The United States in Puerto Rico, 1898-1900

Edward J. Berbusse

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780807872963, 9780807810040
• eBook ISBN: 9780807872970
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Relations internationales

Through a close examination of the United States military governments established in Puerto Rico, and with careful attention to the important Foraker Act of 1900, the author presents in detail the results of Puerto Rico's transition from the old world to the new.

Originally published in 1966.

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PART ONE

Puerto Rico within the Spanish Colonial Empire during the Nineteenth Century

I

Evolution of Ideas and Institutions in Puerto Rico during the Nineteenth Century

The cultural and spiritual contribution of Spain’s colonizing in the New World has been much debated. Some writers have exaggerated the greatness of her cultural and civilizing influence; others have over-stressed the severity of her colonial policy. Whatever may be the truth, it cannot be denied that Spain left an indelible impression on the cultural forms of Hispanic America. Any attempt to erase what is an essential part of the thought and institutions of the Hispanic American world is futile. Nevertheless, Spain failed to produce a dynamic evolution of her ideological and cultural influence, and this ultimately led to the breaking of the political bonds. This failure can be attributed to a blindness in seeing that the colonials were sons of Spain with the same inherited individualism and love of self-government that characterized the peninsular Spaniards. Her policy of sending peninsulares to govern well-educated criollos and mestizos¹ was the static attitude that produced a new crop of colonials whose thinking and action were set on the forging of independence.

Puerto Rico, like other colonial areas of Spain, experienced this same urge for reform. While the masses of the people consumed their days in supplying basic needs, the intellectuals or political leaders were the ones who argued their rights and labored for institutional changes. The categories of reform were in the political, social, economic, and educational areas. The political changes were of three possibilities: assimilation into Spain as a province, an autonomous charter that would give extensive local administration, or complete independence. Under the heading of social problems came such matters as slavery, the class structure, and regulations for the migration of peoples to Puerto Rico. The economic problem included foreign trade (free or bound by the principles of mercantilism), a system of internal taxation and the budget, the development of varied crops, and the extention of transportation facilities that would connect all parts of the island, bringing produce to the ports. Education was a constant subject of grievance, and illiteracy rates were high. Spain had granted few secondary schools and had rejected the appeal for a university in Puerto Rico. The right of students to be educated in foreign countries was not always approved; nor were scholarships generously granted to good students of the poorer classes. Lastly, the right of the church to take its place in education, or rather to continue it, was subject to strong opposition when the leaders of the “new thought” expressed their anticlericalism. It is chiefly in the nineteenth century that we see these problems come into focus; it is then that annoyance with Spain’s reactionary policy became most vocal. A survey of these relations between Spain and Puerto Rico is necessary as a background to an understanding of this island’s relations with the United States following the occupation of 1898.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ISOLATION OF PUERTO RICO

As a key to the Caribbean Sea, Puerto Rico had a major role in the controlling of traffic that moved back and forth to Spain. Against the invasions of major European powers that sought to crack Spain’s colonial empire, she reared mighty fortresses. El Castillo del Morro and San Cristobal stand in Puerto Rico today as memorials to the engineering skill of Spain who dominated the world in the sixteenth century, held her own in the seventeenth, and gradually fell from power in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In Spain, the nineteenth century saw a fluctuation that swung between the extremes of absolutist monarchism and anarchic separatism. Between these two were many shades of moderate political thought. Spaniards were disgusted with Charles IV (1788–1808) and his chief minister, Godoy, who had been duped by Napoleon. The latter had convinced the monarch that he should resign his throne and surrender the right of succession of his son, Ferdinand VII. In July of 1808, Napoleon set up his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as king of Spain; and from then on many Spanish colonists used the title of “legitimacy” as a lever to pry themselves away from Spain. While giving lip-service to Ferdinand, their hearts desired independence. In Spain, the revolutionary juntas rose in the spirit of a new nationalism, a deliverance from the foreign despot, and increased political rights. The military junta of “legitimacy” in Spain wrote its ideas into the Constitution of 1812 which resembled the French Constitution of 1791. This liberal constitution declared sovereignty as residing in the nation; individual rights were proclaimed; and the Cortes was made their protector. The ideals of this constitution became the model for the liberals on the point of revolt in Latin America, as well as for the liberal constitutions that were formulated thereafter in southern Europe. The spirit came out of the minds of the bourgeoisie, intellectuals, theorists, and army officers; they were the class that was bred by the enlightenment and the philosophers of the French Revolution. In the colonies, the people rose in the name of the new freedom that not merely rejected Napoleon but also the peninsular Spaniards who dominated colonial government.

