The Monument to Amezquita

It was an arid day when I encountered an ancient statue in El Morro’s field.  Puzzled, for I had never seen it before, I noticed something strange about its appearance. This obelisk-like monument with Greco-Roman features that towered over a green hill was utterly derelict. On its die, a plaque constructed in 1925 commemorated the victory over the Dutch three hundred years earlier and praised the heroic deeds of a long-forgotten Spanish captain. After reading this tribute on the monument’s plinth, I immediately began recalling my elementary and high school courses on Puerto Rican history, vying to find anything related to it in my memory, only to encounter vague vignettes and fading narratives. To remedy this, I interrogated the people around me for information, again meeting the same obliviousness regarding the statue and the events it recorded. It was as if everyone had taken it for granted that it had always stood there, massively looking over the vestiges of what had once been the most crucial fortification of the Island. At that moment, I realized I was standing atop a living battlefield.

Historians tell us that a living battlefield is a place of combat, either physical or symbolic, that has been subsequently altered with public memory, allowing space for its change in appearance as long as it continues to commemorate the events that occurred there (Dixon, xii). Monuments and statues remind a community of its history and how they have been able to uphold in reverence and respect certain events that have already passed. They become alive as long as present societies continue recognizing and finding a message within them, using them as symbols for inspiration and patriotism. Applying this understanding to the statue I encountered in El Morro’s field, the Juan de Amézquita Monument – as it is officially recognized – becomes a window for analyzing not only the historical colonial societies that combated the Dutch in the 17th century but also those that erected the monument centuries later. The victorious monument towering over a living battlefield reminds the Puerto Rican people of their past triumphs against the face of a potential invader. It inspires the possibility of victory over not only the Dutch but also against national struggles that affect them in everyday life, ultimately helping to concretize a national identity, a desire for societal progress, and a path toward future independence.

However, what factors determine the vitality of a past event and its remembrance within society? In other words, why remember the failed Dutch invasion of 1625 when multiple wider-scale pirate attacks occurred on the island during the same time? The answer to this question lies in the contextual and historical importance of the assault, establishing the solid basis for its remembrance centuries later. The broader availability of primary sources that describe the event also helps to understand it better, allowing societies of the past to look back and study it in detail. Time and duration also play an important role, given that there is a more considerable opportunity to remember something that occurred for a prolonged period than that which lasted for a short time.

One can find examples of pivotal primary sources that relate to the invasion and its social aftermath within the literary creations of authors who focused on elaborating a distinct Caribbean identity in the centuries that followed. Their intricate determination to use the Dutch invasion as the setting for their works demonstrates the value that they came to place on the events that occurred. In a sense, they find sufficient inspiration in the belligerent clash of two European powers on the island of Puerto Rico to compel subsequent generations to remember the incursion of 1625. Some of the authors describing these events include Spanish Golden-Age poet Lope de Vega in his poem El Brasil Restituído, and transcendental Puerto Rican authors María Bibiana Benítez and Antonio S. Pedreira, the former in her play La Cruz del Morro and the latter in his opus Insularismo. These works play an essential role in understanding the conflict as they portray the insular sentiment revolving around the Dutch attack and its profound consequences on shaping a national identity. Their creations serve as a looking glass into the past for future generations, allowing them to study in detail and comprehend the revolutionary ideological views that arose. These works maintain a degree of popularity within Puerto Rican society that bolsters the continual remembrance of the events, ultimately leading to the building of monuments commemorating the circumstances and the advocacy for political ideologies of revolutionary change. Without them, the Dutch assault would have become merely another footnote in Puerto Rican history.

