Blanton C. Winship (November 23, 1869 – October 9, 1947) was an American military lawyer and veteran of both the Spanish–American War and World War I. During his career, he served both as Judge Advocate General of the United States Army and as the governor of Puerto Rico. An investigation led by the United States Commission on Civil Rights blamed him for the Ponce massacre, which killed 19 people.
Early life and education
Blanton Winship was born in Macon, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1889. He received a law degree from the University of Georgia in 1893, where he also played football for one year.
Career
Military service
During the Spanish–American War, Winship joined the 1st Georgia Infantry, a volunteer force. After the war, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Winship to become a judge advocate in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps. His duties, through 1917, included teaching at the United States Military Academy and authoring, with John Henry Wigmore, the dean of Northwestern University's law school, the Army's first rules of evidence for courts-martial.
When World War I broke out, he fought in France and led several campaigns. Winship commanded the 110th and 118th Infantry Regiments in the 28th Division while also serving as the Staff Judge Advocate of First Army. Winship was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for "extraordinary heroism in action near Lachaussee, France, November 9, 1918." He also received the Silver Star for gallantry in action near Villers sur Fere, France.
Following the war, Winship returned to military law. He was appointed to serve as a military aide to President Calvin Coolidge. Eventually he became the Judge Advocate General of the Army, a position he held from 1931 to his retirement from service in 1933.
Governor of Puerto Rico
In 1934, Winship was appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt as governor of Puerto Rico, succeeding Robert Hayes Gore. This was in part due to major strikes that had taken place that year, causing the administration to fear social unrest. Colonel Francis Riggs accompanied Winship as chief of police. Riggs formerly had assisted Nicaragua's dictator Anastasio Somoza.
As governor, Winship's primary mission was to crush the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, by imprisoning its leadership and intimidating the rank-and-file membership. Upon arrival he immediately set out to "militarize" the Insular Police force, arming it with machine guns and riot control equipment. Winship also recruited a new police chief, E. Francis Riggs, whose background was in military intelligence, and whose immediate prior occupation had been to "advise" Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua. Together, Winship and Riggs spent their weekends inspecting the new vigorous police training camps (modeled after military boot camps) which they created throughout the island.
During his time in office, Winship fought to exclude the recently passed minimum wage laws from applying to Puerto Rico, as it would have doubled the hourly wage of 12.5 cents which was standard for sugarcane plantation workers.
Winship criticized many of Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes's policies toward the island (Interior had responsibility for territories and insular affairs). Relief spending during the Great Depression for Puerto Rico was (per capita) far below either that of the mainland or Hawaii. This lack of spending contributed to the poverty of the island, and in turn to social unrest.
In October 1935, the Insular Police killed four Puerto Rican Nationalist Party members at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, a neighboring town next to San Juan. The event became known as the Río Piedras massacre. Ramón S. Pagan, Pedro Quiñones, Eduardo Rodríguez Vera, José Santiago Barea and a bystander were killed. On February 23, 1936, the nationalists Hiram Rosado and Elías Beauchamp retaliated by killing Col. Riggs in San Juan. Captured, both Rosado and Beauchamp were executed at the police headquarters without trial. No law enforcement officer ever stood trial for the executions.
Following these events, the government rounded up numerous Nationalist Party members and charged them with sedition. The party's president, Pedro Albizu Campos, and others were sentenced to 10 years in prison by a United States federal court.