On October 30, 1950, facing the Gag Law's tightening net and the planned plebiscite on commonwealth status, the Party rose in arms across the island. In Jayuya, Blanca Canales led rebels who took the town and proclaimed the Republic of Puerto Rico; there were risings in Utuado, Arecibo, Naranjito, San Juan and elsewhere. The insular government answered with the National Guard, artillery, and P-47 airstrikes on Jayuya and Utuado — the only aerial bombardment of U.S. citizens on their own soil — and in Utuado captured rebels were machine-gunned without trial in what became known as the Utuado massacre.
Some 3,000 independentistas and bystanders were arrested in the sweep that followed. Albizu Campos was seized at his San Juan home and sentenced to some eighty years; Blanca Canales received life plus sixty years and served seventeen; scores of others served long terms under the Gag Law.