War Against All Puerto Ricans

Nelson A. Denis's investigative history examines more than fifty years of U.S. colonial rule over Puerto Rico, centered on the 1950 Nationalist Party uprising against American authority.

The book is told through the life of Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Nationalist Party and the first Puerto Rican graduate of Harvard Law School, who spent twenty-five years in prison and died under disputed circumstances. It recounts the gunfights, prison riots and political intrigue of the uprising, including the U.S. Army's bombing of two Puerto Rican towns — the first time the U.S. government bombed its own citizens.

Drawing on declassified FBI files, congressional testimony, oral histories and eyewitness accounts, Denis documents the suppression of Puerto Rico's independence movement, the replacement of Spanish-language instruction with English, and the transfer of the island's land and economy to U.S. corporations.