that, quote, as long as Puerto Rico remains part of the United States, Puerto Rico must have the same freedom, the same civil liberties, and the same justice which our forefathers laid down for us. Only a complete and immediate unconditional pardon will, in a very small measure, right this historical wrong, end quote. While in prison, Washington sent a man named Pedro Rodriguez Capo to offer Don Pedro a deal, renounce the Nationalist Party's request for independence, and they would make him the governor of Puerto Rico. He refused, as did all of the other nationalists that were also given this offer. Don Pedro's wife, Laura, kept the revolution going until his release. June 6, 1943, Don Pedro was diagnosed with arteriosclerosis, coronary sclerosis, brachial neuritis, and anemia. The FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, didn't believe the diagnosis, and in a memo stated he felt, quote, Campos continues to be hospitalized on his own volition in order to elicit sympathy and appear as a martyr, end quote. While in the hospital, a nun visiting him found a bug in the wall lamp, and congressman and attorney Vito Marcantonio yanked it from the wall, yelling into it curse words towards J. Edgar Hoover. His second arrest was after the 1950 revolts, which we discussed in the Lolita Lebron episode where in various cities and towns organized and participated in the uprisings. During this, believing the nationalists were held up in Salon Boricua Barbershop in Santurce, police surrounded the building and opened fire. Vidal Santiago Diaz, who was a nationalist, and Don Pedro's personal barber, was shot six times and lost three fingers and a thumb during the three-hour standoff, where the National Guard believed there were at least 20 nationalists firing back from within the barbershop. At one point, all return fire stopped, and believing they'd either killed them all or they were giving up, soldiers entered the building. The only person inside was the barbershop's owner, Vidal. He was knocked unconscious by stairs above him that crumbled and fell on his head. The soldiers, seeing him lying on the ground, shot him once in the head for good measure, I guess. As they carried his body out in front of the dozens of witnesses and radio personalities that were reporting live on the events, Vidal, to everyone's shock, opened his eyes. Vidal survived, and the entire ordeal was transmitted over the radio in real time, with the radio hosts conveying to the listeners what had just transpired. Vidal Santiago Diaz instantly became a legend on the island, as he refused to give them the satisfaction they sought when they put that last bullet in his head. He was arrested and sent to prison to serve 17 years, but was eventually pardoned by Governor Munoz Marin. The nationalists they were looking for were actually having a meeting at their headquarters, which was also an apartment belonging to Don Pedro in Old San Juan. The Insular Police and the National Guard surrounded the apartment building and fired upon it without a care as to who else could be in the building besides the nationalists. Doris Torresolo Raura was shot. The nationalists were eventually subdued and arrested after a major standoff. Don Pedro and the others were captured and sentenced to 88 years in prison, to be served in La Princesa Prison. He was pardoned by the governor, but the pardon was revoked after Lolita Lebron and her team's Capitol shooting, which, in fairness, he did help to organize. La Princesa in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was one of the most vile and feared prisons of the time, and today houses the offices of the Tourism Company of Puerto Rico. Walking up to this unassuming gray and white building with its beautifully manicured landscape, you would never know it was once a place where prisoners were held and tortured physically and mentally. It was built in 1837 and continued as a prison until its closing sometime between 1960 and 1975. I couldn't find a definitive answer on that. More than 240 prisoners at any given time were suffering in that prison. Author Nelson A. Dennis, in his book War Against All Puerto Ricans, says of La Princesa that it is, quote, a notorious monument to man's inhumanity to man, end quote. It was said that in La Princesa, prisoners were often starved, used for medical experiments, and other such tortures. Prisoners would leave with less limbs than they came in with. Inmates often slept on the cold cement floor with no blankets. Each cell held a bucket for prisoners as a toilet and a can of water. One of its cells was called Caja de Chinches, which was infested with bed bugs. A prisoner that was being particularly difficult would be thrown in the Caja de Chinches until they fainted from blood loss. Now I was curious and had to look it up. According to Google, each bed bug can consume enough blood to equal up to seven times their own body weight, which is similar to an adult male consuming 120 gallons of liquid at one time. It would take 143,000 bites from bed bugs to