To begin understanding the invasion, an emphasis must be placed on the economic, political, and militarily strategic importance that the island of San Juan Bautista – the original name for Puerto Rico – played in the Caribbean. After Christopher Columbus’s encounter with the Taíno natives of Borikén in 1493, the island underwent a period of conquest and colonization that rendered it a Spanish colony. The description of the island as “The Key to the Indies,” as Spanish colonial governor Francisco Manuel de Lando had described it in his letter to Emperor Charles V referencing its strategically important geographical location, made San Juan Bautista a coveted territory to be conquered by the enemies of Spain (Figueroa 87-88). Because Puerto Rico was the first Antillean outpost to receive transatlantic ships and open their commerce to the Caribbean Sea, European nations made significant efforts to acquire the island at all costs. Fearful of possible attacks with the intent of conquest by the French, English, or Dutch, fortifications were ordered to be constructed in 1539, the most prominent of them being “a bulwark on a bluff or large rock outcropping in the mouth of the bay, from where all arrivals can be seen as they appear over the horizon” (87-88). This castle received the name of San Felipe but became known as El Morro due to its location, morro meaning bluff or headland. The walls and artillery of El Morro, protecting the entrance to the Bay of San Juan, would play a protagonist role in defending the capital of Puerto Rico from enemy offenses up until the advent of the Spanish-American War of 1898.

Continental wars against Spain frequently led the Caribbean Sea to become an arena of belligerence for European armies. The Anglo-Spanish War, which pitted the Catholic Kingdom of Spain against the Protestant monarchy of Elizabeth I and its Dutch allies, opened a path for privateering as a war mechanism that sought the defense of Spanish colonies against incursions from both countries (89). The hope of conquering key Spanish territories, and therefore debilitating the Spanish Crown in the war, led to the private and government funding of ambitious expeditions by England and the Netherlands to attack the Caribbean. Because of its significance to Spanish and Caribbean commerce, Puerto Rico became both nations’ coveted territory in naval campaigns. These initiatives saw the recruitment of notorious captains, such as Francis Drake in 1595 and George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, in 1598, to defeat the Spanish, plunder the island, and establish an English outpost in Puerto Rico for further attacks on the Indies.

However, for some reason, Puerto Rican society opted to forget these attacks. This sense of obliviousness is known as cultural amnesia. The concept of “cultural amnesia” is used to portray the voluntary or involuntary desire of a population to forget about an event, leading to the widespread ignorance of and indifference to what used to be important but has now fallen into forced displacement, resulting in a possible “dystopian future” (Jerlei 4). The characteristics of living in a dystopian future can vary within each studied society. Still, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the conditions of a dystopia broadly reflect “a world in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, and fearful lives.” Though using a dystopian civilization as a literary setting is often employed by moralizing authors, such as George Orwell in 1984, to admonish society to diverge from a particular path, the notion of dystopia also points to a greater reality in which people cannot live free from the oppression of a powerful force. In the case of the Americas, the legacy of colonialism is a reality that maintains a degree of economic and political turmoil that also fails to address the humanitarian needs of millions of people, making them lead dehumanized and fearful lives. Puerto Rico, then, is a dystopian society because the Island still lives under the yoke of imperialism, its citizens remaining subjects to the Territorial Clause of the American Constitution. Because Puerto Ricans cannot make their own governmental decisions, constantly waiting instead on the American Congress to determine their political status or to discriminate in terms of federal funding, the element of impotence and dehumanization lives on within the population. This state of living can only occur because of cultural amnesia. When a country forgets or downplays its past, primarily its citizens’ heroic and value-driven actions that inspire continuous change, it is bound to deny itself. It is also destined to accept the tyranny of a powerful force that oppresses and curtails fundamental rights, always looking for the next dictator instead of the next hero. In the need to fill a cultural remembrance void, the country opts for the controlling figurehead instead of the genuine leader. To break this cycle of intellectual regression, citizens must actively demand to know their history. Once history is known, it is maintained through concrete objects or material culture, such as monuments or buildings, or intangible and non-material thoughts and ideas, such as political ideologies or social movements.

