Letter to Jose julio Henna from Roberto Todd

One hundred years ago today … Roberto H. Todd penned a letter to “D.J.J. Henna” of New York City. The addressee is Dr. José J. Henna, sometimes referred to as Julio J. Henna, a longtime leading figure in Latin American revolutionary politics.

Henna was born in what was then the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico in 1848. A political radical from a young age, he was compelled to leave Puerto Rico and moved to New York to study medicine, earning his degree from Columbia University in 1872.

Throughout his New York life he was a leader in both revolutionary politics and medicine. In 1899 he published, with M. Zeno Gandia, The Case of Puerto Rico, a report to President McKinley that protests the political status of the island, newly annexed by the United States.

In 1895, Henna and Roberto Todd were both (along with José Martí and others) founding members of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and Club Borinqen in 1895 in New York. With these organizations, Henna was instrumental in creating what would eventually become the Puerto Rican flag. Here is his sketch of the design, from an 1896 letter to Ramón Emeterio Betances—on Henna’s professional stationary featuring his office address, 8 W. 40th Street.

When the US took over Puerto Rico in 1898, the Boricua flag was outlawed; it remained illegal to display it in the territory until 1952.

The August 5, 1920 letter from Todd to Henna alludes to this prohibition. Todd describes the reception of Betances’s ashes, which had been shipped to Puerto Rico after lying in-state in New York—this after a brief stint at Henna’s apartment at 24 West 72nd Street (as we reported on July 8).

Todd writes:

Sé cuales eran las aspiraciones de Betances con respecto al status político de este su país natal: la independencia, sin transigir con nada, aunque fuera bajo la bandera americana.

(Rough translation: I know What Betances’ plans were with respect to the political status of his country: independence without compromise. Despite this, he was received under the the US flag.)

The entire text is available here.

Henna died in 1924 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx.

WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, AUGUST 5, 2020.

TAGS: Puerto Rico, letters, correspondence, Latinx history, Latino, Latin America, Hispanic, Boricua flag