Miguel Cruz was a Black man born in 1893 in Cabo Verde to Joseph Cruz and an unknown mother. He immigrated to the United States and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he worked as a rope maker.
Mr. Cruz was incarcerated in the Massachusetts State Prison, where he contracted typhoid fever; authorities transferred him to the Rutland Prison Camp Hospital for treatment. Mr. Cruz died there on March 22, 1912, at 19.
