Just a quick content warning before we start the show. There is talk of sexual abuse, gender based violence, and massacre in this episode, So if there are young ones around, or if that's something that you don't want to hear, please be aware of that. Something I think about, probably entirely too often, is the role that faith plays in my daily life. If you just rolled your eyes, know
that I don't mean this sentimentally. I mean a more practical faith, you know, the kind that gives me confidence to walk out into this world full of natural disaster and human apathy, The one that keeps me from refusing to ever take risks, and that doesn't let my anxiety take over every time it wants to the trust that I have every time I hop behind the will of my car or in the passenger seat of someone else's.
Maybe that word doesn't seem like it fits into a conversation about people who challenge norms thought unconventionally, analyze problems and found solutions, or lead revolutions with strategy and common sense.
The word faith is bedfellows with terms like optimism, faith, surrender, belief, so on and so forth, Basically words that, when used together, can make me seem like I'm trying to sell some sort of snake oil ones that can make it seem like logic and planning have no place here and all we need to get things done is the one and
only the reliable faith. But I don't think the people we talk about here on Unpopular would have the same stories if some degree of faith wasn't part of their story, if they didn't believe that what they were doing would make some sort of meaningful difference, or they didn't trust
that their movements had a chance of succeeding. For folks betting on a revolution or a complete reversal in society's way of being, or thinking, there may be no one to one precedent for the changes they're trying to make. That means that they may have to believe in an outcome for which there is no proof. There may be doubts or adjustments along the way, but challenging a status quo requires a person to envision a different future and to have conviction that the charge they're leading will help
steer society in that direction. I'd say that pursuing a goal or publicly supporting an idea so radical or exceptional that people may shun you or view you as a threat takes a leap of faith. I'm Eves Jeff Cote and This is Unpopular a podcast about people in history who didn't let the threat of persecution keep them from speaking truth to power. Today we turn our attention to the Meta Ball Sisters, Patria, Minerva, Maria and are collectively
known as the meat of Ball Sisters. They were born in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties in the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean country that borders Haiti on the island of Hispaniola. The United States pie the Dominican Republic from nineteen sixteen until nineteen twenty four, the year that the oldest meat of all Sister Patria was born. That same year, the US began withdrawing from the country, and Harasio Vasquez was elected President of the Dominican Republic with the backing of
the United States. I'm leaving out a lot of history here, but over the years, Hispaniola was the object of imperial lust, a place of strategic and economic importance, a site of racist violence, a breeding ground for rebellion and revolution, and an island where political and economic instability were normal. So
we arrived at Vasquez presidency. He took office in October of nineteen twenty four and held onto it until nineteen thirty, after having extended the presidential term to six years rather than four. His administration was corrupt and ineffective, and people began to call for his outst As the nineteen thirty elections approached, Raphael Estrea Na took power as provisional president
and Vasquez went into exile. General Raphael Leonita Trujillo Molina then won the presidential election as the only candidate, as he had forced the other candidates out of the election through intimidation and harassment. Estrea was named vice president. Truilla ruled the Dominican Republic as a dictator until nineteen sixty one. Under his regime, the press was censored and dissenters were tortured and killed. He appointed family members to important offices.
He controlled pretty much every part of society, including entertainment and education. He even renamed the capital and landmarks after himself, and he accumulated wealth by securing commissions on public works projects and taking ownership of land, airlines, and manufacturers. He even called for the massacre of thousands of Haitians and
Dominicans of Haitian dissent along the Dominican Haitian border. Despite thruos oppressive, totalitarian, and brutal regime, he built an image as a nationalist, upholder of Dominican values and a messiah who people feared yet admired. He did bring a modicum of political and economic stability to the country, though I'm saying this with the huge asterisk that in no way canceled out all the abuse, poverty, human rights violations, violence
and corruption rampant in the administration. It was under this regime that the meta Ball sisters lived. They were born in ojode Agua, a town in Salcedo and the Dominican Republic. Their parents were Enrique and Mercedes Mirabal, and they were part of a relatively well to do, middle class family. The four sisters attended the Coleo Immaculata Concepcion, a Catholic boarding school in La Vega. They all married and had children. Maria Teresa studied math at the University of Santo Domingo
and Minerva studied law at the same university. In October of nineteen four nine, thru Hio held a party at his mansion in San Crustobal, the mayor of their town, personally delivered the Meat of Ball Sister's invitation to the party to them, so they felt obliged to go. Mineeva had caught Thruhio's attention and he approached her, but she rejected his advances. Through Rio's sexual abuse of women was
well known. He married three times and had mistresses. He had people go out and find young women and bringing them back to him to stay a night or longer so he could rape them. Dominican families would make their daughters hide when he was in town, so, needless to say, her rejections did not go over well with thru Hio. The Meat of Ball sisters father was soon imprisoned, and
he died. Soon after he was released, Mineeva and her mother were held hostage in a hotel in Santo Domingo, only to be released if Mineeva slept with thru Hillo, though she refused. They eventually escaped, but through Yo's quest for vengeance did not in there. Minativa's rejections led through Hio to wage a vendetta against the Meat of Balls.
