Published on and written by Cyril Jarnias
Puerto Rico is often reduced to its beaches and salsa rhythms. Yet, behind this postcard image lies one of the most complex historical trajectories in the Americas. From Borikén, land of the Taíno caciques, to the Estado Libre Asociado (Commonwealth) under American sovereignty, the island has endured colonizations, wars, aborted reforms, nationalist revolts, and grand economic projects, without ever attaining full and complete independence.
Puerto Rico’s history spans from Indigenous societies to Spanish colonization, and then to American rule. It is marked by military conquest, legal constructs, social struggles, and cultural creations. Current debates focus on its political status, its debt, and reconstruction after hurricanes.
From the First Inhabitants to Taíno Society
Long before the arrival of Europeans, the island was already a crossroads of migrations. The earliest identified human traces are linked to the Ortoiroid people, who came from the Orinoco region in South America. Some researchers date this presence to some four millennia ago. The discovery, on the neighboring island of Vieques, of a skeleton known as the “Puerto Ferro man,” dated to around 2000 BC, is a spectacular illustration of this.
Century BC marking the arrival of the Saladoid culture in the Orinoco basin
The Taínos then organized the island, which they called Borikén or Borinquen – “the great land of the noble and valiant lord” – into villages, the yukayekes, led by chiefs, the caciques. Society was structured into clans, with matrilineal descent. They cultivated cassava to make casabe (cassava bread), as well as corn, pineapple, sweet potato; fishing and hunting supplemented their diet. Their worldview was animistic: entities like Guabancex, associated with the destructive forces of hurricanes, and Yukiyú, linked to protective elements, were honored through sculptures and sacred stones, the cemís.
Upon the arrival of the Europeans in 1493, the Taíno population was estimated to be between 20,000 and 60,000 people. Society was structured around a network of caciques, dominated by the principal chief Agüeybaná. However, it was already under pressure from the Caribs, a neighboring people known for their violent raids, use of poisoned arrows, and practice of ritualized cannibalism.
From Borikén to a Stronghold of the Spanish Empire
On his second voyage, after leaving Cadiz with a formidable fleet, Christopher Columbus reached Borikén on November 19, 1493. He renamed the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist. The change was not merely symbolic: it marked the beginning of four centuries of Spanish domination.
Conquest, Encomienda, and Demographic Collapse
Colonization truly began in 1508, when Juan Ponce de León founded the first European settlement, Caparra. Initially welcomed by the cacique Agüeybaná, Ponce de León quickly became the island’s first governor. At his side was a figure often forgotten: Juan Garrido, an African from the Kingdom of Kongo, considered the first identified Black man in Puerto Rico.
Very quickly, the logic of conquest took hold: gold panning, land appropriation, and above all, the adoption of the encomienda system. The Taínos were distributed among settlers and religious authorities to provide forced labor, in exchange for – theoretical – protection and evangelization. This organization provoked a brutal upheaval for the Indigenous societies.
Under pressure from the clergy, these laws transformed the encomienda into the repartimiento to regulate the work, payment, and religious instruction of the Indigenous populations. However, in practice, living and working conditions remained extremely harsh.
The Taínos resisted. In 1511, spurred by Agüeybaná II and Urayoán, they launched a coordinated insurrection. The most famous episode is that of Diego Salcedo, a Spanish soldier drowned by the insurgents to verify whether Europeans were mortal. Once this “proof” was obtained, attacks against the settlers multiplied. Ponce de León repressed the insurrection, but the balance of power was already unfavorable to the natives.
In the following decades, diseases from Europe, violence, forced labor, and mass suicides caused a staggering demographic collapse. A 1515 report estimated that the Indigenous population had fallen from 60,000 to just over 14,000 individuals in six years. By around 1530, a census recorded only a thousand Taínos. In 1520, the Crown decreed the emancipation of the survivors, but it was already too late to save the original society of Borikén.
African Slavery, the Church, and the First Institutions
To compensate for the disappearance of the Indigenous workforce, the Spanish quickly resorted to African slavery. As early as 1513, captives were brought to the island. Puerto Rico would never become a gigantic sugar plantation comparable to Saint-Domingue or Cuba: a large part of the economy remained diversified, between small farms, livestock, cultivation of ginger, tobacco, later coffee, and gold panning until the mines were exhausted around 1570. But slavery left a lasting mark on society and culture.
Year the first diocese in the Americas was created in Puerto Rico by Pope Julius II.
