Luisa Capetillo

Luisa Capetillo
Portrait of Capetillo, c. 1913
Born	Luisa Capetillo Perón October 28, 1882 Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Spanish Empire
Died	April 10, 1922(1922-04-10) (aged 39) Río Piedras, Puerto Rico
Occupation	Writer, labor organizer, journalist

Luisa Capetillo Perón (October 28, 1882 – April 10, 1922) was a Puerto Rican labor organizer, writer, journalist, and cigar factory reader. She organized workers in Puerto Rico, the Republic of Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. She also published four books in her lifetime, covering a wide variety of forms, genres, and topics. As an anarcha-feminist and social anarchist, she advocated for free love, universal education, women's rights, and collective ownership of scientific advances while opposing state control.

Capetillo was born in Arecibo, in the Captaincy General of Puerto Rico. Her father taught her to read and write, and she read extensively, including works by influential political thinkers. In 1897, she took Manuel Ledesma, the son of a wealthy aristocrat, as her lover. The two separated in 1900, but their relationship influenced her later feminist works. She began writing for the local newspaper in 1904, and in 1905, she became involved with the Free Federation of Workers (Spanish: Federación Libre de Trabajadores de Puerto Rico, FLT), an anarcho-syndicalist union, helping organize an agricultural strike in Arecibo. In 1906, she became a reader at a cigar factory, reading to the cigar makers as they worked and meeting members of the FLT-affiliated Federation of Tobacco Rollers (Spanish: Federación de Torcedores de Tabaco, FTT), becoming a leader in the FLT over time. Starting in 1912, she moved across the Atlantic and Caribbean, writing and organizing workers. In 1915, she was arrested in Cuba for wearing trousers and deported back to Puerto Rico. She continued to travel and organize until her death in 1922.

Interest in Capetillo's life surged in 1990 with the publication of the biography Luisa Capetillo, historia de una mujer proscrita (transl. Luisa Capetillo, History of an Outlawed Woman) by journalist Norma Valle Ferrer. After this, Capetillo became the subject of a docudrama series, and in 2014, the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico honored her with a plaque in the Plaza in Honor of Puerto Rican Women in San Juan. She is considered one of Puerto Rico's first feminists and, according to historian Jorrell A. Meléndez-Badillo, she was an influential node in an anarchist "counter-republic of letters": a network of writers who used their writing as a form of political struggle.

Early life

Luisa Capetillo Perón was born on October 28, 1882, in Arecibo, Puerto Rico—at the time part of the Spanish Empire. Her mother and father both moved there from Europe in the mid-1870s seeking economic opportunity. Her father, a Spaniard named Luis Capetillo Echevarría, worked as an administrator at an amusement park. When he ran into financial problems, he found employment as a seasonal laborer in various industries, including agriculture, construction, and dock work. Her mother, a Frenchwoman named Luisa Margarita Perón, worked as a governess for a wealthy family before becoming a laundry worker. The two were cohabiting but not legally married when Luisa was born. Capetillo was baptized at the Cathedral of St. Philip the Apostle on June 24, 1890, when she was seven years old.

Capetillo's father taught her to read and write, though he left Capetillo and her mother sometime during her teenage years and never returned. She also received some formal schooling, including at the Doña María Sierra Soler private school, where she received diplomas in geography, grammar, history, religious history, and reading. She read extensively, including works by political thinkers such as George Sand, John Stuart Mill, Madeleine Vernet, and Peter Kropotkin.

Capetillo often accompanied her mother to the wealthy estates at which she worked. One of these estates belonged to Don Gregorio Ledesma, the marquess of Arecibo and the leader of the Unconditional Spanish Party, which represented the interests of conservative Spaniards on the island. There, Capetillo met Gregorio's son Manuel, and Manuel's friend Dr. Susoni, who competed for her affections. Capetillo and Manuel became lovers in 1897. That year, Capetillo gave birth to the couple's first child, Manuela. Manuel also inherited his father's properties and title. Around 1899, Capetillo gave birth to a second child, Gregorio. The children lived with Capetillo's mother while Capetillo herself moved between her family home and the Ledesma estate. Capetillo and Manuel's relationship was loving but turbulent. He expected her to be a dutiful wife and mother and to remain home at all times. They separated for unclear reasons around 1900. After the end of the relationship, Capetillo and Manuel initially remained on friendly terms, with Manuel legally recognizing their children, providing financial support for them, and enrolling Manuela in boarding school. Capetillo's relationship with Manuel influenced her later feminist writings, in which she regularly discusses the love she felt for him and the nature of their relationship.

