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In The Time Of The Butterflies – Julia Alvarez (said by Minerva Mirabal)

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MIRABAL SISTERS

Three sisters who were assassinated by their president

d. 1960

The Mirabal sisters were four sisters from the Dominican Republic - Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa and Adela. They were born into a middle-class upbringing and attended university.

Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa opposed the leadership of Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo ruled between 1930-1961, and became the commander-in-chief of the Dominican army and eventually president. The US initially supported Trujillo when he became president in 1930, as he wasn’t a communist and believed he was a stable choice. Trujillo was corrupt and was involved in kidnappings, disappearances, murder and the rape. During his reign, he would have women attend his parties, when the sisters attended his party he propositioned Minerva, she refused. He didn’t like being told ‘no’, so she slapped him and she and her sisters left. To punish Minerva, he had her father imprisoned and tortured - the sisters wanted revenge. When Minerva and her mother were staying at a hotel, they were locked in the room until Minerva gave in and had sex with him. Instead of giving in, mother and daughter fled.

Minerva founded the June 14 Revolutionary Movement with her husband Manolo Tavarez Justo, where her sister Maria also became involved. Patria didn’t have as much interest in political activity as her sisters but supported them and let them use her house to store weapons. They plotted to have Trujillo assassinated with bombs at a cattle fair he was to attend. Trujillo discovered the plot and the sisters were arrested and imprisoned. He released the sisters but kept their husbands in a remote prison.

The sisters and their driver, Rufino de la Cruz were on their way to visit their husbands on 25 November 1960. On the way the women were beaten to death by those who worked for Trujillo, their bodies were left inside the vehicle and their car was pushed off a cliff to make it appear like an accident.

The public turned on Trujillo for all the crimes he had committed, including this one and the US no longer supported him. In 1961, Trujillo was assassinated in his car by a group of seven Dominican men. Adela survived and looked after her sisters children and died in 2014.

The women’s remains rest in a mausoleum that was declared an extension of the National Pantheon, in the Hermanas Mirabal House-Museum, where the sisters last lived.

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The Mirabal sisters

Las Hermanas Mirabal were revolutionary women in the Dominican Republic.

Usually known as Patria (1924-1960), Minerva (1925-1960), and María Teresa (1926-1960), the Mirabal sisters spoke out again the dictator Rafael Trujillo, nicknamed El Jefe. A fourth sister, Dedé (1925-2014) worked to tell their story.

In 1949, Minerva first met Trujillo, where she turn downed his sexual advances and was subsequently jailed and, for fear of her safety, prevented from attending law school for six years. She did eventually attend the University of Santo Domingo, where she graduated summa cum laude as the first woman to graduate from law school in the Dominican Republic.

This helped her and her sisters' interest in politics--and their hatred of the dictator (started years before, when Trujillo murdered their friend for political opposition). It was Minerva who first became involved against Trujillo, but first María Teresa and then Patria joined after witnessing the atrocities of the regime.

Their group, the 14th of June Movement, educated citizens about Trujillo's crimes and gathered weapons. They were discovered, and Minerva and María Teresa were jailed, as were the husbands of all three women.

On November 25th, 1960, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa were stopped by Trujillo's agents, where they were strangled and then clubbed to death. Multiple sources have since confessed this assassination was by direct order of Trujillo himself.

After this, Dedé Mirabal devoted the rest of her life to tell the story of her sisters and raising the children they had left behind. They have been recognized internationally as a symbol of social justice and feminism, and bravely standing against oppressive regimes. November 25th is now the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in remembrance of their assassination.

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Find out why TIME chose The Mirabal Sisters as some of the 100 women who defined the last century

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Forgotten Women Friday #23

The Mirabal Sisters- Active in the 1950s- Dominican Republic

“Butterflies of the Revolution”

The Mirabal Sisters are proof that anyone, even a group of three sisters, can ignite a revolutionary spark and topple governments. The Mirabal sisters-- Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Dede, were born into a well-to-do family in the Dominican Republic in in the 1920s and 30s. At this time, the Dominican was ruled by ruthless dictator, Rafael Trujillo, and it was a totalitarian nation where every citizen lived in fear. Like most dictators, Trujillo had a secret police, controlled all aspects of the media, and managed to “disappear” his enemies. In addition, Trujillo had “beauty scouts” that would search the country for women and girls for Trujillo to date and/or rape. The Mirabal sisters were found by one of these scouts and invited to one of Trujillo’s parties, where it quickly became obvious that Minerva was the object of his desire.

Minerva wasn’t about to go quietly. Instead, she slapped Trujillo across the face and ran out of the party with her family. However, Trujillo sought revenge and barred her from attending her law school classes and after she found a way to graduate from law school, Trujillo’s government revoked her law license. Trujillo even imprisoned the father of the Mirabal sisters, who later died from the brutal treatment he received in prison. Later, when Minerva and her mother traveled to Santo Domingo, Trujillo had them kept as prisoners in their hotel, only to be released if Minerva had sex with him. Minerva refused Trujillo’s advances again, and she and her mother managed to escape. After facing such intense persecution and pain at the hands of Trujillo, Patria, Maria Teresa, and their husbands joined Minerva in rebellion. They began to distribute pamphlets, gather weapons, and build bombs at their kitchen table, all while going by the code name Las Mariposas (the butterflies). As Patria put it, “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." When the group’s plan to assassinate Trujillo in 1960 failed, they were all imprisoned but later released due to international pressure.

Refusing to give up, Trujillo put a hit on all of their heads. To set them up, Trujillo imprisoned their husbands in a jail that could only be reached by a narrow mountain pass. When secret police ambushed their jeep on the way to the jail, Patria managed to get word to a nearby truck driver that Trujillo’s men were about to kill them. Sure enough, Trujillo’s men killed the three Mirabal sisters by strangling and beating them. In a clumsy attempt to cover up the murder, the men put the bodies of the sisters in the truck and then pushed the vehicle over a cliff. However, they did not die in vain-- Their deaths lit the spark of revolution in the Dominican and six months later Trujillo was dead at the hands of the military. As one historian put it, “the cowardly killing of three beautiful women in such a manner had greater effect on Dominicans than most of Trujillo’s other crimes… It did something to their machismo. They could never forgive Trujillo this crime.” Today, their legacy lives on: their image can be found on Dominican paper money, the book In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez is loosely based on their lives, and the United Nations designated November 25th as International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in their honor.