Very early on, the island also became a center of religious and political control: under the papacy of Leo X, Puerto Rico was designated as the seat of the Inquisition for the New World. The religious, judicial, and military spheres overlapped, while a mixed colonial society began to take shape between remaining natives, enslaved Africans, and European settlers.
A Fortress at the Heart of Imperial Wars
Located at the entrance to the Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico was a strategic key on the routes linking Europe to the riches of Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. For the Spanish empire, the island became both a military bridgehead and a logistical relay.
Fortifications and Attacks
Beginning in the 1530s, the Crown invested heavily in the defense of San Juan. La Fortaleza, today the Governor’s residence, began construction in 1532. A few years later, work started on the fortress of San Felipe del Morro, built to protect the entrance to the bay. Engineers like Juan de Tejada and Juan Bautista Antonelli redesigned the fortifications at the end of the 16th century, giving rise to the impressive bastion that still dominates the harbor today.
Over the centuries, San Juan’s defensive arsenal expanded with Fort San Cristóbal, Fortín de San Gerónimo, and walls encircling the city. These military works, more than mere symbols, proved their effectiveness by resisting multiple assaults.
The French attacked San Germán and other settlements in 1528, 1538, and 1554, burning towns and villages. In 1595, the Englishman Francis Drake attempted to seize San Juan with a fleet of over twenty ships, but had to retreat. Three years later, in 1598, the troops of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, managed to occupy the city for several months, before disease forced them to withdraw.
In 1625, it was the turn of the Dutch, led by Boudewijn Hendrick, to land. They set fire to San Juan, but failed to take control of El Morro, held by Governor Juan de Haro. Later, in 1702, a British attempt to seize the town of Arecibo failed. And in 1797, a large British force of 7,000 men and 64 ships, led by Ralph Abercromby, was repelled by the troops of Captain General Ramón de Castro.
The historical importance of this fortification complex is now recognized: Old San Juan and La Fortaleza are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Population, Slavery, and Rural Society
The military dimension does not exhaust the colonial reality. In the 18th century, Puerto Rico remained a relatively poor island, with a society dominated by rural life. A census conducted in 1765 by General Alejandro O’Reilly counted 44,883 inhabitants, including just over 5,000 slaves. The low rate of slavery, compared to other sugar colonies, was due to the more diversified economic structure.
This countryside was populated by free peasants, often of mixed heritage or descended from various Spanish and Canarian migratory waves, known as *jíbaros*. Long despised by the elites, the *jíbaro* would become, in the 19th and then the 20th century, a central figure in the national imagination, a symbol of rusticity, attachment to the land, and cultural authenticity.
At the same time, scholarly institutions emerged. In 1786, the friar Iñigo Abbad y Lasierra published in Madrid the first major history of the island, “Historia Geográfica, Civil y Política de Puerto Rico.” It was one of the first comprehensive looks at this colony that was both strategic and peripheral.
Reforms, Abolished Slavery, and First Dreams of Nationhood
The 19th century was that of the Atlantic revolutions: the independence of the United States, the French and Spanish-American revolutions. Yet Puerto Rico, like Cuba, remained under Spanish domination. But ideas of liberty, popular sovereignty, and equality circulated, inspiring a Creole elite increasingly critical of the metropolis.
Liberal Reforms and European Immigration
From 1809, Puerto Rico obtained a first form of representation in Cadiz, when Ramón Power y Giralt was designated as the island’s delegate to the Spanish Cortes. The 1812 Constitution, an emblematic liberal text, legally transformed Puerto Rico from a colony into a province, granting conditional Spanish citizenship to its inhabitants.
Simultaneously, the monarchy sought to stimulate the island’s economy. In 1815, the Cédula de Gracias – a royal decree – opened ports to trade and encouraged the immigration of Catholic Europeans by offering free land to those who swore loyalty to the king and the Church. The text was disseminated in Spanish, but also in English and French, proof of the desire to attract settlers beyond the borders of the Iberian Peninsula.
The island’s population grew from about 155,000 inhabitants at the start of the century to over 950,000 by the end, thanks to diverse immigration.
A 1860 census paints a striking portrait: 583,308 inhabitants, with slightly over half declaring themselves “white” and the other half as people of color. Notably, nearly 84% of the population was illiterate, and poverty was endemic.
