The PNP began to grow with the leadership of Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, who was later jailed by the colonial regime under charges as a subversive leader.

The march was organized to commemorate the abolition of slavery and to demand the release of Albizu Campos from federal prison.

As a youth, Balaguer wrote of the awe with which he was struck by his father's fellow countryman, the Harvard graduate and political leader from Puerto Rico, Pedro Albizu.

On March 21, 1937, a peaceful march was organized by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to celebrate the 64th anniversary of the abolition of slavery and protest the incarceration of their leader, Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, in a federal prison on charges of sedition.

It is known, for example, that Los Macheteros deliberately chose September 12 for their White Eagle assault on the Wells Fargo depot, because September 12 was the birthday of Puerto Rican Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.

Recently, the Macheteros have focused on public education regarding the use of Culebra and Vieques as bombing targets for the U. S. Navy ; the disproportionate number of military bases on the island ( compared to states in the Union ); the proportion of deaths within the ranks of the Independence and Nationalist leadership, including the alleged experimentation with radiation on Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos while he was incarcerated ; the secret testing of Agent Orange on Puerto Rican soil ; and cancer " experiments " administered by Cornelius P. Rhoads, in which he admitted killing Puerto Rican patients and injecting cancer cells to others, working as part of a medical investigation conducted in San Juan's Presbyterian Hospital for the Rockefeller Institute.

One of these letters was intercepted by affiliates to Pedro Albizu Campos's Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, and Albizu vehemently denounced Rhoades as an unethical and sadistic doctor who treated his patients as guinea pigs.

Don Pedro Albizu Campos ( September 12, 1891 – April 21, 1965 ) was a Puerto Rican patriot and the leading figure in the Puerto Rican independence movement.

Albizu Campos was the president and spokesperson of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party from 1930 until his death in the 1960s.

Albizu Campos was born in the Tenerías sector of Barrio Machuelo Abajo in Ponce, Puerto Rico to Alejandro Albizu and Juana Campos on 12 September 1891.

He was the nephew of danza composer Juan Morel Campos, and cousin of Puerto Rican educator Dr. Carlos Albizu Miranda.

In 1912, Albizu was awarded a scholarship to study Engineering, specializing in Chemistry at the University of Vermont.

Albizu was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserves and sent to the City of Ponce where he organized the town's Home Guard.

Albizu was honorably discharged from the Army in 1919, with the rank of First Lieutenant.

In 1919, Albizu returned to Harvard University and was elected president of the Harvard Cosmopolitan Club.

Upon graduation from law school, Albizu was heavily recruited-with a law clerkship to the U. S. Supreme Court, a diplomatic post with the U. S. State Department, the regional vice-presidency ( Caribbean region ) of a U. S. agricultural syndicate, and a tenured faculty appointment to the University of Puerto Rico.

The reason for this " delay " was openly racist: Albizu was about to graduate with the highest grade-point average in his entire law school class.

Albizu left the U. S., took and passed the two exams in Puerto Rico, and in June 1922, his law degree was mailed to him.

Albizu presented his credentials before the U. S. Federal Court in Puerto Rico for admission to the bar, and was approved to practice law in Puerto Rico on February 11, 1924.

In 1924, Albizu Campos joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and was elected vice president.

On May 11, 1930, Albizu Campos was elected president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and formed the first Women's Nationalist Committee, in the island municipality of Vieques, Puerto Rico.

An investigation into this letter was conducted, which found " no evidence of malicious activity " by Dr. Rhoads, and discredited Albizu Campos for " misinterpreting " letter.

On November 15, 1964, on the brink of death, Albizu was finally pardoned by Governor Muñoz Marin.

Image of Albizu Campos in prison some time between 1951 and 1953.

Another argument by the independence movement is that the Macheteros are continuing the historical rebellion that Puerto Ricans such as Pedro Albizu Campos and the Nationalist Party have waged, against U. S. domination of the island.

" Congressman Marcantonio provided evidence that Albizu Campos ' jury had been profoundly prejudiced, since it had been hand-picked by the prosecuting attorney Mr. Cecil Snyder.

Dr. Damuy concluded, from his direct physical examination of Albizu, that the burns on Albizu's body were caused by intense radiation.

Albizu can definitely be credited with preserving and promoting Puerto Rican Nationalism and national symbols, at a time where they were virtually a taboo in the country-and even actively outlawed by Law 53, known as La Ley de la Mordaza ( the Gag Law ).

The formal adoption of the Puerto Rican flag as a national emblem by the Puerto Rican government can be traced to Albizu ( even while he denounced this adoption as the " watering-down " of an otherwise sacred symbol into a " colonial flag "); the revival of public observance of the Grito de Lares and its significant icons was a direct mandate from him as leader of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party was the independence party headed by Pedro Albizu Campos, a Puerto Rican Nationalist.

The MPI and PSP continued the tradition set in the 1930s by Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos of holding a massive rally commemorating the 1868 anticolonial uprising against Spanish rule at the small mountain town of Lares each 23 September.

" Writings of Pedro Albizu Campos "; by Pedro A. Campos ( Author ) ; Page 57 ; Publisher: Gordon Press Publishers ( January 1993 ); ISBN-10: 0849030161 ; ISBN-13: 978-0849030161

The march was also protesting the imprisonment, by the U. S. government, of Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos on alleged sedition charges.

Various members of his family were members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party which was presided by Pedro Albizu Campos.

On November 1, 1950, following a series of uprisings in Puerto Rico which included the Jayuya Uprising and the Utuado Uprising which culminated in a massacre, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola invaded Harry S. Truman's residence, carrying a letter written by Albizu Campos and addressed to Truman.

Juan Antonio Corretjer, center, accompanied by Clemente Soto Velez ( L ) and Pedro Albizu Campos ( R ) during their detention in 1936.

However by the mid 1930s, after disappointing electoral results and strong repression by the territorial police authorities, Albizu Campos opted against electoral participation and advocated direct, violent revolution.

The march had been organized to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873, and to protest the incarceration by the U. S. government of nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos.

After these events, 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: Erasmo Velázquez, Julio H. Velázquez, Rafael Ortiz Pacheco, Juan Gallardo Santiago, and Pablo Rosado Ortiz.

* Luis A. Ferrao, Pedro Albizu Campos y el nacionalismo puertorriqueño 1930-1939 ( Editorial Cultural, San Juan, 1990 ) ISBN 1-56758-011-4

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.

On April 3, 1936, a Federal Grand Jury submitted accusations against Soto Vélez, Pedro Albizu Campos, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Luis F. Velázquez 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.