Pedro E. Betancourt y Dovalos was born in 1858 and baptized in Seiba Mocha, Province of Matanzas. Having chosen Medicine for his profession he studied first in Philadelphia and later in Madrid where he graduated in 1881. He returned to Matanzas to practice his profession, but when the War of Independence broke out in 1895 he was one of the first to take part in it. As President of the Revolutionary Club of the Western part of the Island he was charged with the selection and organization of the revolutionary forces of the Province of Matanzas and was one of the members of the ill-fated force that took up arms in Matanzas on the twenty-fourth of February, 1895. When this force was defeated and scattered Betancourt was
captured, imprisoned for a time in the Castle of San Severino, later in Havana and finally exiled to Spain. There he encountered General Calixto García with whose assistance he succeeded in escaping to France. Once in Paris he joined with the famous Dr. Betances to execute the commissions affecting France and England which had been entrusted to him by General García. These fulfilled, he went on to New York where he joined the Revolutionary Committee working for the war. He served in an expedition organized by General Francisco Carrillo which was detained in Wilmington (Delaware) by the United States authorities. The members of the expedition were placed on trial, acquitted, and set at liberty; whereupon Betancourt joined three other expeditions one after the other, all of which were stopped in the same way by the American authorities.

In a fourth expedition Betancourt and his companions were taken prisoners in the Bahamas by the British Cruiser Partridge and imprisoned in Nassau where again they were tried, acquitted, and set at liberty.
Once more Betancourt returned to New York and on the next attempt succeeded in landing on the coast of Cuba under the direction of General García.

During the rest of the war he fought in Matanzas, under General Lacret, and at its close was at the head of the revolutionary forces in that province with the rank of Major General.

After the war he was appointed Civil Governor of Matanzas; later Member of the Constituent Convention and also one of those designated by the Assembly to discuss with President McKinley the actual significance of the Platt Amendment.

He was elected Senator in the first Legislature of Cuba, but later retired from public life to devote himself to agricultural interests.