Famous Puerto Ricans

Luis Muñoz Rivera - (1859-1916). Born in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico, July 17, 1859. Resident Commissioner to U.S. Congress from Puerto Rico, 1911-16. Died in San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 15, 1916. Interment at San Antonio de Padua's Cemetery, Barranquitas, Puerto Rico.

Muñoz Rivera is the father of Puerto Rico's most famous and important statesman, Luis Muñoz Marín

Founded La Democracia, a daily newspaper, in Ponce, P.R., in 1889; was sent to Madrid in 1896 as a special representative to confer with the Liberal Party of Spain on establishing home rule in Puerto Rico. He was one of the founders of the Liberal Party in Puerto Rico in 1897 and was appointed secretary of state under the home-rule government and president of the cabinet in 1897.  He resigned in 1898, when American sovereignty was declared, but his resignation was not accepted and he continued to serve until 1899.  He was his party's representative to Washington, D.C., regarding the establishment of free-trade relations between the United States and Puerto Rico.  In 1900 he organized the Federal Party in 1900 and on its dissolution in 1902 organized the Unionist Party. He founded the Porto Rico Journal in 1900 and published the Porto Rico Herald in New York City in 1901.  He served in the Puerto Rico House of Delegates 1906-1910 and presided over a special commission of the House of Delegates that was sent to Washington, D.C., in 1909.  He was elected a Resident Commissioner to the United States in 1910 and reelected in 1912 and 1914. He served from March 4, 1911, until his death in 1916.

José Celso Barbosa – (1857-1921), a doctor and a politician, was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico in 1857. He received his medical degree from the University of Michigan. He was a member of the Autonomous Party led by Baldorioty de Castro. In 1899, he founded the Republican Party of Puerto Rico that advocated statehood for the island. He was a member of the Executive Cabinet from 1900 to 1917 and a member of the Senate from 1917 to 1921. He died in San Juan in December of 1921.

José de Diego - (1867-1918) was born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico on April 16th, 1867. He studied law in Barcelona, Spain and came back to Puerto Rico to practice. His literary works include poems and newspaper articles. De Diego is considered a forerunner of the modernist movement in Puerto Rico. De Diego’s poetry books include Pomarrosas, Jovillos, Cantos de Rebeldía and Cantos del Pitirre.

Not only was de Diego a great poet but he was also a great jurist, journalist, essayist, orator and politician. He was heavily involved in politics helping found political parties, advocating independence for Puerto Rico, and as an elected official and leader. De Diego dreamed of an Antillian Confederacy of Spanish speaking Caribbean nations. History considers him father of Puerto Rico’s modern independence movement. Today he is known more for his advocacy of independence for Puerto Rico than for his poetry. De Diego died in New York, July 16, 1918.

Eugenio María de Hostos y Bonilla – (1839-1903) was born in Rio Cañas in Mayagüez. He studied law in Spain.  While there, he joined the Spanish republicans, only to become disillusioned when they abandoned their pledge to make Puerto Rico independent. Hostos moved to New York City in 1869 where he became a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Junta. In 1870 he began a four-year trip throughout Latin America propagandizing his themes for the abolition of slavery and a federation of Antillean nations. His writings in Chile helped women gain admittance to professional schools and his advocacy of a transandean railway in Argentina resulted in its first locomotive being named after him. From 1875 to 1888 he devoted his energies to reforming the educational systems in both the Dominican Republic and in Chile.

Of his fifty books and countless essays, his most important was La Peregrinación de Bayoán, a seminal work promoting Cuban independence.  He wrote his own epitaph: "I wish that they will say: In that island [Puerto Rico] a man was born who loved truth, desired justice, and worked for the good of men."

Luis Muñoz Marín – (1898-1980) Muñoz Marín was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on February 18th, 1898.  He was the son of Luis Muñoz Rivera, who was instrumental in obtaining a measure of home rule from Spain in 1897 and U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans in 1917. Luis Muñoz Marín was educated at Georgetown University in Washington DC where he studied law. Muñoz Marín served as governor of Puerto Rico from 1949 to 1965. He died in San Juan in 1980.

In 1952, under his leadership, Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States. Because He was the first elected governor of Puerto Rico; previous governors had been appointed by the President of the United States; and its chief political leader for over 25 years he is known as the "Father of Puerto Rico."