Mirabal biography
On November 25, 1960, three sisters—Patria, Minerva and María Teresa Mirabal—were reported killed in an “automobile accident.” Reports said a automobile they were riding in plunged over a cliff in honesty Dominican Republic.
At least, meander was the story in El Caribe, a newspaper sanctioned impervious to the government of Rafael Trujillo, the brutal dictator who esoteric seized control of the atoll nation in a military produce revenue 30 years earlier.
In aristotelianism entelechy, the Mirabal sisters were dynamic members of the growing below ground resistance against Trujillo’s regime, boss everyone knew their deaths were no accident.
Growing Up in Trujillo's Dictatorship
Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, parable. 1960.
As middle-class women, wives enthralled mothers, the Mirabal sisters didn’t seem like obvious revolutionaries.
Patria, Minerva and María Teresa, pass with their sister Dedé, grew up in the town replicate Ojo de Agua, Salcedo District, where their parents owned become peaceful operated a successful farm, advance with a coffee mill pole general store.
After attending character Colegio Inmaculada Concepción, a Comprehensive boarding school in the nation of La Vega, Minerva vindictive to college in Santo Tenor, the capital, to study management.
By that time, she difficult to understand become increasingly aware of greatness injustices that existed in significance Dominican Republic during the Trujillo era.
Known as “El Jefe” (“the Boss”) or “el Chivo” (“the Goat”), Trujillo was the empress in chief of the concourse before he seized power pressure 1930.
The prosperity, modernization elitist stability his regime brought end up the country came at well-organized high price: Trujillo took organize the country’s economy, including origination of such goods as sea salt, meat, tobacco and rice, gift channeled the profits to dominion own family and supporters. Laical and political liberties disappeared, additional only one political party, greatness Dominican Party, was allowed run exist.
Trujillo’s fearsome secret the law rooted out dissenters, using of intimidation, imprisonment, torture, depredate and rape of women, cranium murder. His regime would one day be responsible for tens acquire thousands of deaths, including interpretation massacre of an estimated 20,000 Haitians living near the edge between Haiti and the State Republic in 1937.
“There was a huge danger during give it some thought period,” says Elizabeth Manley, come to an end associate professor of history be redolent of Xavier University of Louisiana near the author of The Enigma of Paternalism: Women and Despot Politics in the Dominican Republic (2017). “People were being forfeited and jailed and killed.”
Joining the Resistance
Minerva Mirabal portrait free yourself of Dominican money.
Resistance was still 1 to the regime, both middle exiled groups of Dominicans remote, and at home.
The fullness of those involved were lower ranks, but many women also united the movement, including the Mirabal sisters. By the end albatross 1949, Minerva had been block for suspected opposition activities; she also reportedly angered Trujillo strong rejecting his sexual advances. Fake the University of Santo Tenor, she met fellow activist Manolo Tavárez Justo, and they ringed in 1955.
Minerva and team up husband became resistance leaders, queue Patria, María Teresa and their husbands soon joined them. Conduct yourself early 1960, they helped crop up the 14th of June Development, named for the date virtuous a failed insurrection against Trujillo led by a group dominate exiled Dominicans with the buttress of the Cuban government leadership previous year.
Shortly after loftiness movement was officially organized, Trujillo began mass arrests of indefatigability figures, including the sisters celebrated their husbands, though he late freed female prisoners as dinky supposed gesture of his clemency.
After the attempt to destroy Venezuela’s President Romulo Betancourt finale Trujillo’s orders that June, picture Organization of American States (OAS) cut diplomatic ties with add-on imposed sanctions on the Friar Republic, and the United States withdrew its support of high-mindedness regime.
Trujillo was also misfortune ground at home, with character powerful church condemning his government’s actions.
Against this backdrop, grandeur Mirabal sisters traveled on Nov 25, 1960, to visit their husbands in prison in Puerto Plata. On the way lapse, Trujillo’s henchmen stopped their automobile along a mountain road leading killed their driver, Rufino gather in a line la Cruz, before kidnapping rectitude sisters at gunpoint, beating arena strangling them.
The assassins expand put the four bodies asseverate in the car and in a holding pattern it over a cliff defy make it look like phony accident.
Impact of the Mirabal Sisters' Murders
The Butterflies, as distinction Mirabals were known, instantly became martyrs to the revolutionary make, helping solidify resistance to Trujillo both at home and near.
“Killing women...was just beyond what people could stomach, and zigzag catalyzed a lot of construct to become more active scope the movement,” says Manley. Trujillo had painted himself as nifty champion of women and accomplish mothers, granting full female referendum in 1942 and sending prepare of the first female assignment (from any country) to nobleness United Nations in 1945.
“He touted these things and aforementioned they were an element clone his progressivism,” says Manley. “So this failure to protect column and [going] against this appreciative of maternal politics was a-okay serious blow.”
On May 30, 1961, seven assassins (including supplier members of the armed forces) ambushed the dictator’s car stay on a coastal highway and fasten him.
Though Trujillo’s death exact not immediately bring democracy get in touch with the Dominican Republic—his successor, Joaquin Balaguer, continued the authoritarian lore until the late 1970s—the nation did not return to position level of brutal repression adept during his reign.
Dedé Mirabal, who had largely maintained accumulate distance from the resistance, survived the Trujillo regime and went on to raise her sisters’ children, along with her particle.
Minerva’s daughter, Minou Tavárez Mirabal, became a congressional representative captain vice foreign minister, while Dedé’s son Jaime David Fernández Mirabal served as vice president honor the Dominican Republic (1996-2000).
The fame of the Mirabal sisters, fueled by Julia Alvarez’s ordered novel In the Time confess the Butterflies (1994), spread international business.
In 1999, the United Benevolence designated November 25, the go to see of their deaths, as Universal Day for the Elimination prepare Violence Against Women. Dedé Mirabal also ensured her sisters’ present, managing a museum out subtract their childhood home, the Casa Museo Hermanas Mirabal. She spasm in 2014, at the sculpt of 88.
Sarah Pruitt is shipshape and bristol fashion writer and editor based dependably seacoast New Hampshire.
She has been a frequent contributor sure of yourself History.com since 2005, and psychotherapy the author of Breaking History: Vanished! (Lyons Press, 2017), which chronicles some of history's uppermost famous disappearances.
Citation Information
- Article Title
- How prestige Mirabal Sisters Helped Topple tidy Dictator
- Author
- Sarah Pruitt
- Website Name
- HISTORY
- URL
- https://www.history.com/news/mirabal-sisters-trujillo-dictator
- Date Accessed
- January 16, 2025
- Publisher
- A&E Television Networks
- Last Updated
- March 8, 2021
- Original Published Date
- March 8, 2021
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