lose one liter of blood. A human has around five liters of blood circulating through their bodies at any given time. Typically, the loss of 40% of your blood will cause you to faint or possibly even die. So these prisoners would have to lose somewhere around two liters of blood to faint, maybe less considering they weren't eating properly and were probably weaker than the average person with a nutritional diet. Meaning, these prisoners were suffering around 286,000 bites from bed bugs in this prison cell. This is absolute nightmare fuel for me, someone who is absolutely terrified of bugs. Now this next story, I want to give an extra trigger warning as it is particularly terrible. A story was circulating in the prison of a nationalist that was arrested in Jayuya after the uprising for shooting a police officer. He was starved for two weeks and one night, a guard brought him a plate of meat. The man dug in with both hands for fear of them taking the food away. They didn't. They allowed him to eat every last bite. The man even slurped the juices that poured from the plate. Minutes later, an officer walked into the cell and asked the prisoner, how did your son taste? The prisoner confused, asked the guard, what? The officer then produced the head of the prisoner's son and said, did your son taste good? The prisoner threw up, went into shock and died of a heart attack. Is this story true? We can't confirm it. It could just be a rumor that was circulating throughout the prisons to put fear in the prisoners maybe. But honestly, with all the stories coming out of the prisons, I wouldn't doubt that it was true. During his time in La Princesa, Don Pedro was kept in solitary confinement in what they called the dungeon in cell number 15. The cell was covered in mold and humid. It was five steps from one end of the cell to the other. Five steps that Don Pedro would pace back and forth over and over again every single day. It was the only exercise he would get and often he would spread the remnants of his chewing tobacco over his face and neck to ward off mosquitoes. There was a rumor going around the prison that an American army doctor had installed what the prisoners were calling a quote unquote death machine that could send quote unquote death rays through the walls of the prison. It was just a rumor supposedly. But if the prisoners were heard discussing or if they asked the guards about this death machine, they would be sent to solitary and told to stop discussing it. Months before Don Pedro's trial, he stated seeing odd lights coming through his walls and soon after, he fainted. The intensity varied, but he reported his skin felt like it was sunburnt from scalp to toes and he began having horrible migraines. After just one week of this, his hands and legs became swollen. He wrote several letters to the warden regarding his condition and he received no answers in return. Eventually, Dr. Troyano De Los Rios, a psychiatrist of the Insular Department of Prisons was sent to check on him. The doctor diagnosed Don Pedro with an interpretive psychosis of injury and danger, paranoia, and hallucinations of all five senses. He assessed that the cause of his paranoia is quote an intense urge to be something which he is not, an inferiority complex, end quote. J. Edgar Hoover sent a memo to the U.S. Attorney General J. Howard McGrath and other important government officials quoting Dr. De Los Rios, but neglected to mention that other prisoners were also complaining of the same things, including three female prisoners who stated they heard machine motors humming and felt electric shocks in their head. Juan Haca, Roberto Diaz, and Francisco Mato Paoli, the poet and ex-boyfriend of Lolita Lebron, who was serving time for having a Puerto Rican flag in his home, all stated to have had the same experience as Don Pedro and the three women. Don Pedro continued to complain of experiencing what he claimed to be radiation burns over his entire body, total body irradiation. He would often wrap himself in wet towels and the guards would call him el rey de las toallas, the king of towels. The towels helped with the pain and to block some of the radiation he claimed being omitted through the walls. He was finally, after some time, allowed limited visitations and was able to tell his family and lawyer what he suspected was going on in the prison. Now remember, this is a Harvard-educated man who specifically studied chemical engineering and military science. He understood what chemicals could do. A journalist, Vicente Cubillas, was allowed to visit him at one point and when he got back wrote in an article, quote, his head is covered by two wet towels, his neck rests on a bag of ice, and around his neck he has another bag with cold water. Over his heart are two handkerchiefs soaked in ice water. His body is smothered with cold cream and pomodoro pomade. The electronic attack is blinding and burning and protection can be obtained only by use of towels and sheets wetted in ice water, end quote. When the news got out of the