Last Year's Lesson: Mirabal Sisters Assassinated - Nov. 25, 1960

Mirabal Sisters Assassinated - Nov. 25, 1960The Mirabal Sisters were assassinated in the Dominican Republic on this day in 1960.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to
you by Tracy V. Wilson. Welcome to this Day in
History Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from
the desk of Stuff you Missed in History Class. It's
the show where we explore the past one day at
a time with a quick look at what happened today
in history. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,

(00:25):
and it's November twenty. The Mirabell Sisters, also known as
Last Meta Posis, were assassinated in the Dominican Republic on
this day in nineteen sixty. These were three sisters, Patria,
Minerva and Maria Theresa. They had a fourth sister, Day Day,
who wasn't targeted in the assassination. She wasn't politically active

(00:45):
in the way that her other sisters were. All four sisters,
though were born in the Dominican Republic. They grew up
in a relatively affluent family, and they had pretty conventional
lives for at least the first years. They went to
a athletic school, they went to church, they got married
and had children. But the Dominican Republic at that time

(01:05):
was under the oppressive and brutal rule of Dictator Rafael Trichio,
and when I say oppressive and brutal. As one example,
in seven he had ordered the massacre of thousands of
Haitians in the border region between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
He had a secret police force that monitored everything, and

(01:27):
it was extremely common for his opponents and for political
dissidence to be imprisoned, tortured, and killed. He had total
control over virtually every aspect of Dominican society, including the
radio and passports and air travel. And he also had
a collection of so called beauty scouts whose job it

(01:47):
was to bring him attractive young women. And some of
these women they were very young, some of them were
still schoolgirls. Rafael Trillo also had a personal vendetta against
the Mirrorball family. He had invited them to a social
event at his estate, and this wasn't the kind of
thing that you could turn down. While they were there,

(02:09):
he started making advances on Minerva Mirraball. This was before
she got married. In some accounts, this led to a
heated argument between the two of them, and other accounts
she slapped him. Regardless of exactly what happened, though this
was unacceptable to him. Minerva's father was imprisoned. She and

(02:30):
her mother were kept basically under house arrest at a hotel.
Their family was the target of suspicion and surveillance for years.
Trucio even tried to stop Minerva from finishing law school.
Once she graduated, she wasn't even allowed a license to practice. So,
maybe unsurprisingly, considering the fact that their family had been

(02:50):
under this kind of surveillance and harassment for so many years, Patria, Minerva,
and Maria Teresa became part of a resistance movement called
the fourteenth of June movement. It was named for a
failed attempt by exiled Dominicans to try to retake the
country from Trichiyo. They planned to assassinate him with a
car bomb, but just before they were supposed to carry

(03:11):
that out, the leaders of this movement were arrested and imprisoned,
and this included Minerva and Maria Teresa and all three
of the sisters husbands. Eventually, Minerva and Maria Teresa were released,
but their husbands were transferred to a prison in Puerto Plata,
and visiting them required the sisters to travel over a
remote mountain range to get their own back. On the

(03:34):
way back from visiting their husbands on November twenty five,
NI they were overtaken by some of Tricio's men, and
the sisters and their driver were beaten and strangled and
then put back into the jeep that they had been
traveling in, and then the jeep was pushed over the
side of the mountain. It was clear to everyone though,
that this had not been an accident. The murder of

(03:58):
three attractive young mothers really brought a lot more criticism
than Andrello had been facing before. He started to lose
the backing of his military and he was assassinated six
months later. Data helped raise her sister's children after their deaths,
and she also helped protect their legacy and today the
sisters are national heroes and the Dominican Republic. November twenty

(04:21):
is also observed as the International Day for the Elimination
of Violence against Women in commemoration of them. You can
learn more about this in the November episode of Stuff
You Missed in History Class. Thanks to Casey Pgraham and
Tandler Mays for their audio work on the show, and
you can subscribe to the Stay in History Class on
Apple Podcasts. Google podcast, the I Heart Radio app, and

(04:42):
wherever else you get your podcasts. You can tune in
tomorrow for one of the world's most famous tombs