Slavery and Its End
The 19th century also remained that of slavery. The transatlantic slave trade was officially abolished in 1835 by Regent María Cristina, but the institution itself did not disappear. The sugar economy, as well as other agricultural activities, continued to rely partly on slave labor. Plans for slave revolts emerged, such as that of Marcos Xiorro in 1821.
Abolitionist pressure led to partial liberation through the Moret Law in 1870 (freeing children born after a certain date and slaves over 60). Total abolition was voted by the Spanish Cortes in 1873. However, freedom remained highly regulated: former slaves were forced to sign three-year contracts with their former masters, perpetuating a form of dependency.
The date of March 22, the day of abolition, would later be commemorated as a day of remembrance and celebration.
Birth of an Autonomist and Independentist Movement
On the political front, the 19th century saw the structuring of the first modern forces. Parties took shape: the Liberal Conservative Party, which advocated for closer integration with Spain, and the Liberal Reformist Party, more open to change, led by figures like Román Baldorioty de Castro, José Julián Acosta, or Pedro Gerónimo Goico.
Very quickly, a faction of these elites shifted towards autonomism, and then flirted with independence. Ideas from the French Revolution and Latin American struggles infused their discourse. It was in this context that the major episode in the island’s anti-colonial political history was born: the Grito de Lares.
The Grito de Lares and the Uprisings at the End of the Spanish Empire
On September 23, 1868, in the small town of Lares, an insurrection against Spanish rule erupted. It was the result of several months of preparation, led from exile by the physician Ramón Emeterio Betances and his companion Segundo Ruiz Belvis, founders of a Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico in the Dominican Republic.
An Ephemeral Republic
Originally planned for the end of the month, the insurrection was moved up when the conspirators learned that the plan had been discovered by the authorities. Between 400 and 600 insurgents, from varied social statuses (landowners, merchants, peasants, slaves), gathered at the hacienda of Manuel Rojas, near Lares. That night, they seized the town, looted the shops and offices of Spanish notables, freed the slaves who had joined them, and raised a flag: the one that would later inspire the official flag of Puerto Rico.
Number of people arrested after the failure of the Grito de Lares uprising in Puerto Rico in 1868.
Autonomy, Intentona de Yauco, and the Carta Autonómica
The Grito de Lares served as a founding myth for Puerto Rican nationalism. But at the time, it accelerated repression. The second half of the century was marked by an alternation of timid reforms and returns to unnuanced authoritarianism. The restoration of the monarchy in Spain in 1874 put a stop to liberal hopes. On the island, Governor Laureano Sanz embodied this hardening, resorting to police surveillance, press censorship, and tortures known as compontes.
In 1897, a new plot, the Intentona de Yauco, took shape in the southwest of the island, led by Antonio Mattei Lluberas. The revolt was quickly suppressed, but it offered the first public appearance of the modern Puerto Rican flag.
Antonio Mattei Lluberas, independence activist
Aware of the impasse, Madrid finally conceded a major reform: the Carta Autonómica (Autonomic Charter) of November 25, 1897, granted Puerto Rico broad political and administrative autonomy. An island government led by Manuel Macías was established early the following year, with an elected parliament. The experience was brief. Scarcely had the autonomous institutions begun to function when the thunder of a new war resounded: the one that would pit Spain against the United States.
1898: From Spanish Colony to American Territory
The explosion of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898 precipitated the United States’ entry into war against Spain. Behind the humanitarian and security pretext lay clearly identified geopolitical and economic interests. Strategists like naval officer Alfred Thayer Mahan had been arguing for years for control of strategic points in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, to ensure the projection of American naval power.
The Puerto Rico Campaign
After clashes in Asia and Cuba, the American fleet turned towards the island. A naval blockade of Puerto Rico was established, and initial engagements occurred off San Juan as early as May. The Spanish captain Ángel Rivero Méndez ordered the cannons of San Cristóbal to fire on the American ship Yale, marking the beginning of hostilities in the bay. This was followed by a massive bombardment of San Juan by the squadron of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson.
On July 25, 1898, General Nelson A. Miles landed at Guánica, in southern Puerto Rico, with thousands of soldiers from Guantánamo and the American mainland. The landing site, initially planned for the east of the island, was chosen for military reasons and also due to the belief that the local population would welcome the troops as liberators. This expectation was partly realized, for example in Ponce where the entry of American forces met with little resistance.
