Discours au Salon maçonnique de Port-au-Prince

Ramón Emeterio Betances (1827–98) was a leading figure in the nineteenth-century struggle for Caribbean sovereignty. Born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, to a wealthy Afro-descended landowner father from Hispaniola and a local White Puerto Rican mother, at the age of ten he was sent to France, where he studied medicine and embraced the ideals of the French Revolution of 1848. Upon his return to Puerto Rico in 1856, he became active in abolitionist circles, for which he was exiled by the colonial authorities. Betances went on to collaborate with Dominican leaders in the War of Restoration (1863–65), then helped organize the Grito de Lares, the short-lived Puerto Rican revolt of 1868. After the Ten Years’ War exploded in Cuba (1868–78), he became the chief representative of the Cuban faction in Haiti and in France, where he settled down while continuing to advocate for Caribbean sovereignty and the creation of a Pan-Antillean federation. In addition to numerous political articles and pamphlets, Betances published a variety of medical and literary texts, including “El cólera: Historia, medidas profilácticas, síntomas y tratamientos” (1890) and the Romantic novella Les deux Indiens (1857).

Khalila Chaar-Pérez is an independent scholar of modern and contemporary Caribbean cultures and politics. Her writings have appeared in Revista Iberoamericana, Global South, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Small Axe, and the anthology Uncle Tom’s Cabins: A Transnational History of America’s Most Mutable Book (2018).

Enid Cruz-Mirabal has been a translator for twenty-four years. She has served as a limited English proficiency specialist in support of FEMA’s operations in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María; as the official translator for the US Department of State, San Juan; as a web content translator for the Office of Head Start, San Juan; and as an independent contractor. She holds a master’s in translation from the University of Puerto Rico and a graduate certificate in professional communication from the University of Sydney.