Hermanas mirabal biography definition

For as long as there has been human history, women have been making it. This March, HAI wishes to share with you a few stories of exemplary women who changed their worlds.

Sometimes, freedom is a family affair.

Hermanas mirabal biography definition

So it was with the Mirabal sisters, three national heroines of the Dominican Republic. Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa’s defiance, resistance, and martyrdom remain one of the defining stories of the Trujilo regime – and one of the reasons it finally fell.

Las Mariposas grew up in a nation ruled by a dictator.

Rafael Trujillo seized power by military coup in 1930, when the eldest, Patria, was only six years old. Under his brutal regime, civil liberties were strictly curtailed, and his secret police force used “intimidation, imprisonment, torture… and murder” to ensure compliance.

Tens of thousands died.

Despite the despotism of the Trujillo regime, the Mirabal sisters grew up in a comfortable life. Their parents were farmers and shop owners in Ojo de Agua, Sal