In the light of this, Spain sought to isolate her colonies from the revolutionary ideas that were awake in Europe and from the economic interests of competing powers. She might well have succeeded in this if she had been realistic enough to grant ever-expanding intellectual and political rights to her subjects. But, as a once mighty power, she lived in the land of memories; and of such recollection came a static approach to the increasing demands of the colonies. In response to the enthusiasm of her insular subjects for self-rule, she gave an arbitrary rule of peninsular military men. When education was requested, she often regarded it as the opening of the window to new and dangerous ideas that might ferment and beget independence. In refusing to understand the new thought, she engendered irritation in her colonists, who not only began to speak in terms of the rights of Spaniards and of provincials with their particular fueros (code of laws), but also in terms of emancipated America. The ever-progressing North American power was sprung upon Spain as a model; the ideals of Simón Bolívar were expressed in barely cloaked language. It was time for Spain either to make concessions to a growing Puerto Rican people or to crush out the spirit of growth. She did neither fully. She rather attempted concessions and then withdrew them. This infuriated a people who were normally noted for their faithful and pacific attentions to the mother country.

Puerto Rico was also of economic concern to Spain. As the eastern-most rib of the Greater Antilles, she caught the trade winds of the Atlantic on the mountain tops that ran along the center of the island. The northern slopes and valleys were wet and ever verdant. Rich soil in a wet tropical climate made it a center for tobacco, sugar, and coffee cultivation. The southern slopes of the island were deprived of the rains and, in the hot dry climate, became cotton centers. Diverse crops were cultivated throughout the island; and a little labor would reward greatly, as long as population centers did not overcrowd or the hurricanes did not cut a swath of destruction. Both reduced the food supply and required imports from the outside world. The system of mercantilism prevented international trade with the island and even the trade of Spanish colonies among themselves. Often it was either starvation or a smuggling of the necessities of life. Periods of economic necessity engendered interest in the outside world and often brought profits that induced the desire of further gain. For some time, especially during the nineteenth-century period of wars between France and England, the iron grip of mercantilism (which considered colonies as dependencies to be exploited for the benefit of the metropolis) was relaxed. Trade outside the nation grew, especially with the United States. For instance, in 1803, the Puerto Rican export of sugar to the United States rose to a high of 263,200 pounds.²

Along with this spirit of political and economic independence came the desire for wider education and the opening of a university. What Spain fully realized might produce greater demands for autonomy and even independence, the colonists saw as necessary to progress. They knew something of their constitutional heritage with its political rights—a heritage that antedated the centralized bureaucracy of the Hapsburgs and Bourbons. This was a tradition of strongly defined local rights that were incorporated in the fueros and written into the Laws of the Indies. They had heard of the great Spanish jurists, Francisco Vitoria and Francisco Suárez, whose treatises on the state and international law are classics in the literature of government.³ They had seen the successful struggle of the North Americans against a colonial power of Europe. In other sections of Latin America, they saw the beginnings of revolt under Francisco Miranda and Simón Bolívar. Spain’s attempt to restrict Puerto Rico in her desire for some form of self-determination was destined to meet with reluctant submission.

Concomitant with this political stress was the formation in Latin America of economic societies of liberals who primarily concerned themselves with a study of new methods of agriculture and industry but who also became the seed-bed of the new political philosophies.⁴ In Puerto Rico, the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País was founded in 1813, and by permission of the Spanish Cortes, it was allowed to promote the development of industry, transportation, and agriculture.⁵ This, it must be remembered, occurred during the short constitutional period of 1810–14, when the Cortes expanded its ideas of representative government and when Puerto Rico was given the status of a Spanish province, with the right of representation in Spain’s revolutionary Cortes. However, all was undone in 1814 when the restored and absolutist monarchy of Ferdinand VII dissolved the Cortes and annulled all of its constitutional acts.

In the intellectual upheavals of the nineteenth century, the church, which had controlled education and influenced thought during three centuries, was severely tried. By the early nineteenth century, Puerto Rico had passed through three centuries of inadequate religious instruction and a weakened practice of the faith, in part because of a limited clergy and a widespread population that was difficult to reach over mountainous terrain and few roads.⁶ Modern philosophies had battered the church badly, and it was often a static church that met its antagonists. The church, moreover, was wholly dependent upon a state that shifted easily from a conservative to a liberal political practice. It was caught in the midst of the political conflict and threatened with ambivalence. It found the conservative position less violative of its creed and metaphysic but just as dominating as the liberal. Consequently, it frequently aligned itself with the conservative element that was destined to lose power in Puerto Rico’s evolution of ideas. An exception to this is found in the early nineteenth century when the bishop of Puerto Rico, Juan Alejo de Arizmendi, participated with his clergy in the ceremony of receiving the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 and when he exhorted the people to respect the law of the state.⁷

