Luis Padial

Luis Padial (full name: Luis Padial y Vizcarrondo; born February 6, 1832 in San Juan , Puerto Rico , † March 5, 1879 in Madrid , Spain ) was a brigadier , politician and one of the most important abolitionists in Puerto Rico.

Born into a wealthy family, Padial received his education at the best private schools in San Juan. His parents then sent him to Toledo , where he was to begin a military career.

Padial attended the Military Academy of Toledo and was appointed lieutenant in the Spanish Army upon graduation . In 1863 he was stationed in Puerto Rico when a rebellion of independence fighters occurred in the Dominican Republic . Padial's battalion was tasked with crushing the rebellion. He was seriously injured in an altercation and went back to Puerto Rico to care for his wounds. After seeing for himself how cruelly the Dominicans were treated by the Spanish, he came to believe that their quest for independence was noble and just. After his recovery, he therefore campaigned for the cause of the Dominican Republic, which ended in December 1864 on the orders of the Spanish governor General Messina with his deportation from Puerto Rico.

Padial went to Spain and there joined the Liberals who, under the command of General Primm , wanted to overthrow Queen Isabella II's Spanish monarchy and replace it with a republic. Padial organized an attack from Portugal in 1866 and another from France in 1867 . After the rebels achieved their goal in 1868, he was appointed Brigadier of the Madrid Battalion.

Upon his return to Puerto Rico, Padial was appointed representative of the island at the Spanish court in 1869. On November 13 of the same year, he wrote a letter to the Minister for Overseas, Segismundo Moret, demanding more autonomy for Puerto Rico and the abolition of slavery along the lines of Canada . On November 19, 1872, together with Román Baldorioty de Castro , Julio Vizcarrondo and Moret, he presented a second proposal on abolitionism, which the Spanish government approved on March 22, 1873 and which became known as the Moret Act.

In 1874, Padial went into voluntary exile in Switzerland when the Spanish monarchy came back to power. In January 1879 he returned to Spain, where he died shortly afterwards.