The Puerto Rican People
The Evolution of a Culture
By
John P. Schmal
Published on LatinoLA:
September 16, 2003
For more almost a century, the Puerto Rican population of the mainland U.S. has grown steadily. Starting with a mere 1,500 individuals in 1910, Puerto Rican migration picked up dramatically in the years following World War II. From a population of 70,000 on the mainland in 1940, the Puerto Rican tally in the United States reached 226,000 in 1950. By 1996, this figure had reached more than 3 million.
In the 2000 U.S. census, Puerto Ricans in California numbered a total of 140,570 souls, a significant increase from the 1970 figure of 46,955. But seven states in the 2000 census actually had larger populations of Puerto Ricans: New York, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Illinois. The Puerto Ricans living in these states - for the most part - are professional people, playing important roles in their communities, their jobs, and their churches. Many of them are involved in the fields of education, medicine, and library science.
Puerto Ricans have arrived on the mainland for a multitude of reasons and, as American citizens, are seeking many of the same opportunities that their fellow American citizens have or aspire to. But, the quality that sets Puerto Ricans apart from others is their unique identity. This is an identity fostered on the island, but carried by Puerto Ricans to mainland and handed down to younger generations.
It is worth noting that a Puerto Rican is a Puerto Rican whether the individual is born in Puerto Rico, Texas, or California. This fact is a manifestation of Puerto Rican pride that is evident from the east coast to the west coast, and the exceptions to this rule are rare.
The uniqueness of Puerto Rican identity, however, is actually very complex and not well-understood by most people. In order to understand this cultural and genetic identity, we need to reach 500 years into Puerto Rico?s past. It is at this point, where we see the creation of this distinctive Puerto Rican character. But the story does not end here. Puerto Rico?s history from the early Sixteenth Century to 1898 is a chronicle of evolution: evolution of a unique cultural identity. With the help of several brilliant scholars, I have pieced together a summary of this gradual evolution.
The island of Puerto Rico is centrally located in the arc of submerged mountains that connects North America with South America and forms the archipelago of the Antilles. The total area of Puerto Rico ? including the small, neighboring islands ? is 3,417.5 square miles, making it roughly the size of Connecticut. Those who are not familiar with Puerto Rico are likely to think that such a small compact island would not be very culturally complex. They would, however, be wrong.
As a matter of fact, the Puerto Rican culture is both complex and multifaceted. Although small in size, Puerto Rico has been able to draw a large number of diverse peoples to its shores. For this reason, Puerto Rican culture is unique from that of its neighboring islands and is the result of almost five hundred years of evolution.
First of all, we should address the definition of culture. The late Puerto Rican author, Mar?a Teresa Bab?n, explained that ?by culture we mean all that which a country has created in daily living as well as in arts, sciences, letters, folklore, music and dance.? In order to understand the ?cultural homogeneity of the Puerto Rican people,? Ms. Bab?n wrote that it is necessary to review ?all the attributes contributing to its formation by the Indian, the Black and the Spaniard.? At the same time, however, she said that we cannot forget ?the fruitful contributions of the minority group of foreigners who have been assimilated into our country.? Ms. Bab?n concluded that ?with the cultural and racial amalgamation of all these diverse beings, a national reality has been able to coalesce, which persists and is projected toward the future with growing impetus.?
Ms. Babin has pointed out that three ethnic elements were most important in the formation and evolution of the Puerto Rican people and their ?national culture.? These three primary elements in the cultural development of Puerto Rico are the pre-Columbian Native-American element, the Spanish element and the African element.
The writer, Salvador Brau (1842-1912), seeking to understand the intricacies of the Puerto Rican genetic heritage, pointed out that ?the basic sources of our [Puerto Rican] character? derive as follows: ?from the Indian remained the indolence, the quiet character, the unselfish and the hospitable sentiments; the African brought his resistance, his vigorous sensuality, the superstition and fatalism; the Spaniard contributed his chivalrous gravity, his characteristic pride, his festive tastes, his austere devotion, constancy in adversity and love for the mother Country and for independence.?
The Indian Influence:
When Europeans first stepped foot on Puerto Rican shores in the late Fifteenth Century, the island ? known as Borinqu?n to the natives ? was inhabited by the Taino Indians, a peaceful agricultural people of Arawak stock who probably originated in South America. The first major Indian rebellion that took place in 1511 was brutally suppressed and was followed by epidemics that decimated the aboriginal population. However, even with the assimilation that took place under Spanish rule, elements of the Native American culture, language, and spirit remained alive.
