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The Mirabal sisters ( ) were four sisters from the Dominican Republic, three of whom (Patria, Minerva and María Teresa) opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo (el Jefe) and were involved in activities against his regime. The three sisters were assassinated on 25 November 1960. The last sister, Adela (known as Dedé), who was not involved in political activities at the time, died of natural causes on 1 February 2014.
Of the sisters, Minerva was the one who had the most active role in politics. She and her husband founded the 14 June Revolutionary Movement. Maria Teresa also became involved in the Movement. The oldest sister, Patria, did not have the same level of political activity as her other sisters, but she supported them. She lent her house to store weapons and tools from the insurgents.
The sisters are considered national heroines of the Dominican Republic. Their remains rest in a mausoleum that was declared an extension of the National Pantheon, located in the Hermanas Mirabal House-Museum, the last residence of the sisters. The assassinations turned the Mirabal sisters into "symbols of both popular and feminist resistance". In 1999, in their honor, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
When Trujillo came to power, the family lost almost their entire fortune. The sisters, especially Minerva, believed that the dictatorship was ruining the country, so they participated in the creation and organization of the 14 June Revolutionary Movement. Within this group, they were known as Las Mariposas (The Butterflies). Two of the sisters, Minerva and María Teresa, were imprisoned on several occasions in both La Victoria and La 40 prisons. They and their husbands were subjected to torture during the Trujillo regime. Despite these facts, they continued to fight against the dictatorship.
Patria had three children. She once said "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."
At university, she met her husband, Manolo Tavárez Justo, who would help her fight the Trujillo regime. Minerva was the most vocal and radical of the Mirabal daughters. According to the theologian Nancy Pineda-Madrid, she was arrested and harassed on multiple occasions on orders given by Trujillo himself. According to the historian Bernard Diederich, Minerva Mirabal was arrested twice. She was first jailed in January 1960, at the start of the wave of repression of 1J4 members where "hundreds of 1J4 members are rounded up and tortured". She stated, "It is a source of happiness to do whatever can be done for our country that suffers so many anguishes. It is sad to stay with one's arms crossed."
Later in her life, María Teresa dated Leandro Guzmán. While dating, before Leandro was allowed to hold María Teresa's hand, she asked him how his family felt about Trujillo. Leandro responded, "... there's no problem. At home, that was the first thing I learned... to hate Trujillo." After this response María Teresa let him hold her hand and they eventually married after she finished her education. María Teresa was influenced by her older sister Minerva's political views and was involved in the clandestine activities against Trujillo's regime. As a result, she was harassed and arrested on the direct orders of Trujillo. She greatly admired her older sister Minerva and became passionate about Minerva's political views. She once said, "Perhaps what we have most near is death, but that idea does not frighten me. We shall continue to fight for that which is just."
The husbands of Minerva, María Teresa, and Patria were among the leaders of 14 June Movement, nicknamed 1J4. The movement was created in support, and then in honor, of the Dominican rebels who were killed while attempting to overthrow the Rafael Trujillo regime. (1978). 9780316184403, Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316184403 Everyone in the family, including Patria's teenaged children, helped distribute pamphlets about the many people whom Trujillo had killed, and obtained materials for guns and bombs to use when they eventually openly revolted. Within the group, the sisters called themselves Las Mariposas ("The Butterflies"), after Minerva's underground name. The secret movement was discovered weeks after its founding leading to Patria's house (where the group met) being burned to the ground and María Teresa and Minerva's arrests.
In 1960, Minerva and María Teresa were incarcerated from 22 January to 7 February, then from 18 May to 9 August. They were not tortured due to mounting international opposition to Trujillo's regime. Patria was never arrested, but her husband and son were jailed. The three husbands were incarcerated in January at La Victoria Penitentiary in Santo Domingo, and then, in November, two of them were transferred to Puerto Plata.
In 1960, the Organization of American States condemned Trujillo's actions and sent observers. Minerva and María Teresa were freed, but their husbands remained in prison.
After Trujillo was assassinated on 30 May 1961, General Pupo Román admitted to having personal knowledge that the sisters were killed by Victor Alicinio Peña Rivera (Trujillo's ) along with Ciriaco de la Rosa, Ramon Emilio Rojas, Alfonso Cruz Valeria, and Emilio Estrada Malleta, members of his secret police force. As to whether Trujillo ordered the killings or whether the secret police acted on its own, one historian wrote, "We know orders of this nature could not come from any authority lower than national sovereignty. That was none other than Trujillo himself; still less could it have taken place without his assent." Also, one of the murderers, Ciriaco de la Rosa, said "I tried to prevent the disaster, but I could not because if I had he, Trujillo, would have killed us all."
However, the details of the Mirabal sisters' assassinations were "treated gingerly at the official level" until 1996, when President Joaquín Balaguer was forced to step down after more than two decades in power. Balaguer was Trujillo's protégé and had been the president at the time of the assassinations in 1960 (though, at the time, he "distanced himself from General Trujillo and initially carved out a more moderate political stance").
A review of the history curriculum in public schools in 1997 recognized the Mirabals as national martyrs. The post-Balaguer era has seen a marked increase in homages to the Mirabal sisters, including an exhibition of their belongings at the National Museum of History and Geography in Santo Domingo.
After the assassinations, the surviving sister, Dedé, devoted her life to the legacy of her sisters. She raised their six children, including Minou Tavárez Mirabal, Minerva's daughter, who has served as deputy for the National District in the lower house of the Dominican Congress since 2002 and was deputy foreign minister before that (1996–2000). Of Dedé's own three children, Jaime David Fernández Mirabal was the minister for environment and natural resources and a former vice president of the Dominican Republic. In 1992, Dedé created the Mirabal Sisters Foundation, and in 1994, she opened the Mirabal Sisters Museum in the sisters' hometown, Salcedo. She published a book, Vivas en su Jardín, on 25 August 2009. Its English edition is announced for 25 February 2025. She lived in the house in Salcedo where the sisters were born until her death in 2014, aged 88.
Hermanas Mirabal station of the Santo Domingo Metro is named to honor the Mirabal sisters.
The 200 bill features the sisters, and a Postage stamp was issued in their memory. The 137-foot obelisk that Trujillo built in 1935 to commemorate the renaming of the capital city from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo has been covered with honoring the sisters. In 1997, the telecommunications company CODETEL (now Claro) sponsored a mural by Elsa Núñez. Every few years, the mural changes. In 2005, Amaya Salazar created one. In 2011, Banco del Progreso sponsored Dustin Muñoz to redo the mural.
In 2019, the southeast corner of 168th street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, New York City, US, was designated Mirabal Sisters Way by the Council of the City of New York. In addition, a school campus in Washington Heights is named Mirabal Sisters Campus.
In 2019, Time created 89 new covers to celebrate women of the year starting from 1920; it chose the three political Mirabal sisters for 1960.
Being globally recognized as a symbol of social justice and feminism, the sisters have inspired the creation of many organizations that focus on keeping their legacy alive through social actions. In 2021, Rosa Hernández de Grullón, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic in France, inaugurated a plaque in Paris in honor of the famous Dominican resistance fighters murdered under the Trujillo dictatorship in 1960. The Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center, a non-profit organization that seeks to improve the status of immigrant families.
Legacy
On 17 December 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in honor of the sisters. It marks the beginning of a 16-day period of Activism against Gender Violence. The last day of that period, 10 December, is International Human Rights Day. On 21 November 2007, Salcedo Province was renamed Hermanas Mirabal Province.
In popular culture
Streets named in their memory
See also
External links
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