Lares, Puerto Rico: History
Lares was founded on April 26, 1827, by Francisco de Sotomayor and Pedro Vélez Borrero, who named the town after Amador de Lariz, a Spanish nobleman and one of its settlers.
Lares was the location of the Grito de Lares (Cry of Lares) revolt against Spanish rule in Puerto Rico on September 23, 1868. The revolt is recognized as the most important symbol of the Puerto Rican struggle for independence. Historian Fernando Picó described it thus:
Lares adopted the flag of the revolt as its official flag. The flag was proclaimed the national flag of a sovereign "Republic of Puerto Rico" by the revolting revolutionaries in 1868, making it the first flag of Puerto Rico. In 1895, the exiled revolutionaries replaced it with the current flag of Puerto Rico as the new revolutionary flag to represent an independent Puerto Rico. As the flag of the revolt, the flag of Lares is used by the independence movement in Puerto Rico to show support for the independence of the island from the United States.
Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and became a territory of the United States. In 1899, the United States Department of War conducted a census of Puerto Rico finding that the population of Lares was 20,883.
Hurricane Maria on September 20, 2017, triggered numerous landslides in Lares. In many areas of Lares there were more than 25 landslides per square mile due to the significant amount of rainfall. Puerto Rico se levanta (Puerto Rico will stand up) became the slogan used across the island to communicate the island would rise again.
When the hurricane hit, many areas in the Municipal Cemetery of Lares were damaged by landslides. Total affected were about 5,000 burial plots, with the burial places shifting and some plots opened. In response, the municipality closed the cemetery to the public. In early 2019, El Nuevo Día newspaper in Puerto Rico began listing the names of the cadavers that would be exhumed and moved to other cemeteries, a long and delicate process. On March 4, an update was given by Lares officials on how the issue was being handled. On May 10, 2019, it was announced that a decision had been made to build a temporary wooden structure separating the affected area so that family members could visit the plots that were unaffected by the hurricane-triggered landslides. The Bravo Family Foundation sent relief to Lares, in the immediate aftermath.
The December 2019 and January 2020 Puerto Rico earthquakes caused 28 families in Lares to lose their homes.