At the same time, the Spanish government, which ruled over Puerto Rico, attempted to banish Betances for a second time, but he and Segundo Ruiz Belvis (a lawyer and city administrator who became his closest friend and political companion) fled the island before they were apprehended. Both fled to the northern city of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic in 1861, where Betances established a close personal friendship with Gen. Gregorio Luperón, the military leader of the northern pro-independence faction who led the efforts to restore Dominican sovereignty over their country. Betances was also a collaborator of Dominican priest (and later Archbishop of Santo Domingo and one-time president of the country), Fernando Arturo de Meriño, who was the revolt's ideological leader (as well as its delegate in Puerto Rico when he was himself exiled by the restored republican government). These two friendships would prove to be key to Betances' own efforts to achieve Puerto Rican independence later on.