In around 1890, Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, a member of the Navy War Board and leading U.S. strategic thinker, wrote a book titled The Influence of Sea Power upon History in which he argued for the establishment of a large and powerful navy modeled after the British Royal Navy. Part of his strategy called for the acquisition of colonies in the Caribbean, which would serve as coaling and naval stations. They would serve as strategic points of defense with the construction of a canal through the Isthmus of Panama, to allow easier passage of ships between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
William H. Seward, the former Secretary of State under presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant, had also stressed the importance of building a canal in Honduras, Nicaragua or Panama. He suggested that the United States annex the Dominican Republic and purchase Puerto Rico and Cuba. The U.S. Senate did not approve his annexation proposal, and Spain rejected the U.S. offer of 160 million dollars for Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Since 1894, the United States Naval War College had been developing contingency plans for a war with Spain. By 1896, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence had prepared a plan that included military operations in Puerto Rican waters. Except for one 1895 plan, which recommended annexation of the island then named Isle of Pines (later renamed as Isla de la Juventud), a recommendation dropped in later planning, plans developed for attacks on Spanish territories were intended as support operations against Spain's forces in and around Cuba. Recent research suggests that the U.S. did consider Puerto Rico valuable as a naval station, and recognized that it and Cuba generated lucrative crops of sugar – a valuable commercial commodity which the United States lacked.
On July 25, 1898, during the Spanish–American War, the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico with a landing at Guánica. As an outcome of the war, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, along with the Philippines and Guam, then under Spanish sovereignty, to the U.S. under the Treaty of Paris. Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba, but did not cede it to the U.S.
The United States and Puerto Rico began a long-standing metropolis-colony relationship. In the early 20th century, Puerto Rico was ruled by the military, with officials including the governor appointed by the President of the United States. The Foraker Act of 1900 gave Puerto Rico a certain amount of civilian popular government, including a popularly elected House of Representatives. (The upper house and governor were appointed by the United States; at the time, the US did not have popular election of senators. Until passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, most US senators were elected by their respective state legislatures.)
Its judicial system was constructed to follow the American legal system; a Puerto Rico Supreme Court and a United State District Court for the territory were established. It was authorized a non-voting member of Congress, by the title of "Resident Commissioner", who was appointed. In addition, this Act extended all U.S. laws "not locally inapplicable" to Puerto Rico, specifying, in particular, exemption from U.S. Internal Revenue laws.
The Act empowered the civil government to legislate on "all matters of legislative character not locally inapplicable," including the power to modify and repeal any laws then in existence in Puerto Rico, though the U.S. Congress retained the power to annul acts of the Puerto Rico legislature. During an address to the Puerto Rican legislature in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt recommended that Puerto Ricans become U.S. citizens.
In 1914, the Puerto Rican House of Delegates voted unanimously in favor of independence from the United States, but this was rejected by the U.S. Congress as "unconstitutional," and in violation of the 1900 Foraker Act.
U.S. citizenship & Puerto Rican citizenship
In 1917, the U.S. Congress passed the Jones-Shafroth Act, popularly called the Jones Act, which granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship. Opponents, who included all of the Puerto Rican House of Delegates, which voted unanimously against it, said that the US imposed citizenship in order to draft Puerto Rican men into the army as American entry into World War I became likely.
The same Act provided for a popularly elected Senate to complete a bicameral Legislative Assembly, as well as a bill of rights. It authorized the popular election of the Resident Commissioner to a four-year term.
Natural disasters, including a major earthquake and tsunami in 1918, and several hurricanes, and the Great Depression impoverished the island during the first few decades under U.S. rule. Some political leaders, such as Pedro Albizu Campos, who led the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, demanded change in relations with the United States. He organized a protest at the University of Puerto Rico in 1935, in which four were killed by police.
In 1936 the US Senator Millard Tydings introduced a bill supporting independence for Puerto Rico, but it was opposed by Luis Muñoz Marín of the Liberal Party. (Tydings had co-sponsored the Tydings–McDuffie Act, which provided independence to the Philippines after a 10-year transition under a limited autonomy.) All the Puerto Rican parties supported the bill, but Muñoz Marín opposed it. Tydings did not gain passage of the bill.
In 1937, Albizu Campos' party organized a protest, in which numerous people were killed by police in Ponce. The Insular Police, resembling the National Guard, opened fire upon unarmed and defenseless cadets and bystanders alike. The attack on unarmed protesters was reported by the U.S. Congressman Vito Marcantonio and confirmed by the report of the Hays Commission, which investigated the events. The commission was led by Arthur Garfield Hays, counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nineteen persons were killed and over 200 were badly wounded, many in their backs while running away. The Hays Commission declared it a massacre and police mob action, and it has since been known as the Ponce Massacre. In the aftermath, on April 2, 1943, Tydings introduced a bill in Congress calling for independence for Puerto Rico. This bill ultimately was defeated.