Various engagements then pitted American forces against Spanish and Puerto Rican battalions: the Battle of Yauco, clashes near Guayama, Coamo, and at Asomante Pass, where the Spanish defense slowed the American advance. But the dynamic of the conflict was already decided elsewhere. A truce on August 12 halted the fighting. On December 10, the Treaty of Paris sealed the Spanish defeat.
The Treaty of Paris and Its Consequences
Under this agreement, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States, renounced its rights over Cuba, and received compensation in return. For the island, this change of sovereignty took place without consulting the population. Activists who had hoped for American support for independence, akin to what was emerging in Cuba, were quickly disillusioned.
The American military administration was installed under the authority of General John R. Brooke, later replaced by other governors. The very name of the island was anglicized to “Porto Rico,” and the local currency, the peso, was converted into dollars at an unfavorable rate for the inhabitants. Lands belonging to the Spanish Crown came under the control of the new authorities. Politically, the island’s destiny remained entirely in the hands of Congress in Washington.
Puerto Rico Under American Rule: Laws, Citizenship, and Ambiguities
The shift from the Spanish empire to the American empire did not mean the end of colonialism. On the contrary, it ushered in a new phase, marked by a permanent tension between gradual integration into the American system and the maintenance of a special status.
The Foraker Act: A Civil Government Under Trusteeship
In 1900, the Foraker Act – or Organic Act – replaced the military government with a so-called “insular” civil administration. Puerto Rico was defined as an “unincorporated territory” of the United States, meaning placed under American sovereignty without being an integral part of the Union. The governmental structure formally followed the American tripartite scheme, with an executive, a legislature, and a judiciary.
Although Puerto Rico had an elected local assembly, the main levers of power were controlled by Washington. The governor and members of the Executive Council were appointed by the American president, as were the principal judges. Furthermore, laws passed by the local Assembly could be annulled by the U.S. Congress. A Resident Commissioner, elected by Puerto Ricans, sits in the House of Representatives in Washington, but without voting rights.
The Foraker Act introduced a specific Puerto Rican citizenship, which did not confer full U.S. citizenship status but officially placed the inhabitants under the protection of Washington. Tariffs were rearranged to progressively integrate the island’s economy with that of the United States, with advantageous tariff provisions for bilateral trade, notably on sugar and coffee.
Monoculture, Debt, and Economic Control
This integration came at a high social cost. As early as 1899, two devastating hurricanes, including San Ciriaco, destroyed most coffee and sugar plantations, causing the deaths of thousands of people and leading to a severe economic crisis. The American authorities instituted a land tax (Hollander Act) that weakened many small and medium landowners, forcing them to sell their land.
At the start of the 20th century, about 95% of the island’s foreign trade was with the United States.
The social consequences were severe: land concentration, widespread poorly paid seasonal labor, extreme rural poverty. A 1933 study indicated that nearly 90% of the population lived in poverty, often in extended families, while industries like tobacco were gradually absorbed by trusts controlled from outside.
U.S. Citizenship Without Equal Rights
In 1917, Congress passed the Jones-Shafroth Act, or Jones Act, which redefined Puerto Rico’s status. The text granted U.S. citizenship to inhabitants born on the island or residing there, while maintaining the territory in the “unincorporated” category. A new governmental organization was established, with a Senate and a House of Representatives elected by local suffrage, and a bill of rights.
Despite its Commonwealth status, Puerto Rico faces significant constraints: its governor is appointed by the U.S. president, as are the main department heads. The territory has no vote in presidential elections, no representation in the Senate in Washington, and the U.S. Constitution does not apply in full. The Supreme Court ruled, via the Insular Cases and the Balzac v. Porto Rico decision, that only certain fundamental rights apply automatically; others are subject to the discretion of the U.S. Congress.
In the context of World War I, this citizenship also had a pragmatic dimension: only a few months after its enactment, thousands of Puerto Ricans were drafted into the American army. In parallel, a cabotage law, also often called the “Jones Act” (that of 1920, distinct from the 1917 law), mandated that all maritime transport between American ports be carried out by U.S.-flagged ships, built and controlled in the United States. This obligation continues to weigh on the island’s transportation costs and trade to this day.
Nationalism, Repression, and the Invention of the Commonwealth
As American control strengthened, divergent political currents emerged in Puerto Rico. Some saw annexation as an opportunity for modernization and advocated for statehood. Others defended enhanced autonomy, or even independence. Between these poles, the island’s legal reality remained that of a territory under foreign sovereignty.