Looking at an example of cultural amnesia within Puerto Rican society, one can find the voluntary forgetfulness of the attacks of Francis Drake and George Clifford due to the similarity in details. In the case of the attack of the notorious privateer Francis Drake in 1595, the well-prepared Spanish defenses made what was set to be a successful campaign in the Greater Antilles by the English monarchy against the Spanish Crown a total failure. The incident resulted in Drake’s defeat in less than a day, prompting the invaders to leave for Panama, where Drake would die shortly after. Moreover, three years later, George Clifford, the 3rd Earl of Cumberland, would manage to successfully capture the Island and retain control of the capital for over a month. By using improved military tactics following Drake’s attack and receiving better funding from the English oligarchy, Clifford surmounted the still-recovering Spanish defenses at El Morro and effectively captured the fort. A couple of weeks later, and to the surprise of many, Clifford and his army were forced to abandon the garrison in the face of a dysentery epidemic that had killed more than half of the crew, returning the Island to Spain.

Though important during their occurrence, both attacks began to succumb to cultural amnesia from the second half of the seventeenth century onwards, as more generations opted to remember the events of the failed Dutch invasion instead of the English assaults. The quick defense against Drake diminished the threat that could be posed by international enemies, allowing the Spanish army to view the failed attack as a mere call to strengthen the island’s fortifications (90). Constant smaller-scale pirate and Arawak-Carib onslaughts around the Island made Drake’s assault become nothing more than a footnote in the island’s culture. Conversely, the extent of the feeling of victory over Cumberland’s retreat is debated, with some arguing that it was due only to the chance of a virus and not to the guns and genus of the descendants of the conquistadores (Brau 110-111). When one studies the Spanish victories in both events, one does not find the buoyant feelings of patriotism or remembrance that can safeguard them from cultural amnesia. No heroic battles took place on the island that fueled the populace’s imagination for decades. Subsequently, no magnum paintings or pieces of literature from the epoch were commissioned to showcase the courageous deeds of the defending Spanish army. Only Lope De Vega mentions Drake’s futile offensive in his epic poem La Dragontea as a catalyst setting for the English raids of Colombia and Panama. The undervaluing of these historical events is continued by future generations of authors who gave less appreciation to the English incursions than the Dutch aggression of 1625, preferring to have works commemorating the latter instead of the former. Consequently, both English invasions were forgotten by the wider-scale population of the island, who chose to remember the Dutch instead, thus signaling a pattern of cultural amnesia. In 1925, when the Monument to Amézquita was unveiled at El Morro, nothing was said regarding Drake or Cumberland’s attempts to capture Puerto Rico thirty years earlier. No monuments or statues were erected to commemorate both victories.

The Dutch Invasion of 1625 differs from these previous attacks because there are better records of its pivotal occurrences, providing a substantial base for the growth of patriotism. With narratives detailing events ranging from epic sword duels to massive scurrying retreats, the island’s inhabitants can see this incidence as one of the first significant accomplishments defining Puerto Rico’s standing as a bastion and gateway to the Caribbean. The victory over the Dutch also allows for growth in the feelings of national identity. Almost four generations had passed since the original Spaniards arrived and settled on the Island, allowing a new generation of creoles to exist in society. Though loyal to Spain and the monarchy, this island-born group began to construct a feeling of identity in wanting to defend the soil in which they were born against the oppression of a rival.

The concept of a national identity distinct from that of the metropole, though dormant at the time of the Dutch attack, had its seeds planted as subsequent generations started being predominantly born on the Island, having closer ties to the Caribbean than Spain. Fear of the Dutch forces that continued to navigate the Caribbean Sea after the invasion of 1625 also engendered a decline in trade with the metropole, obliging the native islanders to look inwards instead of outwards for their progress. This sentiment of fear marked a pivotal moment of decay for the prosperity of the Island and a shift in political ideologies, creating a more significant economic dependency on contraband while also fueling desires for a degree of autonomy. Some of their descendants would evolve this tendency and begin acknowledging the differences between Puerto Rico and Spain, leading up to a period of debates regarding the political status of the Island and the irreconcilable independence movements of the 19th century (Blanco 100). However, these ideologies of change and absolute independence would only occupy the minds of the limited intelligentsia during the 19^th century, with most of the population still favoring Spanish imperialism. In this light, the Dutch Invasion of 1625 differentiates itself from other maritime invasions to Puerto Rico because its events became immortalized in the general culture centuries after its occurrence. Its effects set up a dichotomous path for the island’s progress that, while creating a stronger sense of national identity, also sparked uneasiness regarding Puerto Rico’s economic prosperity and political independence. Thus, while inciting a euphoric patriotism, it also disseminated a message of constant fear among the inhabitants who failed to see progress outside imperial dependency, creating a dystopian future of colonialism that would last until the present.