Journalism and early organizing

Capetillo began writing for the local Arecibo newspaper in 1904. Her writings were pro-trade union and influenced by anarchist thought. In January 1905, she helped organize an agricultural workers' strike in the town, leading marches and reading to striking workers from atop benches in the local plaza. This strike was part of a broader agricultural strike in northern Puerto Rico led by the Free Federation of Workers (Spanish: Federación Libre de Trabajadores de Puerto Rico, FLT), an anarcho-syndicalist union. During the strike in Arecibo, police threatened to shoot into the crowds of striking workers. When it ended in February, workers received a 15–30% wage increase and a ten-hour workday, though they had initially asked for eight hours.

In 1906, Capetillo became a reader at a cigar factory. Cigar factory readers stood on elevated platforms to read newspapers and other literature to cigar makers as they worked. She also worked independently as a seamstress, making blouses and handkerchiefs from her home. As a reader, Capetillo encountered members of the labor movement, including members of the Federation of Tobacco Rollers (Spanish: Federación de Torcedores de Tabaco, FTT), an affiliate of the FLT. She became a prominent FLT leader, traveling throughout Puerto Rico to gain support from workers and other labor leaders. In 1907, she published her first book, Ensayos libertarios (transl. 'Libertarian Essays'), in which she advocates for an egalitarian society, portrays life as a conflict between workers and capitalists, and accuses the clergy of hypocrisy and selfishness. As she became more involved in the labor movement, her relationship with Manuel soured. He withdrew his financial support from her and took custody of their children, barring her from seeing them.

Capetillo participated in the FLT's Fifth Workers' Congress in 1908. Women's suffrage was debated at the congress, with Capetillo arguing that the union should support all women's right to vote. While some wealthy and middle-class women argued that suffrage should only be granted to educated, literate women, the union ultimately supported universal suffrage, becoming one of its strongest supporters in Puerto Rico during the early twentieth century. In 1909, Capetillo helped promote the magazine Unión Obrera (transl. 'Labor Union'), for which she wrote, and began publishing her own magazine, La Mujer (transl. 'The Woman'). She also helped organize the FLT's Cruzada del Ideal (transl. 'Crusade for Ideals'), traveling across the island to host workshops and talk to workers about the union.

In 1910, Capetillo published her second book, La humanidad en el futuro (transl. 'Humanity in the Future'), a utopian story about a general strike. She published her third book, Mi opinión sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer como compañera, madre y ser independiente (transl. 'My Opinion on the Freedoms, Rights, and Duties of Women as Partners, Mothers, and Independent Beings', henceforth Mi opinión...), in 1911. The book includes essays discussing marriage, sex education, sex work, women's history, and women's rights. Capetillo also began a relationship with a married pharmacist in Arecibo around 1911, giving birth to her third child, Luis. Because Luis's father was already married, he refused to recognize Luis as his son. As a result, Luis went to live at Capetillo's mother's home.

Transnational activism

Capetillo moved to New York City in 1912. This move was part of a broader migration of Puerto Ricans to New York during the early twentieth century. While living there, she met Hispanic cigar makers and wrote for the anarchist newspapers Cultura obrera (transl. 'Working Class Culture'), Brazo y cerebro (transl. 'Muscle and Mind'), and Fuerza consciente (transl. 'Conscious Power'). In 1913, she moved to Ybor City, Florida, where many Hispanic cigar makers lived and worked. She lived with a German machinist there and probably worked as a reader, forming close working relationships with other labor organizers.

In 1914, Capetillo moved to Cuba, where she lived in Havana and Cárdenas. She worked with the Anarchist Federation of Cuba, drawing the suspicion of local authorities due to her connections with anarchist and labor activists. In 1915, she helped organize a sugarcane workers' strike, publicly advocated for the establishment of worker cooperatives, and supported an anarchist manifesto denouncing the Cuban government's repression of organized labor. Because of these activities, Cuban President Mario García Menocal ordered her deportation.

Unrelated to the deportation order, Capetillo was arrested for wearing trousers in public on July 24, 1915. According to researcher Araceli Tinajero, the arresting officer claimed that her attire was "immoral" and "causing a scene". Press reactions to her arrest were split. Mainstream papers ridiculed her and the anarchist movement in general, while the radical press defended her right to dress how she wanted. At her trial, Capetillo argued that no law forbade women from wearing trousers and that trousers were more comfortable and hygienic for modern working women. The judge was rendered speechless. He released her, but she was deported to Puerto Rico in 1916.

Later life and death

By 1920 or 1921, Capetillo had returned to Puerto Rico. There, she campaigned for the Socialist Party, which supported universal suffrage. Capetillo's biographer Norma Valle Ferrer states that this was "an apparent contradiction of her anarchist ideals", as classical anarchists opposed electoralism in favor of spontaneous revolution. Her reasons for supporting the party are unknown.

While living in a small, under-construction house in Buen Consejo, Capetillo suffered an attack of tuberculosis, which she had contracted during her travels abroad. On April 10, 1922, accompanied by her son Luis, she went to the municipal hospital in Río Piedras, where she died. A delegation of FLT organizers accompanied her body back to her house, and she was buried in the municipal cemetery the next day.