Parties, Ideologies, and the Rise of Nationalists
At the start of the 20th century, several parties structured political life. José Celso Barbosa founded a Puerto Rican Republican Party advocating statehood, i.e., full integration as a federated state. Luis Muñoz Rivera, a figure from the Spanish autonomist movement, led the American Federal Party, which banked on an intermediate status. The Unionist Party, created in 1904, defended the right of the Puerto Rican people to decide their future, whether independence or integration.
In 1922, the merger of several pro-independence organizations gave birth to the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. Initially led by José Coll y Cuchí, it was taken over, from 1930 onward, by Pedro Albizu Campos, a lawyer trained at Harvard and a former officer in the U.S. Army. Albizu advocated a clearly anti-colonial line, inspired by struggles like that of Ireland, blending cultural rhetoric, demands for dignity, and defense of armed action.
Facing the U.S. policy of Americanization (imposition of English, arrival of missionaries and businessmen), a nationalist current appealed to a segment of the Puerto Rican popular classes, but also frightened local elites who feared a direct confrontation with American power.
Massacres, Gag Law, and Insurrections
The 1930s and 1940s were marked by a spiral of tensions and repression. In 1935, an incident on the University of Puerto Rico campus in Río Piedras led to the deaths of several nationalist activists, shot by police. A few months later, two of them assassinated the police chief, Colonel E. Francis Riggs; they were summarily executed, without trial, inside the police headquarters itself.
In 1937, a parade organized in Ponce by the Nationalist Party, initially declared legal, was suddenly banned by the American governor Blanton Winship. Police opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators, killing about twenty and injuring up to 200. The event, remembered as the Ponce massacre, was documented by an American Civil Liberties Union investigation, which implicated the direct responsibility of the colonial power.
Maximum number of years in prison faced for waving the Puerto Rican flag under the 1948 Ley de la Mordaza (Gag Law)
Far from stifling the nationalists, this repression fueled radicalization. In 1950, just after Congress had authorized Puerto Rico to draft its own constitution while maintaining American sovereignty (Public Law 600), a series of uprisings erupted in several towns: Peñuelas, Jayuya, Utuado, San Juan, Ponce… In Jayuya, Blanca Canales even proclaimed a short-lived Republic of Puerto Rico, destroying the police station and post office. The U.S. Army intervened, bombing some localities.
Around the same time, a two-man nationalist commando attempted to assassinate President Harry Truman in Washington, in front of the temporary White House residence, Blair House. In 1954, another group, led by Lolita Lebrón, opened fire inside the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, wounding several members of Congress. These actions, widely condemned in the United States, were seen by their perpetrators as desperate gestures to draw attention to what they considered a denied colonization.
Birth of the Estado Libre Asociado (Commonwealth)
Concurrently, another political project took hold, championed by Luis Muñoz Marín and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD). After the adoption, in 1947, of a federal law allowing the election of the governor by Puerto Ricans themselves, Muñoz Marín won the 1948 election. His discourse sought a compromise: recognition of Puerto Rico’s Hispanic cultural specificity, but acceptance of a lasting link with the United States, in exchange for social reforms and development programs.
Year the constitution came into effect, making Puerto Rico an Estado Libre Asociado (Commonwealth).
Concretely, this reform gave the island broad internal autonomy: an elected government, a bicameral legislature, its own constitution. But it did not change the fundamental status under the U.S. Constitution: Puerto Rico remained an unincorporated territory, placed under the sovereignty of Congress, without voting representation at the federal level, and no participation in presidential elections. As recently as 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court would reaffirm, in the Sanchez Valle case, that the ultimate source of power in Puerto Rico remains Congress, not the Puerto Rican people.
Symbolically, however, Muñoz Marín claimed a dual identity: in his 1953 inaugural address, he stated that Puerto Ricans form a “Hispanic-American people composed of good U.S. citizens.” Indeed, the island increasingly thought of itself as a cultural nation, but not as a sovereign state.
From Operation Bootstrap to the Debt Crisis: The Economic Dimension
The political history of the country of Puerto Rico cannot be separated from its economic trajectory. From the 1940s onward, the island became a development laboratory under American auspices, in the context of the Cold War. Endemic poverty was seen as a social and political danger, as much as a moral challenge.
Industrialization by Invitation
The main tool of this transformation was Operation Bootstrap (Operación Manos a la Obra), launched in the late 1940s. Conceived by a circle including Governor Muñoz Marín, economist Teodoro Moscoso, and PPD officials, with support from Washington, it aimed to transition from an agro-exporting economy to an industrial economy.