Today, the abundance of Indian names of villages, towns, mountains and rivers offer indisputable evidence of the influence of the Amerindians to Puerto Rico's national culture. Further evidence is provided by the many words referring to household objects, tropical fruits, animals, birds and some condiments and dishes of regional cooking. Among the many words donated by the Ta?nos on Borinqu?n were hamaca (hammock), ma?z (maize, corn), tabaco (tobacco), sabana (savanna), hurac?n (hurricane), boh?o (hut, cabin), canoa (canoe or boat) and batey (porch or stoop), as well as papaya, iguana and yuca.
The African Contribution:
When African slaves were first introduced into Puerto Rico for the sugar harvest in the Sixteenth Century, they introduced African strains of music, African ceremonials, African witch doctor medicine and a new infusion of blood for the island's ethnic pot. According to Ricardo Alegr?a, the numerical strength of the black man in Puerto Rico was a ?vigorous cultural force,? constantly renewed by the arrival of new slaves.
Although many of the Africans brought to Puerto Rico during the first century of occupation were Jelofe (Wolof) tribesmen from Senegal, Luis M. D?az Soler states that "the largest contingent of Africans came from the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Dahomey, a region known as the area of Guinea or the Slave Coast.? He also explains that ?the English slave-traders introduced Negroes from the region of the Congo and Senegal.?
As stated above, many of the slaves brought to Puerto Rico would be of the Yorubas, Ashantis, lbos (or Eboes), Fantes, Congos and Mandingoes. Some tribes were considered better "merchandise" than others and, therefore, were shipped in disproportionate numbers. The historian, Carter G. Woodson, has provided us with a description of some of these people whose genetic influence on the modern Puerto Rican is considered most significant:
?Slaves came in the main from Guinea and the Gold Coast and Senegal. The Mandingoes were considered gentle in demeanor but prone to theft. The Coromantees brought from the Gold Coast were hearty and stalwart in mind, and for that reason frequently they were the source slave insurrections which became the eternal dread of the masters? Slavers brought over some Whydahs, Nagoes and Pawpaws, as they were much desired by the planters because they were lusty, industrious, cheerful and submissive... the Eboes from Calabar were not desired because they were proud and inclined to commit suicide rather than bear the yoke slavery. The Congoes, Angolas, and the Eboes gave their masters much trouble by running away.?
In his analysis of the African contribution to Puerto Rican culture, the author Luiz M. Diaz Soler explained that: ?The contribution of the Black to Puerto Rican culture dates from the moment of his appearance on the Antillean shores. With him there were brought to these lands the mysterious and sensual rhythms of his music, filled with spiritual feelings right from the heart of Africa, its tradition and customs; today one can only perceive slight traces of what the Black brought in the sixteenth century.?
Isolation and Assimilation:
The historian R. Ruiz Arnau observed that the ?social-ethnological development of Puerto Rico? was severely limited during the 1500s and 1600s due to the ?conquest and colonization of Mexico.? This factor, as well as the numerous opportunities envisioned in the other Spanish-American mainland colonies, impeded population growth on the island which ultimately ?suffered serious setbacks in its demographic and development.?
According to the historian Roger A. LaBrucherie, Spain had ?discovered and claimed for itself an expanse of territory in the New World many times larger than Spain itself... Spain quite simply had not enough men, money and resources - ships, arms, tools, the whole of materials needed - to successfully establish and maintain all these new colonies.? As a result of this situation, LaBrucherie explains that ?Spain naturally and logically concentrated its resources where the payoff would be greatest. Puerto Rico, lacking in precious metals and tiny alongside the other Spanish colonies, was simply passed by in the rush to richer.prizes....?
As a result, the author continues, ?Puerto Rico ? too small and poor in metallic wealth to command Spanish attention to developing it, simply languished during most of the 17th and 18th, and even into the 19th centuries.? With the decline of Spanish colonial shipping in the Seventeenth Century, Puerto Rico became more and more isolated from metropolitan markets. The development of the sugar industry during the Early Sixteenth Century had proved short-lived, unable to compete with the more advanced technology of the English and French sugar colonies. As a result, very little export-oriented agriculture survived, and, according to Francisco A. Scarano, ?the rural population outside the walled city of San Juan - now an important military outpost - led a nearly autarchic existence.?