During the latter years of the Roosevelt–Truman administrations, the internal governance was changed in a compromise reached with Luis Muñoz Marín and other Puerto Rican leaders. In 1946, President Truman appointed the first Puerto Rican-born governor, Jesús T. Piñero.
Since 2007, the Puerto Rico State Department has developed a protocol to issue certificates of Puerto Rican citizenship to Puerto Ricans. In order to be eligible, applicants must have been born in Puerto Rico; born outside of Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican-born parent; or be an American citizen with at least one year residence in Puerto Rico. The citizenship is internationally recognized by Spain, which considers Puerto Rico to be an Ibero-American nation. Therefore, Puerto Rican citizens have the ability to apply for Spanish citizenship after only two years residency in Spain (instead of the standard 10 years).
Commonwealth
In 1947, the U.S. granted Puerto Ricans the right to democratically elect their own governor. In 1948, Luis Muñoz Marín became the first popularly elected governor of Puerto Rico.
A bill was introduced before the Puerto Rican Senate which would restrain the rights of the independence and nationalist movements in the island. The Senate at the time was controlled by the PPD, and was presided over by Luis Muñoz Marín. The bill, also known as the Gag Law (Ley de la Mordaza in Spanish), was approved by the legislature on May 21, 1948. It made it illegal to display a Puerto Rican flag, to sing a patriotic tune, to talk of independence, or to fight for the liberation of the island.
The bill, which resembled the Smith Act passed in the United States, was signed and made into law on June 10, 1948, by the U.S. appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Jesús T. Piñero, and became known as "Law 53" (Ley 53 in Spanish).
In accordance with this law, it would be a crime to print, publish, sell, exhibit, organize or help anyone organize any society, group or assembly of people whose intentions are to paralyze or destroy the insular government. Anyone accused and found guilty of disobeying the law could be sentenced to ten years of prison, be fined $10,000 dollars (US), or both. According to Dr. Leopoldo Figueroa, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, the law was repressive, and was in violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees Freedom of Speech. He asserted that the law as such was a violation of the civil rights of the people of Puerto Rico. The infamous law was repealed in 1957.
In 1950, the U.S. Congress approved Public Law 600 (P.L. 81-600), which allowed for a democratic referendum in Puerto Rico to determine whether Puerto Ricans desired to draft their own local constitution. This Act was meant to be adopted in the "nature of a compact". It required congressional approval of the Puerto Rico Constitution before it could go into effect, and repealed certain sections of the Organic Act of 1917. The sections of this statute left in force were entitled the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Oscar L. Chapman, under whose Department resided responsibility of Puerto Rican affairs, clarified the new commonwealth status in this manner:
On October 30, 1950, Pedro Albizu Campos and other nationalists led a 3-day revolt against the United States in various cities and towns of Puerto Rico, in what is known as the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts of the 1950s. The most notable occurred in Jayuya and Utuado. In the Jayuya revolt, known as the Jayuya Uprising, the Puerto Rican governor declared martial law, and attacked Jayuya with infantry, artillery and bombers under control of the Puerto Rican commander. The Utuado Uprising culminated in what is known as the Utuado massacre.
On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists from New York City, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman at his temporary residence of Blair House. Torresola was killed during the attack, but Collazo was wounded and captured. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but President Truman commuted his sentence to life. After Collazo served 29 years in a federal prison, President Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence to times served and he was released in 1979.
Don Pedro Albizu Campos served many years in a federal prison in Atlanta, for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government in Puerto Rico.
The Constitution of Puerto Rico was approved by a Constitutional Convention on February 6, 1952, and 82% of the voters in a March referendum. It was modified and ratified by the U.S. Congress, approved by President Truman on July 3 of that year, and proclaimed by Gov. Muñoz Marín on July 25, 1952. This was the anniversary of the July 25, 1898, landing of U.S. troops in the Puerto Rican Campaign of the Spanish–American War, until then imposed as an annual Puerto Rico holiday.
Puerto Rico adopted the name of Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico (literally "Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"
, officially translated into English as Commonwealth, for its body politic. "The United States Congress legislates over many fundamental aspects of Puerto Rican life, including citizenship, the currency, the postal service, foreign affairs, military defense, communications, labor relations, the environment, commerce, finance, health and welfare, and many others."
During the 1950s, Puerto Rico experienced rapid industrialization, due in large part to Operación Manos a la Obra ("Operation Bootstrap"
, an offshoot of FDR's New Deal. It was intended to transform Puerto Rico's economy from agriculture-based to manufacturing-based to provide more jobs. Puerto Rico has become a major tourist destination, as well as a global center for pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Four plebiscites have been held since the late 20th century to resolve the political status. The most recent, in 2012 showed a majority (54% of the voters) in favor of a change in status, with full statehood the preferred option but it was highly controversial: many ballots were left blank and the results were criticized by several parties. Support for the pro-statehood party, Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), and the pro-commonwealth party, Partido Popular Democrático (PPD), remains about equal. The only registered pro-independence party, the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), usually receives 3–5% of the electoral votes.
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