United States Colonial Rule of Puerto Rico

United States Colonial Rule of Puerto Rico

When the United States invaded the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico (Guanica and Ponce), a majority of Puerto Ricans welcomed the Americans and enabled their invasion. They cooperated and aided the American expulsion of Spaniards. However, it is obvious by the consequences that the end result of U.S. invasion and rule was not what Puerto Ricans had welcomed in July of 1898. Puerto Ricans wished an end to autocratic rule and concentration of wealth, things they did not know would continue under American rule. The Americans were regarded as change and chance for progress, even though they retained the fear of not knowing U.S. intentions.

In the political arena at the beginning of United States rule, native Puerto Ricans were not present. I think this is interesting because it is in sharp contrast to what a country, formerly ruled autocratically by Spain, would hope for when accepting and even enabling the invasion of Americans in 1898. Puerto Ricans were unhappy about problems of leadership, lack of political programs, and desired freedom against a suffocating government in which they could not participate. If I lived in a country under autocratic rule, and then heard news of an American invasion, knowing that they were a democratic country, I too would help the Americans to drive Spain out. When the present is offering no change in status or way of living, the chance of change holds utmost importance. The problem was no one realized that everyone has self-interest, even democracies, and part of the fear Puerto Ricans held was that they did not know what the intentions of Americans were.

Trías-Monge mentions at the start of his article the importance of high self-government fo...

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...came conditional citizens, and in my opinion, became so to give leverage to the United States over Philippines and threaten them. Yet again, Puerto Rican interests were not taken into consideration in decision making. Rather, American interests were.

References

Dietz, James, Economic History of Puerto Rico (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1986), 98-170; 194-231; 242-250.

Fernandez, Ronald. The Disenchanted Island: Puerto Rico and the U.S. in the Twentieth Century. 2d ed. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996).

Guerra, Lillian, Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The Struggle for self, Community, and Nation, chs. 2-3 (Gainesville: U Press of Florida, 1998), 45-121.

Trías-Monge, José, “The Shaping of a Colonial Policy,” from: Trías-Monge, Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World (New Haven: Yale U Press, 1997), 36-51.