atrocities being alleged, news articles were writing headlines such as the atomic lynching of a martyr for liberty in Verdad magazine, which also wrote, quote, Apostle of Puerto Rican liberty is slowly being murdered in jail by means of electronic rays, end quote. The Cuban government caught wind of what was happening and requested Don Pedro be transferred out of La Princesa and put in the hands of the Republic of Cuba to attend to his illness. In 1952, a petition was filed to the United Nations demanding Don Pedro be extradited to a territory outside of the U.S. This petition was supported by Nobel Prize winning chemist, Dr. Frédéric Joliot-Curie, who along with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, better known as Madam Curie, discovered artificial radioactivity and noted that, yes, total body irradiation exists. And yes, this type of attack that Don Pedro claims to be experiencing is possible. In 1953, the International Writers Congress of José Martí delivered a letter signed by 28 prominent writers, journalists, and intellectuals from 11 countries demanding an investigation into the allegations of torture on Don Pedro. The letter was ignored. Both Cuba and the petition were denied. The U.S. continued to send psychiatrists that just continued saying the same thing while Don Pedro's health continued to deteriorate. His swelling got worse, as did the bruising, which went into his groin. He had warts, ulcers, and was bloated, and he could no longer walk. His legs were black and his gums were bleeding. Eventually, a radiologist and president of the Cuban Cancer Association, Orlando Daumi, was able to examine Don Pedro. Dr. Daumi's final assessment stated the sores on his body were produced by radiation burns. His symptoms corresponded to those of a person who had received intense levels of radiation. Lastly, he noted that wrapping himself in those towels diminished the intensity of the rays. In 1952, Don Pedro wrote a letter to the Organization of American States that he expected to have either heart failure or a cerebral hemorrhage. On March 27, 1956, he suffered a cerebral thrombosis, which is a stroke, in prison, but according to the FBI's internal report, he wasn't transferred to San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital until March 29. He had received no medical care for two days, and because of this, he became paralyzed on his right side, could no longer walk, speak, or write. They had finally shut El Maestro up for good. On November 15, 1964, Don Pedro was granted another pardon by Governor Munoz Marin, and just five months later, on April 21, 1965, El Maestro, Don Pedro Alviso Campo, succumbed to his years of torture and died, but at least he died a free man. The procession was made up of over 75,000 Puerto Ricans who followed Don Pedro's casket to Old San Juan Cemetery, where he is buried today. Social scientist Juan Manuel Carreon wrote of El Don, quote, Alviso still represents a forceful challenge to the very fabric of Puerto Rico's colonial political order, end quote. Don Pedro is attributed with many positive changes in Puerto Rico, including the advances in developing better working conditions for laborers and a more accurate assessment and awareness by the U.S. government of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. He gave his life for the betterment of his nation. In the 2000s, due to the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI files were released confirming that the FBI offices in New York, Chicago, San Juan, and other cities conspired to surveil Don Pedro and everyone who was associated with him. In 1986, Congressman Edward Markey penned a report titled American Nuclear Guinea Pigs, Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens. In it, he discussed how 695 prisoners from Oregon and Washington State had their testicles irradiated. In August of 1995, the U.S. Department of Energy admitted it federally supported the radiation experiments that were conducted on over 20,000 American men, women, and children, many of which were mentally disabled. In 1999, Eileen Wilson wrote a book called The Plutonium Files, America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War. In it, she says the experiments began sometime around 1945 when the Manhattan Project scientists were preparing to detonate the first atomic bomb. The experiments were to test radiation's effects on the human body, and the subjects were poor, powerless, and sick. Though there is no evidence, it is believed that the doctors who headed up these experiments in Puerto Rico were, one, Dr. Cornelius Rhodes, which episode four was dedicated to the atrocities of this man. Pedro Albizu Campo was the man who released his letter to the media where Dr. Rhodes admitted to killing Puerto Ricans, as well as to transplanting cancer into several others. Dr. Rhodes also used radiation and chemicals on Puerto Rican soldiers while developing chemical weapons for the army. If you remember, the rumors in the jail were that an army doctor created the death