The family was put under surveillance by the government and dinged for even the tiniest reported slights against thru Hio, people in contact with them were locked up or brutalized. Me Natava was not allowed to go back to school and put under arrest in her parents house for three years, during which time she wrote poetry about social issues in the Dominican Republic. In nineteen fifty seven, she was allowed to return to law school if she praised through Hio
and his leadership. She did so and ended up graduating summa cum laude. Still, she was refused a license to practice law. Between the abuse they had suffered personally at the hands of thru Hio, the atrocities they saw him commit against other people, and the inspiration they received from the Cuban Revolution, the Meat of All Sisters were moved
to join the move it against the dictator. When a group of Dominican exiles who trained in Cuba with Fidel Castro support, returned to the Dominican Republic in nineteen fifty nine to topple through Hero's dictatorship, the activism of the Meat of Ball Sisters, along with many other Dominican people, was kicked into high gear. We'll be back after this quick break. History repeats itself. We hear this phrase a lot,
a statement repeated as a hard fact, undeniable. It's clear in war and fashion, But there are a lot of things in history. We can largely agree that we don't want to repeat the Black Death, for instance, Yet things that happen are often things we don't want to happen. When someone to sense and attempts to incite drastic or at least meaningful change, they can work super hard to reach that goal and still not attain the success they'd hoped for. Hope, desire, and belief don't get the job
done alone. But sometimes it can feel like we're in a hamster will, like we're stuck in a vicious cycle of oppression. Like even when we take two steps forward, we're taking more backward. How hard is it to maintain any sort of sense of things being better or even different when things have been bad for a long time, Or what is the point in imagining a future at all? Hopelessness, cynicism about the future, and settling for less can set
in easily, but hope could be a starting point. By that, I mean the ability to see beyond the current state of things and belief in the simple possibility for change. At some point comes before action that drives change. Rather than thinking of hope as a crutch of the naive allible are innocent, maybe it's better to think about it as a necessary part of empowering people to think differently and consider political or cultural shifts they couldn't have bad
them before. By the end of the nineteen fifties, resentment of thru Hio had reached a peak and people were planning attempts to overthrow the regime. Minerovamabal was the first of the Sisters to become active in the fight against the dictatorship, even though it was dangerous business. She befriended Peticleistroco Orniss, who founded the Popular Socialist Party and had
been imprisoned for his opposition to thru Hillo. She was also drawn to leftist literature and intercepted radio stations out of Cuba and Venezuela that discussed politics in the Dominican Republic. Fidel Castro's leadership and the Cuban Revolution, which ended on January first, nineteen fifty nine, with Cuban dictator full Hintsil Bautista fleeing to the Dominican Republic, helped inspire hope in
Dominican people who wished to fight through Hio's oppressed of rule. Minaova, Maria Teresa and their husbands spoke of launching a national resistance movement against Trillo. Dominican exiles in Cuba had organized in Cuba and trained in military guerrilla tactics with the intent of overthrowing through Villo. On June fourteenth, nineteen fifty nine, a Dominican named Enrique Humenes Moya led a group of
insurrectionists who landed in several Dominican cities. Besides Dominicans, Cubans, Spaniards, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans and Americans also took part in the insurrection, but the Dominican Republic had been given a heads up for the attack and the army and air force shut it down. Most of the people who participated in the
uprising were killed and many were tortured in prison. This uprising was the namesake for the Cotors de Junio movement or fourteenth of June movement, also known as one j four or one four j. Though the attempts to overthrow Trullo had been unsuccessful, people in the Dominican Republic were stirring up rebellion. The Meat of All Sisters and their husbands helped form the fourteenth of June movement a year
after the revolutionaries victory in the Cuban Revolution. Manola travadez Usto, a lawyer and Minerva's husband, was the president of the group. Leandro Gusman, Maria Theres's husband was named treasurer. Many of the people involved in the movement, including peasants, factory workers, the wealthy, and intellectuals, were from Puerto Plata, an industrial northern city. Trullo flexed his muscle against the city by cutting off rail services to the area and isolating his
shipping ports. Many of the people in the movement were also members of prominent families and relatives of Thruvio himself. Despite Throo's attempts to suppress his opposition, criticism and defiance of the dictator and his policies only grew. We're going to take a quick break. The meet of Ball sisters and their husbands began organizing the resistance. They got hundreds of people to pass out pamphlets detailing the crimes the
regime had committed. They began gathering guns and bombs, and through their work in the resistance, they were incarcerated several times. The sisters were given the underground name Las Mariposas or in English, the Butterflies. The movement planned to assassinate thru Heio using a bomb at a cattle fair on January one, nineteen sixty, but the plan was foiled when the Servicita, or military intelligence service, rounded up supporters of the movement
