The International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women takes place every year on 25th November. The date was chosen in honour of Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal, commonly known as ‘Las Mariposas’, three sisters from the Dominican Republic who were assassinated for their resistance against Rafael Trujillo, the then-dictator of the country.
Over his 31-year rule, Trujillo (El Jefe) attempted to portray himself as a champion of women; he granted full female suffrage in 1942 and, in 1945, sent one of the first female delegates from any nation to the United Nations. In reality, this was an incredibly thin smokescreen for the mass murder, rape, imprisonment, torture, and other atrocities that happened under him. Tens of thousands people were massacred during the Trujillo regime and his brutality was causing widespread dissent and rumblings of revolution across the Dominican Republic.
Although perhaps it shouldn’t have been considering the massacre of 20,000 Haitians now known as the Parsley Massacre, the murder of the Mirabals was one of the most inflammatory crimes committed by Trujillo. The three sisters were powerful women who had great influence in their community, and the event was the push needed to bring down the regime.
Enrique Mirabal Fernández and Mercedes Reyes Camilo had four daughters, Patria, Bélgica (Dedé), Minerva, and María Teresa. The family were considered part of the social elite and all four girls were well-educated. Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa attended college; Dedé chose not to and instead helped Enrique with the family business. She also did not get involved in her sisters’ political activities.
The entire family were revolutionary in their way, and they were certainly considered as opposition to Trujillo. It was customary during the dictatorship to have a picture of El Jefe in every household; the Mirabals never did.
Minerva was the first of the sisters to become involved in politics. While at college, she discovered that a friend’s father had been murdered for being in opposition to the regime and so she entered into the movements. She was arrested in 1949 over suspected oppositional activities and she reportedly rejected Trujillo’s sexual advances, thus angering him.
Minerva was soon followed first by María Teresa, who discovered her sister’s activities whilst staying with her, and then by Patria, who personally witnessed a massacre whilst on a religious retreat. Together, and along with their husbands, they started a grassroots organisation comprised of both men and women to educate people and expose the regime. They also founded the Movimiento 14 de Junio, an underground political group named for the date of a failed insurrection against Trujillo which had taken place the year prior.
The group was – out of obvious necessity – incredibly secretive. They switched meeting place every time and kept watch for the secret police. The members all had codenames, the sisters becoming known as Las Mariposas – the Butterflies in Spanish.
Unfortunately, the severe restrictions of the dictatorship meant that the group were uncovered and mass arrests began. All three Mariposas as well as their husbands were imprisoned, alongside numerous others; the group bore the brunt of Trujillo’s ‘campaign of terror’ throughout 1960. Those who were detained were subjected to torture and female prisoners suffered rape.
As a ‘gesture of goodwill’, Trujillo eventually released all female prisoners on parole. At this time, the dictator was somewhat losing his footing, with the Dominican church condemning his actions and the Organisation of American States (OAS) imposing sanctions on the country after Trujillo authorised an assassination attempt on Venezuela’s president.
The Mirabal’s husbands had not been released, but Trujillo was aware that the sisters posed a greater threat to him. In secret, the dictator plotted to eliminate them.
On 25th November 1960, the sisters went to visit their husbands in Puerto Plata prison, located in a far off mountainous region. They made it to the prison safely, but the journey back would be their last. While crossing a bridge, they were forced to stop as their path was blocked by the secret police. The sisters and their driver, Rufino de la Cruz, were pulled from the vehicle and taken to a nearby cane field, where they were beaten and strangled to death. They were then put back in the car, which was pushed over a cliff in an attempt to make the deaths look like an accident.
Patria was 36, Minerva 32, and María Teresa 25.
Very few people were fooled by the headlines. The three sisters became martyrs to their cause and rage at Trujillo boiled over. He was assassinated six months later.
The deaths were not officially recognised until the 1990s, at which points the sisters became national martyrs and were incorporated into history lessons.
After her sisters’ deaths, Dedé, the final Mirabal, received a note telling her, ‘the Butterflies had flown free of this life’. She subsequently took in her nieces and nephews and, between 1992 and 1994, began the Mirabal Sisters Foundation and the Mirabal Sisters museum.
Dedé died in 2014 at the age of 88.
We cannot allow our children to grow up in this corrupt and tyrannical regime. We have to fight against it, and I am willing to give up everything, even my life if necessary.
Patria Mirabal
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