alt=Patria, Minerva and María Teresa.|thumb|Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal.

The Mirabal sisters ( ) were four sisters from the Dominican Republic, three of whom (Patria, Minerva and María Teresa) opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo () and were involved in activities against his regime. The three sisters were assassinated on 25 November 1960. The last sister, Adela (known as Dedé), who was not involved in political activities at the time, died of natural causes on 1 February 2014.

Of the sisters, Minerva was the one who had the most active role in politics. She and her husband founded the 14 June Revolutionary Movement. María Teresa also became involved in the movement. The oldest sister, Patria, did not have the same level of political activity as her other sisters, but she supported them. She lent her house to store weapons and tools from the insurgents.

The sisters are considered national heroines of the Dominican Republic. Their remains rest in a mausoleum that was declared an extension of the National Pantheon, located in the Hermanas Mirabal House-Museum, the sisters' last residence. The assassinations turned the Mirabal sisters into "symbols of both popular and feminist resistance". In 1999, in their honor, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. All four sisters attended primary school in their village, Ojo de Agua, and attended a Catholic boarding school, el Colegio Inmaculada Concepción, for their secondary education in the city of La Vega.

When Trujillo came to power, the family lost almost their entire fortune. The sisters, especially Minerva, believed that the dictatorship was ruining the country, so they participated in the creation and organization of the 14 June Revolutionary Movement. Within this group, they were known as Las Mariposas (The Butterflies). Two of the sisters, Minerva and María Teresa, were imprisoned on several occasions in both the La Victoria and La 40 prisons. They and their husbands were subjected to torture during the Trujillo regime. Despite these facts, they continued to fight against the dictatorship.

Patria Mercedes Mirabal Reyes

Patria Mercedes Mirabal Reyes (27 February 1924 – 25 November 1960), commonly known as Patria, was the oldest of the four Mirabal sisters. When she was 14, she was sent by her parents to a Catholic boarding school, Colegio Inmaculada Concepción, in La Vega. She left school when she was 17 and married Pedro González, a farmer, who would later aid her in challenging the Trujillo regime.

Patria had three children.

Bélgica Adela Mirabal Reyes

Bélgica Adela Mirabal Reyes (1 March 1925 – 1 February 2014), commonly known as Dedé, was the second daughter of the Mirabal family. Unlike her sisters, she did not attend college. Instead, she became a traditional homemaker, Dedé was the last surviving sister of the family. She died at the age of 88, and professed her entire life that it was her destiny to survive so that she was able to "tell their story".

María Argentina Minerva Mirabal Reyes

María Argentina Minerva Mirabal Reyes (12 March 1926 – 25 November 1960), commonly known as Minerva, was the third daughter. At the age of 12, she followed Patria to the Colegio Inmaculada Concepción. After Minerva's rejection of Trujillo, her parents prohibited Minerva from registering for law school due to concerns that she would get involved in politics and ultimately be killed. However, after seeing how upset Minerva was, her parents relented six years later and she enrolled at the University of Santo Domingo, where she later graduated summa cum laude. Minerva was the first woman to graduate from law school in the Dominican Republic. Due to her previous rejection of Trujillo's advances, when Minerva graduated, her diploma was stripped of her honors and her license to practice law was ultimately turned down. According to the historian Bernard Diederich, Minerva Mirabal was arrested twice. She was first jailed in January 1960, at the start of the wave of repression of 1J4 members where "hundreds of 1J4 members are rounded up and tortured". She attended the Colegio Inmaculada Concepción, graduated from the Liceo de San Francisco de Macorís in 1954, and went on to the University of Santo Domingo, where she studied mathematics.

Later in her life, María Teresa dated Leandro Guzmán. While dating, before Leandro was allowed to hold María Teresa's hand, she asked him how his family felt about Trujillo. Leandro responded, "... there's no problem. At home, that was the first thing I learned... to hate Trujillo." Everyone in the family, including Patria's teenage children, helped distribute pamphlets about the many people whom Trujillo had killed, and obtained materials for guns and bombs to use when they eventually openly revolted. Within the group, the sisters called themselves Las Mariposas ("The Butterflies"), after Minerva's underground name. The three husbands were incarcerated in January at La Victoria Penitentiary in Santo Domingo, and then, in November, two of them were transferred to Puerto Plata. and clubbed to death. The bodies were placed in their vehicle, which was run off the mountain road in an attempt to make their deaths look like an accident.

