The face of socialism in America is the fiery Puerto Rican congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. One of her many publicity stunts involved attacking Donald Trump and the Republicans for the lethargic pace of cleanup and aid efforts after Hurricane Maria struck the home of her grandparents, the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Now she, among many other progressive democrats in congress, wants to elevate PR to the 51st state in the union. Is this really what the people of Puerto Rico want? And why are they in this limbo-like state of not quite an American State but more than a territory? Today we will seek to answer these questions in this edition of Springtime of Nations.

We should begin with the peoples that originally inhabited the island of Puerto Rico before the arrival of Europeans, the indigenous Tainos. After Christopher Colombus brought the Spanish Empire, the natives were enslaved under the encomienda system to work mostly in gold mines. After they revolted in 1511 under the brutal regime, they were gradually wiped out through disease and abuse. To replace them, African slaves were imported starting in 1517, although by 1570 the gold mines were exhausted and the economy of the island shifted to cash crops like coffee and later the very profitable sugar cane. Slavery boomed into the 19th century in Puerto Rico, until its abolition in 1873 by a Spain anxious to stave off the kinds of rebellions that had erupted in neighboring Cuba in 1868. Liberal reformism arose in Puerto Rico during this period, seeking to increase autonomy, which they finally received in 1897. However, the course of Puerto Rican history was about to take a drastic turn in the following year involving an American Battleship named the USS Maine.

The destruction of the Maine in Havana harbor set off an American declaration of war on flimsy claims of sabotage. Future President Theodore Roosevelt led a charge of his Rough Riders in the battle of San Juan, the American capture of the Puerto Rican capital. After their easy victory in the Caribbean and Pacific, America absorbed Puerto Rico into its own nascent empire. The military government was replaced by a civil government in 1900, but when this civil government voted to be independent of the loving arms of the American government in 1914 the US Congress ignored their resolution. In 1917 the US government “granted” citizenship to Puerto Ricans to increase their draft pool for the First World War. During the New Deal of FDR, the federal minimum wage was set to 25 cents an hour, many times the hourly wage of most Puerto Ricans which devastated the economy until it was exempted. This led to the rise of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico whose supporters were physically attacked in peaceful demonstrations through the 1930s by government forces, including the Ponce massacre in 1937 where over 200 Puerto rican civilians were killed or wounded by police submachine guns. Finally the party and movement was legally suppressed in 1948, with The Gag Law that made it a crime to even display the Puerto Rican national flag or sing a patriotic song. These measures radicalized the Nationalists, who planned an armed uprising to gain independence. In 1950, a referendum was passed that changed the status of the island from a U.S. Territory to a “commonwealth” to have its own internal constitution. The Nationalists saw the referendum as illegitimate because it did not have independence as a possible option, and engaged in sporadic attacks on police in Puerto Rico, partially as retaliation for their suppression. In the Jayuya Uprising, the American Government used artillery, mortars and bomber aircraft indiscriminately to kill the Nationalist forces, which destroyed much of the town. Puerto Rican Nationalists also attempted to assassinate American government leaders in the mainland US, launching an assault on President Truman’s guest house in DC where he was staying, and in 1954 managing to get into the House of Representatives with firearms and wound 5 Congressmen. The revolt was ultimately unsuccessful, and the US and Puerto Rican government managed to kill or jail all the major members of the organization, the one consolation being in 1957 when the so-called Gag Law was struck down as unconstitutional, making peaceful promotion of independence de jure legal again. 

In 1967, Independence was put on the ballot for the first time, with a 3 way referendum to gauge support for either the status quo, for American statehood, or full Independence. PR nationalists only got 0.6% of the vote that time, when many were jailed or in hiding at the time. Many more referendums on the question through the decades have been held, with statehood generally having the largest share. American statehood however, is up to the US congress, which has never acceded to the request. In the latest 2020 referendum, a full majority went for statehood in a simple binary choice between it and status quo. In polling, about 30% of Puerto Ricans say they would either support full independence or “free association”, with broader autonomy than the commonwealth. It’s safe to say that at least for now most Puerto Ricans are not in favor of independence. However, given that the U.S. is very reluctant to grant PR statehood (with the resulting vast increase in federal funds it can receive), many who prefer statehood now would probably accept the uncertainty of independence over the untenable commonwealth system.

The United States took Puerto Rico as a prize in 1898, and through cronyist connections the former governor Charles Herbert Allen created a vast sugar monopoly on the island, a trust that now goes under the name of Domino Sugar. Although PR has industrialized, it remains poor with high unemployment and millions of Puerto Ricans have emigrated, mostly to mainland America where they have citizenship rights. The relationship of master and servant has not changed in the 120 years of American rule, and can only change when the Puerto Rican people, who have had a distinct national culture for longer than any British Colony, finally get what they by rights deserve, full control of their own land. Freedom for Puerto Rico and may 1000 flowers bloom!