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS VERSUS DICTATORSHIP, 1808–1819

In the Puerto Rico of the nineteenth century, three political factions began to evolve: the Conservatives, who favored unconditional submission to Spain; the Liberals, who were willing to be assimilated as a province into Spain, but only upon the assurance of a great deal of local administrative autonomy; and the Separatists, who believed that Puerto Rico had arrived at a period of development that would permit them to form a sovereign political unity. For the last group, revolution was to become the only instrument of separation. In the face of an ever-growing demand for increased home-rule, concessions were grudgingly given by Spain and arbitrarily withdrawn. This reactionary policy caused increasing resentment. For instance, on September 4, 1810, the Council of the Regency promulgated a royal order that gave the governor of Puerto Rico dictatorial powers that would prevent the spread of the Venezuelan revolt to the island. It is to be noted that the council’s decree of emergency powers had been given without awaiting the convening of the Cortes. The reaction of the Separatists was a satirical verse nailed to the door of the house of the council’s commissioner: “This people, sufficiently docile to obey the authorities that it recognizes, will never allow a single American to be taken from the island to fight against its brothers in Caracas.”⁸ About this same time, Don Ramón Power represented Puerto Rico in an extraordinary session of the Spanish Cortes. At its convening, a trend toward liberal legislation was apparent; and Don Ramón was responsible for the setting up of a subtreasury in Puerto Rico. This creation of the Intendencia de Hacienda was a splitting off of treasury powers from the office of the governor general; it also delegated to the intendant (subtreasurer) the handling of the accounting office, the fixing of prices, and the adjudication of finances. And so financial matters were separated from the absolute power of the governor. The first intendant was Don Alejandro Ramírez, a capable man who, in order to create a better climate of economic life, established the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País. This group sought to promote the development of industry, transportation, and agriculture, and to increase the spreading of useful knowledge.⁹

In February of 1813, the governor of Puerto Rico proclaimed that the Constitution of 1812 become operative in the island; that a representative to the Cortes be elected; and that a Provincial Assembly be created. It was the first expression of representative government in a long while, and the Liberals were exultant. The assembly was a corporation of a semirepresentative character and with administrative powers, consisting of nine members who owned property. Their principal functions were to levy taxes; examine the accounts of the town councils; invest public funds; propose works for the common good; protect pious and beneficent establishments; encourage agriculture, industry and commerce; and increase public education. In accord with this new and representative institution’s purpose, the crown lands were divided, and increased trade with the United States—especially in sugar—was fostered. Rigid mercantilism began to yield to some aspects of free trade. Though the duties realized from trade with the United States had risen to 100,000 pesos annually by 1811, they soon sharply declined as a result of the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain.

This period of liberalism in Puerto Rico was short-lived because of the return to the throne of Ferdinand VII, who quickly abolished the Constitution of 1812. By decree of May 24, 1814, the Provincial Assembly was suppressed, and Puerto Rico returned to the status of a colony. The Conservatives rejoiced; the Liberals were disgusted but remained pacific; the Separatists were forced to remain passive because of the failure of Bolívar’s revolt in Venezuela. In order to assuage the feeling of his loyal subjects in Puerto Rico, Ferdinand VII made large concessions in the economic area. Accordingly, on November 10, 1815, Governor Salvador Meléndez published a royal order, La Cédula de Gracias, that provided for a fostering of immigration, commerce, industry, and agriculture in the island. Foreigners who were born of friendly nations, and who professed the Catholic faith, were admitted. Free commerce between Puerto Rico and the island possessions of foreign powers in America was allowed in the case of emergency, under determination of the governor general and the intendant. Customs of from 12 to 15 per cent were to be paid on goods imported from these possessions.

The study of immigrants to Puerto Rico at this time is an interesting one. Some came from war-torn Haiti and, on arrival in Puerto Rico, tended to favor the Conservative cause. Others came from Louisiana and Florida in the period following United States occupation. Still others came from Venezuela, Guiana, and Martinique, in order to escape the slave revolts or the conflicts between Bolívar and Spain. There were those who favored reaction and those who sought to arouse Puerto Rico against the mother country. Among the heterodox were those who ridiculed the dogmas and authority of the Catholic church. In their intellectual baggage were copies of the Koran, the Talmud, and the tracts of Martin Luther. The works of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and other leaders of the enlightenment were brought, and in the secrecy of the Masonic lodges, new political and philosophical ideas were discussed.¹⁰

While the concessions in immigration and trade ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Puebto Rico within the Spanish Colonial Empire during the Nineteenth Century
• Part II Puerto Rico’s Early Years within the United States Territorial System