The mechanism was simple, at least on paper: massive tax exemptions for industrial enterprises, exemption from certain local taxes, duty-free access to the American market, wages lower than on the mainland, and the ability for firms to freely repatriate their profits. The Puerto Rican authorities built turnkey factories, leased at preferential rates. The strategy was summarized by the phrase “industrialization by invitation.”
Puerto Rican Authorities
The results, initially, were spectacular. The number of factories grew from a few dozen to several thousand in two decades. Overall production increased sharply, as did per capita income. Life expectancy improved notably, electricity networks, roads, and housing were developed. The educational system was strengthened, with a particular effort on technical and vocational training.
Mass Migration, Dependency, and Failures
But the apparent success masked several darker realities. First, the model explicitly relied on massive emigration to absorb the surplus rural labor force. In the 1950s, nearly half a million Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland, primarily to New York, but also to Philadelphia and other East Coast cities. A significant diaspora was born, so much so that by the turn of the 21st century, more people of Puerto Rican ancestry lived in the United States than in Puerto Rico itself.
The island’s economy is characterized by industrialization dominated by outside companies, which capture most of the value added generated. Concurrently, the decline of local agriculture increased dependence on imports for food supply. The productive structure reoriented towards high capital-intensive sectors, such as pharmaceuticals, electronics, and chemicals, whose viability is highly sensitive to the tax incentives offered.
When, in the 1990s, certain federal tax advantages (like the famous Section 936 of the tax code) were gradually phased out, the structure weakened. Many factories closed, leading to an explosion in unemployment and a drop in labor force participation. The state and municipalities, to compensate, resorted to borrowing. By the mid-2010s, the cumulative public debt exceeded $70 billion, which Governor Alejandro García Padilla declared impossible to repay.
In 2016, Congress passed the PROMESA law, creating a Financial Oversight and Management Board composed mostly of members appointed in Washington, tasked with overseeing the island’s budget and restructuring the debt. For many, this financial oversight was experienced as a return to a form of explicit colonialism, where major budgetary decisions escaped the elected government.
Identity, Culture, and Political Status: A Nation Without a State
Beyond laws and numbers, the history of the country of Puerto Rico is also that of an identity in an unstable balance. Hispanic-Caribbean in its language, traditions, and memory, but legally American; marked by Taíno, African, and European heritage, but subject to the cultural flows of North America; proud of its cultural nation, but divided over its institutional future.
A Unique Cultural Melting Pot
Puerto Rican culture is the product of long-term mixing. From the Taínos remain dozens of place names (Utuado, Mayagüez, Arecibo, Humacao, Caguas), words that entered common vocabulary (hammock, barbecue, hurricane, maracas, canoe), instruments like the güiro or maracas, and an Indigenous imagination revived through festivals like the National Indigenous Festival of Jayuya.
Puerto Rican culture is a complex blend of heritages. The dominant Spanish influence marks the language, urban planning, literature, and music. The African contribution is visible in musical rhythms, syncretic religious practices, cuisine, and oral tradition. European diasporas (Corsican, French, German, Irish) and more recent communities, like the Jewish community – the largest in the Caribbean – also enrich this heritage.
American occupation introduced new elements: sports (baseball, basketball, professional boxing), urban models, mass consumption, and especially a complex relationship with the English language. Temporarily imposed as the main language of instruction, English met strong resistance, to the point that the return of Spanish as the dominant language of schools and universities became established in the 1940s-1950s. Today, the vast majority of inhabitants claim Spanish as the language of the heart, even though English is omnipresent, especially in economic and administrative circles. Between the two, a lively “Spanglish” has taken root in daily conversations.
A Nation Without Sovereignty
Politically, three major visions have structured the debate for decades: independence, statehood (integration as a federated state), and maintaining or “improving” the Commonwealth. Consultative referendums, held several times, show a deeply divided society. In some votes, statehood appears to have a majority; in others, massive abstention, blank ballots, or the victory of ambiguous options (“none of the above”) reflect as much weariness as distrust towards consultations deemed non-binding.
The legal reality is constant: Puerto Rico remains a territory under the sovereignty of the U.S. Congress, which can, in theory, unilaterally modify its status. The U.S. citizenship of Puerto Ricans is statutory (granted by law) and not constitutional. Inhabitants do not vote in presidential elections, do not have senators, and have only one non-voting representative in the House. On the other hand, they are subject to many federal laws, contribute to social programs (Social Security, Medicare), and endure Washington’s economic policy choices.
