Mathias Brugman

Mathias Brugman

Mathias Brugman (also Mathias Bruckman ; born January 3, 1811 in New Orleans , Louisiana , USA , † September 30, 1868 in Yauco , Puerto Rico ) was one of the leaders in the Grito de Lares uprising for the independence of Puerto Rico.

Life

The son of Pierre Brugman from Curaçao , who comes from a Dutch family, and the Puerto Rican Isabel Duliebre, he was born in New Orleans, where he also completed his training.

Brugman later moved with his family to Mayagüez , Puerto Rico, where he married Ana Maria Lalorde. He had relatively great success with a colmado (grocery store), but he lost a substantial portion of his fortune trying to grow coffee.

Like many other residents of the island, he was opposed to the political injustice that emanated from the Spanish. That is why he campaigned for the independence movement and admired Ramón Emeterio Betances and Segundo Ruiz Belvis .

People met in his calmado to discuss politics. Brugman met Manuel Rojas and his brother Miguel know and joined the conspiratorial revolt against the Spaniards. Together with other patriots, they founded several cells of a revolutionary committee in the cities of the west coast. The first establishment of this kind was that of Mathias Brugman in Mayagüez, who used his shop as headquarters and the code name "Capa Pietro", while Manuel Rojas founded the "Centro Bravo" in Lares.

On September 23, 1868, the revolution began with the capture of Lares at the Grito de Lares . The revolutionaries declared the island a free "Republic of Puerto Rico", but the forewarned Spaniards quickly defeated the small army of the liberators.

Mathias Brugman fled to hiding with Baldomero Baurer, while other rebels were killed or - like Manuel Rojas and Mariana Bracetti - arrested. On September 30, 1868, farm worker Francisco Qiñones, who worked on the Asuncion Plantation, betrayed Brugman and Baurer and led the Spaniards to their hiding place. The two rebels resisted and were executed.

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