Through an in-depth view of the Dutch invasion, we can again find why the island’s population prefers to remember this event over others. As Spanish and Dutch hostilities persisted in the European landscape due to the Thirty Years’ War, imperial expansion threatened the Caribbean. The creation of the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621, which had as its arranged purpose to “engage in the privateering and disruption of trade against the Spanish colonies of the Americas,” signaled a shift in the power structure of the Atlantic Ocean, which Spain and Portugal had previously dominated (Goslinga 54). Seen as an extension of the war mechanism used by the Netherlands against Spain, Dutch excursions funded by the WIC’s mercantilist aristocracy intended to conquer strategically crucial Spanish trading ports around the Atlantic Ocean and establish Dutch-oriented commerce. The strategic objectives of conquest, dubbed “The Great Design” by the WIC burgomasters, had as its crux the gains of territories in Africa, Brazil, and the Caribbean, with the invasion of Puerto Rico becoming a secondary objective in the Caribbean, just after the dominion of the port of La Havana (139). The attacks on the Caribbean were to be led by Boudewijn Hendricksz, a Dutch pirate and general who became a leader within the WIC. The failure of the conquest of Brazil and the subsequent reinforcement of La Havana by the Spanish fleet obliged Hendricksz to set sail for Puerto Rico and try to conquer the island instead.

Awaiting the enemy fleet was the newly appointed governor Juan De Haro, who had acclaimed military fame as an officer in the Spanish Army while fighting against The Netherlands. De Haro, who entered office on August 29, 1625, hastily decided to inspect the military fortifications of the capital and prepare them in the face of a potential invasion. Upon learning of the imminent threat that Hendrickz’s fleet posed on the security of San Juan, De Haro recognized that the island faced a severe problem: the defenses at El Morro castle needed to be urgently prepared and resourced to help repel the Dutch assault. Supplies and soldiers were scarce, with 330 men – most old and sick – available to defend the island and a resource bundle that would last a few weeks (161). Then, on September 24, 1625, the invasion began with the Dutch fleet sailing directly into the harbor, “firing incessantly into the very teeth of the fort’s guns… [killing] not more than four men” (161). Hendricksz disembarked the next day, followed by eight hundred soldiers who made their way to the governor’s mansion and cathedral. The rest of the army stayed guarding the fleet and the entrance to the bay, making sure to impede all types of provisions or supplies that could be brought to the defending Spanish soldiers. As part of his military strategy, De Haro ordered all men to be garrisoned inside El Morro, where they would wait for the attacking Dutch forces, which, in the meantime, ransacked the town.

The Dutch began establishing an offensive line in front of El Morro by setting up a battery with six pieces of heavy artillery and digging trenches that would serve for infantry fire (Picó 87-88). Upon doing so, Hendricksz requested the total surrender of the garrison, to which De Haro replied that he demanded the capitulation of the entire Dutch fleet. Immediately after this initial confrontation, a three-week-long siege ensued between both forces, with the Dutch and the Spanish vying to gain strategic strongholds in nearby fortresses that would aid in gaining the upper hand. With neither of them being able to supersede, the invading Burmeister opted to write a second letter to De Haro ordering the total surrender of the fort, with the threat of burning down the entire city if he refused to do so. De Haro said in what went down as a brave riposte, “Go ahead. We have plenty of wood and other materials in the hills to rebuild it” (Brau 128-129). Hendrcksz proceeded with his threat, setting ablaze the more than one-century-old town of Puerto Rico.

