Casimiro Berenguer
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Through Masonry
Early years
Casimiro Berenguer Padilla was born in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. His parents were Alejandro Berenguer, a mason, and Eugenia Padilla, a housewife. At age 6, he emigrated to the Dominican Republic with his parents, where he spent his childhood and part of his youth. He also learned to trade as a cobbler there. In 1929, he returned to Puerto Rico and established a shoe repair shop in Ponce.
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Background
Berenguer Padilla was an instructor of the Cadets of the Republic in Ponce. He set up his shoe repair shop at Marina and Aurora streets, at a building used by the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to celebrate its meetings in that city. The Insular Police carried out the 1937 Ponce massacre, under the instructions of US-installed governor Blanton Winship, outside this building.
In 1938, Berenguer and other Nationalists were accused of the murder of Col. Luis Irizarry of the Puerto Rican National Guard, in their attempt on the life of U.S.-installed governor Blanton Winship in retaliation for the Blanton-ordered Ponce massacre. The other Nationalists also accused of murder by the government of Blanton Winship in relation to the massacre were Luis Castro Quesada, Julio Pinto Gandía, Lorenzo Piñeiro, (Interim President and Interim Secretary General of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party), Plinio Graciani, Tomás López de Victoria, Martín González Ruiz, Elifaz Escobar, Luis Ángel Correa, Santiago González, and Orlando Colón Leyro. Of this group, only Tomás López de Victoria, Santiago González, Elifaz Escobar and Berenguer Padilla were members of the cadets. A grand jury was convened, and the accused were tried, but all the Nationalists, including Berenguer, were released.
On September 28, 1938, Berenguer was convicted with other Nacionalistas in connection with the attempted assassination of Governor Winship during the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the U.S. military invasion of Puerto Rico. The other Nationalists convicted were Tomás López de Victoria, Elifaz Escobar, Santiago González, Vicente Morciglio, Leocadio López, Juan Pietri, Guillermo Larrogaiti, and Prudencio Segarra.
Death and legacy
Berenguer died at the age of 90 at his home on February 27, 2000, his remains were brought from the Dominican Republic and interred at the Panteon Nacional Roman Baldorioty de Castro in Ponce on the 70th anniversary of the Ponce massacre, March 21, 2007.