One of the consequences of this ?relative isolation from the international economy,? Scarano notes, was the development of ?an independent racially mixed peasantry.? The limited contact with outsiders consisted of ?occasional contraband trade with foreigners? who exchanged European products (usually flour and wine) for timber, cattle (hides), tobacco, and native foodstuffs, produced by the largely subsistence economy.
In 1646 the population of San Juan was a mere 500 people. By 1673, Puerto Rico was an isolated and sparsely populated island with an entire population of only two thousand. San Juan itself boasted a population of only 820 white inhabitants. The population suffered still another setback in 1689/1690, when epidemics of smallpox, measles, and tabardillo (spotted fever) claimed the lives of 631 whites and slaves.
Other Contributions:
At the start of the Eighteenth Century, Puerto Rico was of little economic value to Spain. The economy was frequently stagnant and only a handful of sugar producers and cattle ranchers profited from the commercial relations with Spain. The revenues generated by the island for the Crown were insignificant and barely covered the cost of administering and holding onto the island. Nevertheless, Puerto Rico, while an economic liability to Spain, continued to be very important from a strategic standpoint. Se?or Ruiz Arnau comments on the revival of Puerto Rico that would take place in the following centuries:
?The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a veritable rebirth through several immigration movements which first brought Biscayans, then Catalonians, and, during the final third, Asturians and Gallegos, ending with people from Mallorca. This became the most important ethnological movement of the Caucasian race and its evolution on Puerto Rican soil....?
Thirty-one new towns were founded, mainly in the second half of the Eighteenth Century. Marshall Alejandro O'Reilly's census of 1765 showed that the total population of Puerto Rico had grown to 44,883. Of these, 5,037 were slaves, while the Spaniards only numbered a few hundred. By 1787, the population increased to 100,000. At that time, the population was made up of 79% free white or mixed-raced individuals, followed by 11% black or mulatto slaves; 8% free black; and 2% Amerindians (amounting to 2,302 Indians). By the end of the Eighteenth Century, the population had reached 155,426, indicating a growth of more than 300% in 35 years (from a population of 44,883 in 1786).
A multitude of political events that occurred in the early Nineteenth Century would stimulate further immigration to Puerto Rico from many (and disparate) sources and accelerate the development of Puerto Rico's diverse cultural heritage. On April 3 1803, after a treaty signed at Paris, France ceded the Province of Louisiana to representatives of the American President Thomas Jefferson. This event, referred to as the Louisiana Purchase, transferred to the fledgling republic an 825,000-square-mile area for $16,000,000 and greatly increased its economic and strategic resources, eventually adding all or parts of 15 states to the union. However, in the wake of this acquisition, many Spaniards and Frenchmen left that territory for Puerto Rico in order to escape the rule of Protestant, Republican America.
In 1791, the black slaves in the nearby French colony of Haiti (St. Domingue) had launched the first successful black rebellion in the New World. It was a violent and bloody affair which, by 1803, had successfully ousted the white rulers and resulted in a large-scale exodus of the survivors to Louisiana, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Many of the Frenchmen who had lived in Haiti had fled to Puerto Rico to escape the wrath of their former slaves, as did many of the light-skinned mulattoes.
However, a more far-reaching effect of the revolt would benefit Puerto Rico in the years to come. For many decades, St. Domingue had been a prosperous sugar colony ruled by a small elite of white planters and made productive by a large mass of brutalized slaves. In the wake of the bloody insurrection, the colony's lucrative sugar economy was destroyed. The destruction of Haiti's sugar industry stimulated the expansion of the sugar industries in both Cuba and Puerto Rico, whose sugar producers now sought to supply the European markets that had previously been supplied by the efficient planters of St. Domingue. In Puerto Rico, new lands were brought under sugar cultivation and more slaves were imported to work them. The expansion of sugar production was facilitated by the presence of French planters who had fled from Haiti and were able to provide their knowledge and experience about the industry.
The introduction of coffee to Puerto Rico during the Eighteenth Century would also have a favorable long-range effect on Puerto Rico's economy in the early years of the Nineteenth Century. Rising demand for the commodity in both Europe and North America, coupled with its scarcity on the world market, gave Puerto Rico new economic opportunities. The ease of its cultivation led many peasants to grow it alongside their traditional food crops.
Starting in 1810, many parts of Spain's large American empire began insurrections. Tired of excessive taxation and restrictions on trade, the colonial elites in Mexico and South America made bids for political and economic autonomy that developed into full-fledged wars of independence. By 1826, every continental possession of Spain had gained independence, reducing Spain's once vast empire to the small island possessions, Puerto Rico and Cuba.