Using this opportunity and noticing that El Morro was running dangerously low on supplies, De Haro ordered infantry captain Juan de Amézquita to lead a sortie of one hundred fifty soldiers to attack the Dutch forces by land. Without hesitation, and to the surprise of Hendricksz, Amézquita exited El Morro and rapidly charged against the larger invading army, resulting in an epic clash between both forces. As the armies jarred on the battlefield of El Morro, Amézquita was preparing to deal a decisive blow to the Dutch command by taking on Hendricksz in a sword duel. As stated by Eduardo de Velasco in the Basque literary journal Euskal-Erria, “the combatting soldiers stopped their fighting to witness the duel between the military leaders of both countries” (De Velasco).  Amézquita, an agile swordsman, swiftly defeated Hendricksz by inflicting a mortal wound to the neck.

 Though a significant combat event, the duel represents the larger forces at play during the Dutch invasion. The will of the outnumbered Spaniards and Creoles to face a powerful enemy directly showcases the courage the defending soldiers carried with them. It also demonstrates the extent to which the insular society of the time was determined to refuse another country’s cultural and political dominion over them. With all odds against them, the defending Puerto Rican society charged from the safeguarded walls of El Morro and bravely combatted in the name of freedom. By rejecting the possibility of being conquered by the Dutch, Amézquita’s triumph embodies and represents the revolutionary ideology of not serving an empire (Pedreira 150). Upholding this current of thought, Amézquita’s deeds are the subject of remembrance by the people of the Island. Three hundred years later, the Puerto Rican society of 1925 erected the Juan de Amézquita monument at El Morro, in the same place where he defeated Hendricksz.

After watching Hendricksz’s defeat, the remaining Dutch soldiers made a hasty retreat to their ships with the hopes of escaping the Island. Still persecuted by the defending Spanish soldiers and a new naval squadron led by Captain Andrés Botello, the invaders sought to leave in the nearest ship they could find, with many falling to their deaths on the precipices of the islet (Brau 130). Following a long and arduous escape process, accompanied by constant artillery fire from the cannons of El Morro, the Dutch were finally able to leave the Island, never again returning to invade Puerto Rico (Picó 87-88). The siege was finalized, and an extensive physical recovery and cultural euphoria ensued, with the events becoming immortalized in the popular consciousness for generations to come. Immediately after the attack, its history became impregnated in the academic environment of the epoch, particularly in the works of Lope de Vega. Centuries later, Puerto Rican authors María Bibiana Benitez and Antonio S. Pedreira would also evoke the invasion in their respective oeuvres.

Spanish Golden Age Poet Lope de Vega, in his work El Brasil Restitutído, written a year after the Dutch defeat, recorded the effects of the incineration of the town of Puerto Rico by Boudewijn Hendricks. In it, he indites an ode to Bishop Bernardo de Balbuena, who, as the island’s bishop and a prominent scholar of the time, had lost his private library in the fire. Lope de Vega writes, “Your memory will always be sweet, generous Prelate, the great Doctor Bernardo de Valbuena (sic). You held the Bishop’s crozier of Puerto Rico when the fierce Enrique Dutch rebel stole your library, but could not steal your talent, could not although the forces of oblivion were applied” (Figueroa 97). The work of Lope de Vega immortalizes the fire, the image of Hendricksz, and the losses in Puerto Rico. Moreover, it remounts the resilient insular society, which maintained its “talent” and strength as it faced the consequences of the invasion. Although he views the city’s burning as a significant intellectual loss, as almost all historical records concerning the island’s colonization and literary works were burnt, Lope de Vega still sees an opportunity to delight in the resistance and feelings of superiority over the Dutch that were the product of the Spanish victory (Picó 88-89). However, Lope de Vega’s piece also demonstrates the diverging strands of nationalism and patriotism that emerged in Puerto Rican society. The feeling of triumph over the Dutch, or in a sense, of Spain over the Netherlands, in El Brasil Restituído could have rendered nationalistic pride that would take a concrete form in the upcoming generations. In this work, Lope de Vega thus establishes the first lens through which Spanish and Puerto Rican societies could remember the Dutch attack within Spanish and Puerto Rican society, eliminating the possibility of cultural amnesia early on.

