Antonio Rafael Barceló y Martínez (April 15, 1868 – December 15, 1938) was a Puerto Rican lawyer, businessman and the patriarch of what was to become one of Puerto Rico's most prominent political families. Barceló, who in 1917 became the first President of the Senate of Puerto Rico, played an instrumental role in the introduction and passage of legislation which permitted the realization of the School of Tropical Medicine and the construction of a Capitol building in Puerto Rico. Early years Barceló was born in the City of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, to Jaime José Barceló Miralles (son of Antonio and Catalina) and Josefa Martínez de León (b. 1842). His father Jaime had emigrated from Palma, Majorca, Balearic Islands, Spain to Puerto Rico where he married Josefa (b. Naguabo, Puerto Rico) in Fajardo. He became an orphan by the age of three; his father had died in 1870 and his mother in 1871. He went to live with his aunt, Carmela de Leon, and his grandmother Belen de Leon, both of whom raised him. As a youngster, Barceló took an active interest in politics. He studied in the "Concillier Seminary" of San Juan where he earned a law degree. He joined the "Autonomist Party" (founded by José de Diego and Román Baldorioty de Castro in 1887) and soon became the party's secretary. In 1897, he was appointed as a municipal judge of Fajardo. The United States allowed him to retain the position after its invasion during the Spanish–American War. On February 4, 1899, Barceló married Maria Georgina "Josefina" Bird Arias, a daughter of the sugar baron Jorge Bird León. Political career Union Party of Puerto Rico Barceló left the Autonomist Party and together with Luis Muñoz Rivera, Rosendo Matienzo Cintrón, Eduardo Georgetti, Juan Vias Ochoteco, José de Diego, and others, founded the "Union party". The party, which believed in Puerto Rican independence, was led by Muñoz Rivera as president, with Barceló as the secretary general. The party won the election in 1904 and Muñoz Rivera was selected as a member of the House of Delegates, while Barceló was elected to the Chamber of Delegates in 1905. In 1910, Barceló founded the Association of Puerto Rico, with the idea of protecting the main industries of the island, which at that time were coffee, tobacco and sugar, against imported brands. The legislature of Puerto Rico passed law number 52 in 1913, which officially