As a consequence of these events, wealthy Spanish royalists from Venezuela and Colombia would seek refuge in Puerto Rico, which soon became known as the "Canada of the Caribbean," referring to Canada's role in accepting American loyalists after the American revolution.
With a tenacious grip, the Spanish held onto both Cuba and Puerto Rico even as they were losing everything else. Cuba, called the Pearl of the Antilles by virtue of its beauty and natural wealth, as well as its lucrative trade in sugar-cane and its strategic position along trade routes, would be defended vigorously. After 1810, the Spanish military presence increased substantially on both Puerto Rico and Cuba in order to forestall disruptions therein.
The Real Cedula de Gracias:
In response to these events, Spain enacted the Real Cedula de Gracias of 1815. The Cedula abolished many of the existing restrictions on trade between Puerto Rico and countries other than Spain, permitted the tax free importation of sugar-processing machinery, and invited Catholics from all nations to settle in Puerto Rico. To stimulate Catholic immigration, incentives were offered. Royal lands would be given free to these new immigrants, six acres for each member of the family and three acres for each slave a family brought to the island. The Cedula also exempted immigrants from taxation for a period of ten years after they arrived on the island and offered them Spanish citizenship after residing in Puerto Rico for five years.
According to the author Jos? Luis Gonz?lez, the Real Cedula de Gracias was an attempt by Spain to "whiten" the population of Puerto Rico and represents the second "storey" (or tier) of the Puerto Rican national identity. Thus, the Real Cedula de Gracias encouraged a new class of white immigrants to settle in Puerto Rico. In the years to follow, English, French, Majorcan, Dutch, German, and Spanish immigrants flocked to Puerto Rico, as did Creole refugees from the South American colonies. After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, Corsicans also came to Puerto Rico. Later on in the century, the migration of agricultural laborers from the Canary Islands also increased significantly.
The American Influence:
Puerto Rico was still under Spanish control when the Spanish-American War broke out in April 1898. As a result, the occupation of the island became an objective of the American military. On July 25, 3,400 American troops commanded by General Nelson A. Miles landed at Guanica, not far from where Cristobal Col?n had first stepped ashore. In a brief battle, they defeated the Spanish troops that were defending Yauco, a short distance inland. On August 13, 1898, Spain and the United States signed a peace agreement to end the hostilities.
The American influence on Puerto Rican culture has been present for more than a hundred years. In 1917, all Puerto Ricans were given full American citizenship. In 1952, the island was given its own constitution and government. Although the United States is the ruling authority, Puerto Rico ? by nature of its great distance from the mainland U.S. ? has preserved the unique culture that has evolved over the last 500 years. This fact remains a source of great pride to Puerto Ricans, no matter where they may live.
DEDICATION: This article is dedicated to my friend, Charlene Alicea, who is a proud Puerto Rican woman.
Bibliography
Bab?n, Mar?n Teresa. "The Puerto Ricans' Spirit: Their History, Life, and Culture." New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1971.
Brameld, Theodore. "The Remaking of a Culture." New York: Harper & Brothers and Publishers, 1959.
Carri?n, Arturo Morales. "Puerto Rico: A Political and Cultural History." New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1983.
Gonz?lez, Jos? Luis. "Puerto Rico: The Four-Storeyed Country." Princeton, New Jersey: Marks Weiner Publishing, Inc., 1993.
LaBrucherie, Roger A. "Images of Puerto Rico." El Centro, Calif.: Im?genes Press, 1984.
L?pez, Adalberto (ed.), "The Puerto Ricans: Their History, Culture and Society." Cambridge, Massachusetts: Schenkman Publishing Co., Inc. 1980.
Samoiloff, Louise Cripps. "Portrait of Puerto Rico." New York: Cornwall Books, 1984.
Sil?n, Juan Angel. "We, The Puerto Rican People: A Story of Oppression and Resistance." New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971.
U.S. Census Bureau, "Census 2000 Summary File 1(SF1) 100-Percent Data, Detailed Tables for States, Table PCT11."
About
John P. Schmal :
John Schmal is an occasional contributor of articles to Latinola.com. He coauthored (with Donna Morales) "Mexican-American Genealogical Research: Following the Paper Trail to Mexico" (Heritage Books, Bowie, Maryland, 2002).
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