The remembrance that Lope de Vega cemented in El Brasil Restituído continued in colonial society and was praised again in the nineteenth century by María Bibiana Benitez, the first female poet of Puerto Rico. Born in 1783 to a family of playwrights, Benitez grew up in an environment that engaged in dramatic folklore but also vividly remembered the Dutch attack, especially how their ancestors triumphed in El Morro (Ayala Santiago). In 1862, Benítez wrote La Cruz del Morro, the first dramatic play in Puerto Rican history. This play, set in the Dutch Invasion of 1625, revolves around the romantic conflict between Lola, a native of Puerto Rico, and her lover, Captain Juan de Amézquita. Coveting Lola’s unrequited love is the antagonist, Balduino Enrique or Boudewjin Hendricksz, who constantly conflicts with Amézquita in trying to sequester Lola from him. The play culminates with Amézquita challenging Enrique to a sword duel, where Amézquita ultimately proves victorious, killing the Dutch on the spot. As a result, the Dutch army flees the Island, and a giant wooden cross is elevated on top of El Morro, serving as a monument to the fallen soldiers in the conflict.

Though the play portrays fictional elements, such as the existence of Lola and the causes of the duel between Amézquita and Hendricksz, it promotes certain patriotic themes and ideologies. Amézquita’s triumph over Enrique conveys the message of Spanish superiority and victory over the enemy. The portrayal of Hendricksz by the author as a ruthful barbarian who wants to conquer Lola’s love unites the reader in supporting Amézquita’s defense and increases the feelings of fondness towards him. If Amézquita is a metaphor for Spain and Hendricksz one for the Netherlands, the reader would ultimately root for Spain and find comfort in Amézquita’s actions, thus increasing the feelings of patriotism and unity with Spain. This representation echoes Lope de Vega’s previous message regarding Spanish patriotism. However, the description of Lola as a Puerto Rican woman also plays a vital role in defining a national identity and understanding Benitez’s work. The play lends itself to a feminist interpretation since the protagonist is a woman and a nationalist interpretation since she becomes the primary goal of the piece. Lola, who can be read as a literary for Puerto Rico, is defined as a strong and independent woman. Though she fears Enrique, she proves her capability to survive on her own and rejects the sexual advances of the Dutch captain. Even Amézquita’s character, who stands to serve as Lola’s guardian, becomes overshadowed by Lola’s charisma and determination to be free. This strong desire for freedom is what makes Lola unique. She not only resembles the natives of Puerto Rico who bravely fought the Dutch in 1625 but also those seeking to break away from Spain in the nineteenth century. The defense of Puerto Rico instead of Spanish glory thus becomes the central message. The reader is conscious of the differences between the characters and becomes motivated to recognize the divergence between Puerto Rico and Spain, emphasizing a national identity distinct from the metropole (145-148).

