Ramón Emeterio Betances  Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán  (April 8, 1827 – September 16, 1898) was a Puerto Rican independence advocate and medical doctor. He was the primary instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution and is considered to be the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement. Since the "Grito" galvanized a burgeoning nationalist movement among Puerto Ricans, Betances is also considered ""El Padre de la Patria"" (Father of the [Puerto Rican] Nation). Because of his charitable deeds for people in need, he also became known as ""El Padre de los Pobres"" ("The Father of the Poor"). Betances was also a medical doctor and surgeon in Puerto Rico, and one of its first social hygienists. He had established a successful surgery and ophthalmology practice. Betances was also an abolitionist, diplomat, public health administrator, poet, and novelist. He served as representative and contact for Cuba and the Dominican Republic in Paris, France. An adherent of Freemasonry, his political and social activism was deeply influenced by the group's philosophical beliefs. Betances was born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, in the building that now houses the ""Logia Cuna de Betances"" (""Betances' Cradle Masonic Lodge""). Betances' parents were Felipe Betanzos Ponce, a merchant born in Hispaniola (in the part that would later become the Dominican Republic; the surname Betanzos transformed into Betances while the family resided there), and María del Carmen Alacán de Montalvo, a native of Cabo Rojo and of French ancestry. They were married in 1812. Betances claimed in his lifetime that a relative of his, Pedro Betances, had revolted against the Spanish government of Hispaniola in 1808 and was tortured, executed, and his body burned and shown to the populace to dissuade them from further attempts. Meanwhile, Alacán's father, a sailor, led a party of volunteers that tried to apprehend the pirate Roberto Cofresí y Ramírez de Arellano in 1824 and did arrest some of Cofresí's crew, for which he was honored by the Spanish government. Betances was the fourth of six children; the oldest of which would die shortly after birth; Betances was the only male among the surviving siblings. The family was described as being of mixed race in records of the day.