The Cadets of the Republic were founded and organized in the 1930s by Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

Some members of the cadets participated in the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party revolts of the 1950s against United States colonial rule.

By the 1930s many students, who were also members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and influenced by the teachings of Albizu Campos, joined the Patriotas Jóvenes organization.

Besides the main city, San Juan also had a cadets corps in the sectors of Hato Rey, Santurce and Río Piedras.

United States government reports showed that by the mid-1930s, cadet membership was growing exponentially - particularly amongst younger members, aged 18 through 25.

[4] Isolina Rondón watched from her front door on Calle Brumbaugh, near the University of Puerto Rico, as the police shot into the car carrying the four Nationalists.

[6] At the time of the massacre the top-ranking police chief on the island was appointed by the American government—a former U.S. Army Colonel named Elisha Francis Riggs.

On February 23, 1936, Riggs was assassinated by Nationalists Hiram Rosado and Elías Beauchamp, both members of the Cadets, on his way home after attending Mass in San Juan's Cathedral.

However, Judge Robert A. Cooper called for a new jury, this time composed of ten Americans and two Puerto Ricans, and a guilty verdict was achieved.

The march had been organized by the Nationalist Party to commemorate the ending of slavery in Puerto Rico by the governing Spanish National Assembly in 1873.

[12][13] Raimundo Díaz Pacheco, who by then was the Comandante (Commander) of the Cadets of the Republic, and his brother Faustino were present when the peaceful march turned into a bloody police slaughter, which became known as the Ponce massacre.

Several days before the scheduled Palm Sunday march, Casimiro Berenguer, a military instructor of the cadets, and other organizers received legal permits for the peaceful protest from José Tormos Diego, the mayor of Ponce.

However, upon learning of the planned protest, the colonial governor of Puerto Rico at the time, General Blanton Winship (who had been appointed by US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt) demanded the immediate withdrawal of the permits.

[14] Without notice to the organizers, or any opportunity to appeal or any time to arrange an alternate venue, the permits were abruptly withdrawn just before the protest was scheduled to begin.

[14] Tomas López de Victoria, who at the time was the Captain of the Ponce branch of the cadets, ordered the band to play La Borinqueña, Puerto Rico's national anthem.

As the anthem was being played, the demonstrators—which included the Cadets and the women's branch of the Nationalist Party known as the Hijas de la Libertad (Daughters of Freedom)—began to march.

Leopold Tormes, a member of the Puerto Rico legislature, told reporters how a policeman murdered a nationalist with his bare hands.

On October 22, 1937, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order Number 7731 designating Martín Travieso, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, to perform and discharge the duties of Judge of the District Court of the United States for Puerto Rico in the trial against the Nationalists thereby permitting Judge Cooper to serve as a Government witness.

[1] On July 25, 1938, Governor Winship chose the city of Ponce for a military parade in commemoration of the 1898 invasion of Puerto Rico by the United States.

[19] The dead included Nationalist Cadet Ángel Esteban Antongiorgi and National Guard Colonel Luis Irizarry while thirty-six other people were wounded.

[citation needed] Winship proceeded to declare war against the Nationalists, in response to which Jaime Benítez Rexach, a student at the University of Chicago at the time, wrote a letter to President Roosevelt which in part read as follows: "The point I am to make is that the Governor (Winship) himself through his military approach to things has helped keep Puerto Rico in an unnecessary state of turmoil.

[1] Albizu Campos returned to Puerto Rico in 1947 after having been incarcerated for ten years in Atlanta, Georgia and Díaz Pacheco and the Cadets were among those who greeted him.

The objective of the revolt was to assassinate the Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Muñoz Marín, at his residence La Fortaleza.

The Fortaleza guards and police, who knew of the planned attack thanks to a double agent name E. Rivera Orellana, were already in defensive positions and returned fire.

[29] Díaz Pacheco aimed his sub-machine gun fire at the second floor of the mansion, where the executive offices of Governor Muñoz Marín were located.

He suddenly turned and sat on the steps and with his hands held up pleaded for mercy, his pleas however, were answered with a fusillade of gunfire.

A police officer and a detective from La Fortaleza with submachine guns approached the car and fired upon Hernández, Carlos Hiraldo Resto and Torres Medina.

[29] The revolt of October 1950 failed because of the overwhelming force used by the U.S. military, the U.S. National Guard, the FBI, the CIA, and the Puerto Rican Insular Police—all of whom were aligned against the Nationalists.

[1] Both of these men—Ramos Medina and Díaz Pacheco—provided the FBI with copious and detailed information about the membership, structure, funding, and activities of the Cadets of the Republic.

The Cointelpro program was a project conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.