Though Lola resists Enrique’s advances, she nevertheless fears the brutality of his character. This fear points to another ideological tendency experienced on the island. “The fear of the Dutch,” a phrase that Puerto Rican educator Antonio S. Pedreira coined in his magnum essay Insularismo during the 1920s, refers to the fear Puerto Rican merchants experienced when venturing into Caribbean waters decades after the Dutch invasion. This tremor was caused by multiple Dutch privateering ships that remained near Puerto Rico after Hendricksz had left, violently intercepting any commerce that would occur in the Caribbean. The fear of the Dutch led the island to fall into an economic dependency on Spain, preferring to wait for the help of the empire rather than go out and fix the political and economic struggles on its own (Pedreira 160-162). According to Pedreira, the Puerto Rican people became entrapped in colonialism and external support, forgetting the value of autonomy and independence. The “fear” that Puerto Rican society held after the invasion kept on shifting from enemy to enemy, forcing them to search for an escape, first from the Dutch and then from political and economic freedom. This mental prison became the ideological force that constrained Puerto Ricans in the centuries after the Dutch invasion, extending up to the point in which Pedreira wrote his essay. Such stasis could then explain the failed Grito De Lares, an attempted revolt against Spain in 1868, and the relative conformity with which Puerto Ricans received the invading American forces thirty years later, who came waving not the banner of freedom but the flag of repression.

 The fear of freedom arises when, due to the possibility of failure or “being caught by the Dutch,” we reject the risk involved in autonomous progress and prefer to live secluded in a colonial state (Figueroa 98). Moreover, that which is external or foreign is preferred to that which is local, creating within the island’s inhabitants a constant feeling of inferiority and need for intervention by a metropolitan empire. A society devalues itself when it rejects its unique character and prefers to depend on an imperial power. This dystopian future, or image of a society that has lost faith in itself, which Pedreira describes in Insularismo, is the present condition of Puerto Rico. As a legacy of the Dutch invasion, we have learned to live dependent on American imperialism, constantly fearing the notion of becoming an independent nation.

This evolved fear of independence, which still looms over the heads of many Puerto Ricans, was first imposed by the United States as an imperial strategy to retain control of the Island’s conscience in the years that followed the American invasion of 1898. The mission of suppressing nationalist and pro-independence sentiments led to a series of horrid measures that curtailed the constitutional rights of the newly made American citizens (Alvarez). For example, in 1937, the American Insular police – by orders of Appointed-Governor Blanton Winship – opened fire on a crowd that was conducting a peaceful demonstration in support of Puerto Rican independence, killing nineteen civilians and leaving hundreds injured, including women, children, and elders (Denis). A decade later, the colonial Legislature of Puerto Rico, by orders of the Truman administration, approved a repressive measurement infamously known as The Gag Law, that outlawed “displaying a Puerto Rican flag, singing patriotic melodies, criticizing the U.S., making pro-independence proclamations, printing or distributing material contrary to the executive, and organizing groups or meetings with subversive purposes, risking fines between ten thousand dollars and ten years in prison (or both)” (Alvarez). Dozens of Puerto Rican nationalists were imprisoned under the stature of this law, with leading figures such as Nobel Prize candidate Antonio Paoli and revolutionary leader Pedro Albizu Campos serving maximum penalties. Hundreds of citizens, because of their knowing or unknowing ties to independence sympathizers, were blocklisted by the FBI and subsequently denied employment by private corporations and the government. Due to fear, thinking about independence became something to be shunned instead of encouraged.

Though these acts of repression have long since been discontinued, the resulting fear of favoring anticolonialism and independence still lives on among the population. As such, we have striven through all possible mechanisms to devalue the prospects of political and economic freedom, preferring to live in a perpetual state of colonial dependency. According to the United Nations Resolution on Human Rights in 2022, Puerto Rico is a colony and should be following a process of self-determination (“Special Committee on Decolonization”). However, the island’s inhabitants are content with their colonial status and have repeatedly voted against decolonization. Evidence for this claim is the electoral tendency of the Island: since 1952, when the first gubernatorial elections were held, pro-independence candidates have received less than 10% of the vote (Santana 49). The fact that the two major political parties of the Island favor complete political annexation to the United States as the 51st state or a perpetual state of colonialism points to the abandonment of independence ideals. The effects of the Dutch invasion are felt as much in the twenty-first century as in the population of the seventeenth century immediately after it occurred.