machine. Dr. Rhodes was a military doctor. This would have been a perfect opportunity for him to inflict his revenge on Don Pedro. Another doctor, Dr. Marshall Bruce, the director of the medical division of the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies, also had means and opportunity to conduct these radiation experiments as well. His visits to Puerto Rico coincided with when the prisoners stated they began feeling the pain of radiation. Many arguments have been made throughout time, most recently with the Black Lives Matter movement, on what the quote-unquote correct manner of protesting is. This is a perfect example that whether it's peaceful or violent, the masses whom are against the betterment of a people, especially people of color, will always find fault in the manner. Don Pedro made speeches. He led strikes. The people had peaceful meetings and protests that ended with insular police killing innocent people in the streets. Women, children that had nothing to do with the Nationalist Party in the Rio Piedras and Ponce massacres were killed. Don Pedro started on a peaceful route against the injustices and he was looked at as a threat and followed by the FBI and imprisoned for conspiracy. A man kicks a knee during a football game and is told that's not the right time. He lost his job and was persecuted by the media. People feel unheard, discarded, and are being genuinely oppressed by suppressive laws and legalized discriminatory policies, so they eventually move on to more extreme measures. Passive resistance does not seem to work or it works entirely too slowly. Violent resistance, unfortunately, seems to be, as proven time and time again in history, the only thing that has truly put a spotlight on the issues and disrupted the comfort of the beneficiaries of our subjugation. Speeches and taking knees got people talking, but by the end did nothing on its own but light the torch for action. Marches that stopped businesses from opening, that stopped traffic from flowing, and even the riots that burned establishments to the ground sometimes, which by the way, only 7% of the protests turned violent, finally got the attention needed to affect change. Is it enough change? No. It's still a work in progress, but some change is better than no change at all. Nelson A. Dennis stated in his book, quote, Owning one man made you a scoundrel. Owning an entire nation made you a colonial benefactor, which is exactly what the U.S. continues to do as it continues to own Puerto Rico and other islands and territories with no freedom in sight, enacting such laws as the tax haven laws, Act 60, which creates tax shelters for the rich who move to Puerto Rico, and Act 20 and 22, which is used for export service companies, which provides them 100% federal exemption from Puerto Rico sourced income, interest, dividend, and capital gains income. And so they get Puerto Rican money without reinvesting in Puerto Rico's economy while simultaneously making it almost impossible for those who are born and raised on the island to continue to live comfortably. As the price of rent continues to rise, the electricity bills increase while residents experience major outages at least twice a month. Locals are being kicked out of their homes their families have owned for generations so land developers can build luxury homes and hotels while the government is turning a blind eye to it. I'm sure Don Pedro is rolling in his grave. This is what he fought so hard against, but when they have the power of the U.S. government behind them, it's easy for us to feel powerless against the machine. Battles are still being fought every day in Puerto Rico by brave journalists and residents who protest every day. Many small battles have been won by these warriors. The people of Puerto Rico just want to live in peace. They want to keep their land and be left alone. Will this happen? I don't know. But I feel it's important that we know of the heroes who fought and gave their lives for that dream deferred because that is the stock we came from. Whether on the island or in the diaspora, we were forged from warriors and we must never forget that. Every year, on September 12th, in Ponce, at Albizu Campos Monument Park, in front of his life-size bronze statue, there was a celebration to honor the prominent leader, a man who dedicated and sacrificed his life for the freedom of Puerto Rico and for Puerto Ricans. That will forever be his legacy. Thank you for listening to this episode of A Racun Crime. As always, I hope you learned something, felt something, and may you always find the courage to speak up and do something. Much of the information I discussed can be found in Ed Morales' Fantasy Island and Nelson A. Dennis' War Against All Puerto Ricans, as well as good old-fashioned Google. If you enjoyed this and other episodes, be sure to hit that follow button and the bell to receive notifications when there are new episodes. Always remember, whether you call it con con, pegao, or something else, I'm so glad you're here. See you next time!