Born in the town of Bayamón, Puerto Rico in 1857, Jose Celso Barbosa was the son of modest Puerto Rican artisans of primarily African, but also European and Amerindian ancestry. Through the efforts of an aunt, Barbosa became the first non-white student in the Jesuit school on the island. While most Puerto Ricans of his time went to Spain to continue their studies, Barbosa went to the United States to study at the University of Michigan, where he majored in medicine.
In the United States, Barbosa came to greatly admire the democratic principles of liberty and justice found in the Constitution. After returning to the island, Dr. Barbosa was involved in the Spanish republican movement and participated actively in politics. Dr. Barbosa met Puerto Rico’s change of sovereignty following the Spanish-American War with enthusiasm, and within a year, he founded the Puerto Rican Republican Party.
From that moment on, Dr. Barbosa’s ideal was American statehood for Puerto Rico, and he rejected all other forms of government as politically inferior. Although he favored political integration with the United States, he also strongly believed that Puerto Rico should retain its Spanish language and culture.
From 1900 to 1917, Dr. Barbosa served as a member of the island’s Executive Council, and he was instrumental in gaining American citizenship for Puerto Ricans under the Jones Act, passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law in 1917. In 1907, he founded El Tiempo newspaper. From 1917 to 1921, he was a member of the Puerto Rico Senate.
Though he never presided over a political party, Dr. Barbosa was the intellectual architect of the Puerto Rican Republican Party. Because of his strong convictions regarding the benefits of statehood for Puerto Ricans, Dr. Barbosa became known as the Father of the Statehood Movement. He also distinguished himself as a doctor, a science professor, a promoter of cooperatives, co-founder of the first island credit union and a newspaper columnist.
Dr. Jose Celso Barbosa died in San Juan in 1921.