At the international level, the question remains open. In 1953, the UN General Assembly removed Puerto Rico from the list of non-self-governing territories, in light of the creation of the Commonwealth. But the Special Committee on Decolonization has since continued to characterize the situation as unfinished and has called on the United States to allow the effective exercise of the right to self-determination. Recent resolutions even go so far as to mention the need to end the “colonialism” from which the Puerto Rican people are said to suffer.
Disasters, Debt, and Mobilizations: A Tense Present
Recent decades have brutally highlighted the structural vulnerabilities accumulated over the course of this shared colonial history between two empires.
Hurricanes and Earthquakes as Revelations
In 2017, Hurricane Maria, of exceptional violence, struck Puerto Rico head-on. For months, a large part of the population remained without electricity or reliable access to drinking water. The collapse of already fragile infrastructure, combined with a federal response deemed slow and inadequate, fueled a sense of abandonment. Images of roofs covered with blue tarps, broken power poles, and isolated villages made their way around the world.
In the following years, other disasters – earthquakes in the island’s southwest, a new storm (Fiona), the Covid‑19 pandemic – exacerbated the social and economic crisis. Budgetary restrictions imposed as part of debt management, especially in the education and health sectors, complicated the government’s response capacity.
Political Crisis and Demands for Change
These ordeals also catalyzed unprecedented citizen mobilizations. In 2019, the publication of private conversations of Governor Ricardo Rosselló, containing insulting remarks about the victims of Maria and marginalized communities, triggered vast protests. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets, demanding his resignation. After weeks of pressure, Rosselló eventually left power, an unprecedented event in recent history.
In the current political context, the question of Puerto Rico’s status is recurrent. Supporters of statehood see it as offering better protection, while independentists and advocates of free association criticize the failure of the colonial model. Bills are regularly introduced in the U.S. Congress, but none have yet led to a definitive redefinition of this relationship.
A Common Thread: The Dignity of a People
Re-reading the history of the country of Puerto Rico, from the Taíno villages to contemporary debates on debt and self-determination, reveals a constant: the tension between external domination and the internal aspiration for dignity and recognition.
Borinquen was transformed by the Spanish empire into a military bastion and agricultural colony, then by the United States into a semi-colonial development laboratory. The Taínos nearly disappeared physically, but their memory survived in words, sounds, and identity claims. Enslaved Africans helped build the sugar economy and bequeathed cultural forms that became emblems of the island. The jíbaros embodied, for an entire generation, a peasant authenticity facing urban elites and models from the North.
In this history, moments of insurrection – the Grito de Lares, the Intentona de Yauco, the nationalist uprisings of the 20th century – are all milestones where part of the population tried to wrest, sometimes by arms, a space of sovereignty. Periods of reform – the Constitution of Cadiz, the Carta Autonómica, the Foraker Act, the Jones Act, the creation of the Estado Libre Asociado, Operation Bootstrap – testify, in turn, to a will to reconcile modernization, social improvement, and the maintenance of a strong link with a metropolis.
Puerto Rico is an American territory with a singular political status. A former Spanish colony, it never became an independent state. Although under American sovereignty, it is not a full-fledged federated state. It constitutes a distinct cultural nation, but lacks state sovereignty. This historical trajectory illustrates the complexity of traditional political categories.
The future of the country of Puerto Rico will depend, in large part, on the ability of its inhabitants to make their voices heard, to influence decisions made in Washington, but also to build, on the island and in the diaspora, a collective project that reconciles memory, social justice, and democratic choice regarding its status. History, however, constantly reminds us that this small Caribbean territory, long marginal on imperial maps, has always been at the heart of the great issues of power, identity, and freedom in the Americas.
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Cyril Jarnias is an independent expert in international wealth management with over 20 years of experience. As an expatriate himself, he is dedicated to helping individuals and business leaders build, protect, and pass on their wealth with complete peace of mind.
On his website, cyriljarnias.com, he shares his expertise on international real estate, offshore company formation, and expatriation.
Thanks to his expertise, he offers sound advice to optimize his clients' wealth management. Cyril Jarnias is also recognized for his appearances in many prestigious media outlets such as BFM Business, les Français de l’étranger, Le Figaro, Les Echos, and Mieux vivre votre argent, where he shares his knowledge and know-how in wealth management.
