Mirabal Sisters Assassinated (1960)

Fri Nov 25, 1960

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On this day in 1960, three of the Mirabal Sisters, four revolutionary Dominican women who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, were assassinated by his government, their deaths framed as suicides.

One the four sisters - Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, and Dedé - only Dedé survived, dying of natural causes in 2014.

To organize against the state, Minerva, María Teresa, and Patria began distributing pamphlets about the many people whom Trujillo had killed, also obtaining materials for guns and bombs for use when they eventually openly revolted.

The sisters called themselves “Las Mariposas” (“The Butterflies”), after Minerva’s underground name. For their acts of subversion, María, Minerva, both of their husbands, and Patria’s husband were all imprisoned.

After being freed, Patria, Minerva, María Teresa, and their driver, Rufino de la Cruz, were attacked after visiting María’s and Minerva’s incarcerated husbands. On the way home, the sisters and de la Cruz were separated, strangled, and clubbed to death by state forces.

The bodies were then gathered and put in their Jeep, which was run off the mountain road in an attempt to make their deaths look like an accident.

The assassinations turned the Mirabal sisters into “symbols of both popular and feminist resistance”, according to the New York Times. In their honor, the United Nations General Assembly designated the 25th of November as “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women” in 1999.