The Juan de Amézquita monument is thus an image that all Puerto Ricans should look up to. Its remembrance as a victory over the Dutch reminds us of the possibility that we can overcome the difficulties we face as a nation and establish a path for independence. It tells the story of how a small garrison composed of Puerto Ricans and Spaniards charged from the doors of El Morro against one of the most powerful armies in the world and heroically triumphed. However, the rising cultural amnesia regarding historical events in the twenty-first century shows how the “fear of the Dutch” has survived Amezquita’s victory. Popular conscience seems to have forgotten Puerto Rico’s brave deeds to defend national freedom in 1625, instead opting to remember the pains of demanding independence. The Island’s history is not taught efficiently in schools or public spaces, leaving the gentry to become ignorant of their past. When this occurs, the relentless difficulties in surpassing national problems and the fear of freedom constantly pervade the islanders’ consciences, leaving ample space for cultural amnesia to reign. Those who disregard their country’s history will never be worth anything as they begin by ignoring themselves.

El Morro then becomes a living battlefield: it remembers the battleground of the Spanish and Dutch and the battleground within the mind of a colonized citizen in the twenty-first century. The words written in literary pieces like El Brasil Restituído, La Cruz del Morro, and Insularismo should not be forgotten in this struggle but instead taken as inspiration to combat the nation’s problems from the solid fortresses of our minds. Only by acknowledging who we are and our past can we give the deserved reverence to the Monument to Amézquita. And perhaps one day, Puerto Ricans will have the courage to go out and “fight the Dutch,” as Amézquita did from the defending garrison of El Morro. Hopefully, we will emerge victorious in battle and, with great triumph, enjoy the rewards of national independence. Perhaps, one day, I will be free.

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Works Cited

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Pedreira, Antonio Salvador. “Insularismo; ensayos de interpretación puertorriqueña.” Nos coge el holandés. Puerto Rico Editorial, San Juan, 1942, pp. 150-162.

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Puerto Rico en el año de 1625 en que los holandeses tomaron la plaza. Drama en dos actos-1862. Ensayo preliminar de Nívea de Lourdes Torres Hernández. Edición de Instituto de Literatura Puertorriqueña, Colección hallazgos y encuentros-5., 2018. “Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, V. 2, 2018”, Editorial UPR, 2018, pp. 145-148.

Picó, Fernando. History of Puerto Rico: a panorama of its people. Markus Wiener Publishers (2005), pp. 87-89.

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Jerlei, Epp. Cultural Amnesia: Imagining Alternatives to the Dystopian Future of Norrland. Umea University, 2015, p. 4.

Blanco, Tomás. Prontuario Histórico de Puerto Rico. Ediciones Huracán, 1935, p. 100

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Goslinga, Cornelis. The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast.”\ University of Florida Press, 2018, pp. 54, 139, 159-161.

De Velasco, Eduardo. El Capitán D. Juan de Amezqueta y Quijano. Euskal-Erria, pp. 498-501.

“Dystopia Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dystopia. Accessed 11 Jan. 2024.

Álvarez, Jorge. “La Brújula Verde.” The Gag Law: How the United States Ended the Republic of Puerto Rico in 72 Hours, 2023.

Denis, Nelson A. War Against All Puerto Ricans. Bold Type Books, 2016.

“Special Committee on Decolonization”. Special Committee on Decolonization Approves Resolution Reaffirming Puerto Rico’s Inalienable Right to Self-determination, Independence. United Nations, 2022.

Santana, M.C. Puerto Rican Newspaper Coverage of the Puerto Rican Independence Party: A Content Analysis of Three Elections. A Garland series. Garland Pub. 2000, p. 49.

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About the Author

Javier E. Méndez Lacomba is a sophomore at the Rose Hill Gabelli School of Business, majoring in Business Economics and minoring in History. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he has always been an avid reader of Caribbean and Latin American history, using it as the basis for publishing research on his own. Javier enjoys diving into literature and politics during his free time, actively engaging with literary communities in and outside New York City.