After Trujillo was assassinated on 30 May 1961, General Pupo Román admitted to having personal knowledge that the sisters were killed by Victor Alicinio Peña Rivera (Trujillo's right-hand man) along with Ciriaco de la Rosa, Ramón Emilio Rojas, Alfonso Cruz Valeria, and Emilio Estrada Malleta, members of his secret police force. As to whether Trujillo ordered the killings or whether the secret police acted on its own, one historian wrote, "We know orders of this nature could not come from any authority lower than national sovereignty. That was none other than Trujillo himself; still less could it have taken place without his assent." Also, one of the murderers, Ciriaco de la Rosa, said "I tried to prevent the disaster, but I could not because if I had he, Trujillo, would have killed us all."

Aftermath

[[File:Mirabal old house.jpg|thumb|250px|The old house of the Mirabal family and the residence of Dedé Mirabal until her death on 1 February 2014, aged 88.

However, the details of the Mirabal sisters' assassinations were "treated gingerly at the official level" until 1996, when President Joaquín Balaguer was forced to step down after more than two decades in power. Balaguer was Trujillo's protégé and had been president in 1960 at the time of the assassinations, despite having "distanced himself from General Trujillo and initially carved out a more moderate political stance."

A 1997 review of the history curriculum in public schools saw the Mirabals recognised as national martyrs. Its English edition is announced for 25 February 2025. She lived in the house in Salcedo where the sisters were born until her death in 2014, aged 88.

Legacy

thumb|Mirabal Sisters Campus, housing [[KIPP Washington Heights, MS 319 Maria Teresa, and MS 324 Patria Mirabal, in the Washington Heights section of New York City]]

On 17 December 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in honor of the sisters. It marks the beginning of a 16-day period of Activism against Gender Violence.

Hermanas Mirabal station of the Santo Domingo Metro is named to honor the Mirabal sisters.

The 200 Dominican pesos bill features the sisters, and a stamp was issued in their memory. In 2005, Amaya Salazar created one. In 2011, Banco del Progreso sponsored Dustin Muñoz to redo the mural.

alt=|230x230px|Monument in Honor of the sisters in [[Ojo de Agua, Salcedo|thumb]]

In 2019, the southeast corner of 168th street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, New York City, US, was designated Mirabal Sisters Way by the Council of the City of New York. In addition, a school campus in Washington Heights is named Mirabal Sisters Campus.

In 2019, Time created 89 new covers to celebrate women of the year starting from 1920; it chose the three political Mirabal sisters for 1960.

Being globally recognized as a symbol of social justice and feminism, the sisters have inspired the creation of many organizations that focus on keeping their legacy alive through social actions. In 2021, Rosa Hernández de Grullón, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic in France, inaugurated a plaque in Paris in honor of the famous Dominican resistance fighters murdered under the Trujillo dictatorship in 1960. The Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center, a non-profit organization that seeks to improve the status of immigrant families.

  • In 1994, Dominican-American author Julia Alvarez published her novel In the Time of the Butterflies, a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal sisters. Alvarez called the sisters "feminist icons" and "a reminder that we have our revolutionary heroines, our Che Guevaras, too".
  • Mario Vargas Llosa's 2000 novel, The Feast of the Goat, portrays the assassination of Trujillo and its effect on the lives of Dominicans. It refers often to the Mirabal sisters. It was originally published as La fiesta del chivo in Spain by Alfaguara.
  • Jon M. Chu's 2021 movie In The Heights (based on the musical of the same name) references the Mirabal sisters.

Streets named in their memory

;In the Dominican Republic

  • Esperanza
  • Hato del Yaque
  • Puerto Plata
  • Salcedo
  • Santiago de los Caballeros
  • Santo Domingo
  • Tamboril

;In Spain

  • Alaquàs
  • Albacete
  • Burgos
  • Mairena del Aljarafe

See also

  • Women in the Dominican Republic
  • Virgins of Galindo
  • Villa sisters

References

  • Mirabal Sisters Cultural and Community Center