Biography
Santiago González Castro was a Puerto Rican Nationalist and standard-bearer of the Cadets of the Republic in Ponce. He was prosecuted after the 1937 Ponce Massacre and again after the July 25, 1938 attempt on Governor Blanton Winship during the military parade in Ponce. The latter prosecution resulted in a murder conviction and a ninety-nine-year sentence. A 1939 solidarity appeal listed him among Nationalists held in Puerto Rico’s penitentiaries. Federal authorities prosecuted him again in 1955 after the 1954 attack on Congress; he received a six-year sentence for seditious conspiracy.
The September 21, 1937 New Masses editorial individually lists this defendant among ten Nationalists then facing the Ponce murder trial and reports that the group had been imprisoned for six months in La Princesa under collective bail totaling $250,000. This is a contemporary approximate custody-to-date report, not a completed six-month sentence, exact admission date, individual bail amount or final conviction. Its description of a hand-picked jury and government campaign is the editorial’s allegation. The existing prosecution is retained without a duplicate case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1937/v24n13-sep-21-1937-NM.pdf#page=18
The April 12, 1939 manifesto individually names him among Nationalists imprisoned in Puerto Rico following the July25,1938 events and reports a nominal ninety-nine-year term. This is an attributed contemporary sentence report, distinct from actual service and from the separate 1937 Ponce-massacre prosecutions. Other sources describe life imprisonment; that terminology difference is retained without replacing established later pardon/release details.