the day before the assassination was supposed to happen. Trhio's regime arrested and tortured people, brutality that many people rejected. Me Not and Maria Teresa, their husbands, and Patria's husband named Pedro Gonzalez, were jailed. The Catholic Church protested the witchhood and denounced the dictatorship. But despite all the atrocities through Hio had already been complicit in, it took Trujillo attempting to assassinate Venezuelan President Romolo Betancourt before other nations
decided to draw the line. Beaton Court was vehemently anti Trujillo, and Trullillo had tried to have him overthrown many times before. Regardless, when through Hio's people put a bunch of dynamite in a car that exploded and injured beaton court, and killed a person. The Organization of American States condemned his regime's actions, imposed sanctions, and sent representatives to Dominican jails on a fact finding mission. Because of this investigation, many women prisoners
were freed, including the Meta Balls. Their husbands were sent to a prison in Puerto Blata. Trujillo responded to his growing opposition and his sworn enemies, the Meata Balls, with vengeance. He made it clear that the Catholic Church and the Meat of Ball Sisters were his main foes, problems that he needed to get rid of. When it came to
the Meat of Ball sisters, that meant death. Friends of the sisters warnant them not to visit their husbands in prison, but even though they knew the visits were dangerous, they had already made the trip to the north coast without any problems. They had even decided that they were going to rent a house in Puerto Plata so they could be closer to their husbands. November nine sixty, Patria Maria
were leaving Plata after visiting their husbands in prison. As they drove down a desolate road, some of Trujillo's agents ordered their driver to stop. Patria was able to get out of their jeep and tell a passing truck driver that the agents were about to murder them, and told him to send word to the meat of all family in their hometown. But the agents beat the sisters and their driver, strangled them and put them back in the jeep, pushing it over a cliff to make it look like
an accident. Dede, who was the least politically engaged of the four sisters and who had not been in the car at the time of the assassination, was the only surviving sister. It didn't take long for news of the assassinations to spread. It was pretty obvious that the deaths were not an accident but murder ordered by Trujillo. There were reportedly still fingerprints on their necks where they had been strangled when they were brought into a hospital for autopsy.
The assassinations intensified resistance in the Dominican Republic even more, not the effect that Trujillo had intended. On May thirtieth nine, Trujillo was ambushed as he was heading home and killed some of the people who murdered him were part of his armed forces. The assassins who killed the Meat of
All Sisters went to trial in nineteen sixty two. They were sentenced to twenty to thirty years of heart labor, but they did not serve out their sentences as they had escaped from prison during the Dominican Civil War of nineteen sixty five. Dada ensured the persistence of her sister's legacy and helped raise their children. Minatava, Maria, Teresa, and Patria died tragically under the thumb of a cruel dictatorship that they risked their lives to subvert. They mobilized women
to join the resistance movement. They injected a sense of hope for social and political progress into the Dominican people, though the rule that followed their deaths was nowhere near revolutionary. But the Meat of Ball Sisters stand as a model for middle and upper class young folks who wished to reject silence and complacency in favor of action and optimistic
resistance when rebellion is necessary. The Meat Up Ball Sisters weren't the only people who took part in the fourteenth of June movement or the resistance against through Heeo's dictatorship. Though they played a major role in the road towards through Heeo's downfall, it wasn't their actions alone that put an end to the oppressive regime. I don't say that to diminish the importance of their leadership and movement work.
I just like to acknowledge the huge amount of work and people it takes to transform our tear down massive establishments. But one person's actions can have a rebel effect. It is definitely easy to just accept things as they are a lot of the time. That's the case when issues don't directly affect us, or when they do directly benefit us. When we don't have enough knowledge of an issue or have not taken the time to research it and are
not emotionally affected by it. When the prospect of harsh punishment seems too scary, when we don't know what the outcome of a challenge would be so we don't want to risk putting in the work. When something seems so impossible to change that it doesn't seem worth putting any effort into it. The meat of All Sisters and all the other Dominicans who resisted the regime were up against a dictatorship that stripped away civil liberties and killed people ruthlessly,
and that did so while exalting itself. They could not and did not accept the way things were, even though the terrorism that surrounded them was a constant reminder of the horrible consequences their actions could have. Tria was in power for thirty one years, and those years were characterized
by a lot of violence and death. The Meat of All Sisters activism not only ignited and effective movement, but also showed that a life without violence was within the realm of possibility and influenced later activists to strive for liberation. They helped make the other side conceivable. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next week with another episode of Unpopular.
Our producer is Andrew Howard. Holly Fry and Christopher Hasiotis are our executive producers, and you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcast. I'd also like to give a shout out to Tracy and Holly of Stuff you missed in History Class, who have a great episode on the Meat of Ball Sisters. So take a listen, and if you are so inclined, You can send us an email at unpopular at i heart media dot com.