It has come to our attention that severe racial distinctions have appeared on the Spanish-controlled island of Puerto Rico. It is safe to say that the starkest contrast on the island is the division between plantation owners, or free, white males, and the African slaves. However, there are other categories appearing, as well.
We have discovered from this year’s census (1765) that the island has 44,883 persons, and 88 percent of that total (39,846) are free persons and 11.2 percent (5,037) are slaves. More specifically, the towns of San Juan and San Germán have significant populations of slaves. For instance, San Germán has 5,950 total persons; 5,373 are free and 577 are slaves, which means 9.6 percent of this population is not free. In San Juan, there are 4,506 total persons; 3,562 are free and 944 are slaves, making 20.9 percent of this population slaves. It is also evident that around 90 percent of this population cannot read.
On this island, natural reproduction is a very significant factor in this demographic expansion; thus, there are a higher number of females on the island. Immigration also played a major role in the population explosions that are occurring; Spaniards have complete authority over the immigrants, but they are welcomed to the island if they convert to Catholicism, obey the laws, and promise to contribute to the prosperity of the colony. It is also apparent that two-thirds of the inhabitants are children under sixteen years of age. A huge percentage of these children are being born out of wedlock, due to the increasing occurrence of relations between the plantation owners and the slave women.
This is causing the racial composition of the island to be altered dramatically; officials are changing the category of “black” inhabitants to separate the groups by types of lifestyle. There is now a category labeled “pardo,” which refers to persons of mixed racial parentage and a lifestyle resembling that of the whites, and “moreno” which is a term used to refer to free blacks and mulattos who are living according to the African cultural standards. Life for the slaves is said to be short, nasty, and brutish. But clearly, the number of slaves compared to free white males is only small fraction of the total population.
Also, thousands of Canary Islanders are relocating to Puerto Rico. They are lured by the growing expectation of obtaining land and by the rising commercial traffic between the Canary Islands and the Caribbean. These islanders have a long history of cultivating sugarcane, which makes them very welcome in Puerto Rico where the sugar industry is being revived.
Moreover, it is apparent that thousands of white foreign settlers from Ireland are immigrating to the island because of Puerto Rico’s lenient immigration policy. This is adding to the already diverse ethnic composition of the island. Many of the Irish have strong ties to the Spanish government, so they are using these ties to improve their economic and social positions through land grants, tax breaks, and commercial licenses. Thus, names such as Fitzpatrick, O’Daly, Kiernan, Power, or O’Neil are beginning to become important sugar growers and power brokers in San Juan.
In addition, thousands of refugees from the French-speaking Saint Domingue are arriving on the island, as well. The inhabitants are welcomed on the island, as it represents safety from political turmoil and a chance to recreate the plantation system they produced on their former island. It is also important to note that Spanish prisoners are present on the island of Puerto Rico, which represents another important category on the island. They perform demanding tasks, like repairing military structures, which is a job traditionally carried out by the slaves. Unfortunately, they are poorly fed and forced to live in congested, unsanitary quarters, and a large number of these convicts are being exposed to recurring epidemics of smallpox and spotted fever, malnutrition, and prolonged exposure to the sun.
This demographic expansion that is rapidly growing on the island of Puerto Rico is definitely accelerating the pace of the island’s present colonization efforts and is helping to lay the foundation for the plantation economy.
Sources:
Background Books: Puerto Rico. The Wilson Quarterly (1976-) Vol. 4, No. 2 (Spring, 1980), pp. 151-153 Published by: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars http://www.jstor.org/stable/40255810
Wagenheim, Olga Jiménez De. Puerto Rico: An Interpretive History from Pre-Columbian Times to 1900. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998. Print.
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