Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico in 1493. He originally called the island San Juan Bautista, but thanks to the gold in the river, it was soon known as Puerto Rico, or “rich port.”
— From Smithsonian.com here
Puerto Rico, c. 2007
For your edification, here a few facts about Puerto Rico they didn’t teach us in history.* (And you might want to check this out first to see how relevant the facts are.)
The United States took over Puerto Rico in 1898.
Recommendations to President McKinley for the takeover of a once self-sustaining nation by Henry K. Carroll, special commissioner for the United States for Porto Rico.
In 1898, “Puertoricans” were completely self-sustaining with an economy based on agriculture.
Forty percent of the of the land in the U.S. colony was devoted to coffee, 32% to growing food for local consumption, 15% to sugar and 1% for tobacco.
Over 90% of the farms and agricultural resources were owned by local Puertoricans.
You read that right: more than 90 percent of the agri resources were owned by local bloods at the time the U.S. came in and began its corrosive exploitation.
Fast forward to 1940. By then, 80% of all farmland in P.R. was owned by large corporations or landlords with 500 acres or more.
In the wake the Great Depression, Puertoricans were a welfare nation, thoroughly poor and entirely dependent on the U.S.for survival.
To add insult to injury, Spanish on the island was banned and English became mandatory.
Puertoricans were treated by their lords like mongrels, which is what they were called by those who lorded over them.
And then… well… you get the picture.
As the great American William Faulkner, who wrote about Poordom down in his native Mississippi in such a universal way, once said in an interview:
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Vilage in Utuado, Circa 1940
* These facts were culled from an article in Counterpunch by José M. Tirado, a Puertorican poet, Buddhist priest and political writer.
You can learn much more about the history of P.R., and about resistance movements, too– by clicking this link.
Thanks for this. I was totally unaware of this history.
Thanks for this history. I was totally unaware. Only heightens my empathy and anger at how this administration (and any others) has treated Puerto Rico in the wake of disasters, particularly this last one.