Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a self-governing Caribbean archipelago and island organized as an unincorporated territory of the United States under the designation of commonwealth. Located about southeast of Miami, Florida, between the Dominican Republic in the Greater Antilles and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Lesser Antilles, it consists of the eponymous main island and numerous smaller islands, including Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. With approximately 3.2 million residents, it is divided into 78 municipalities, of which the most populous is the capital municipality of San Juan, followed by those within the San Juan metropolitan area. Spanish and English are the official languages of the government, though Spanish predominates.
Puerto Rico was settled by a succession of Amerindian peoples beginning 2,000 to 4,000 years ago; these included the Ortoiroid, Saladoid, and Taíno. It was claimed by Spain following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493 and subsequently colonized by Juan Ponce de León in 1508. Puerto Rico was contested by other European powers into the 18th century but remained a Spanish possession for the next 400 years. The decline of the Indigenous population, followed by an influx of Spanish settlers, primarily from the Canary Islands and Andalusia, and African slaves vastly changed the cultural and demographic landscape of the archipelago. Within the Spanish Empire, Puerto Rico played a secondary but strategically significant role compared to larger and wealthier colonies like Peru and New Spain. By the late 19th century, a distinct Puerto Rican identity began to emerge, centered on a fusion of European, African, and Indigenous elements. In 1898, following the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico was acquired by the United States.
Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917 and can move freely between the archipelago and the mainland. However, residents of Puerto Rico are disenfranchised from federal elections and generally do not pay federal income tax. In common with four other territories, Puerto Rico sends a nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress, called a Resident Commissioner, and participates in presidential primaries; as it is not a state, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the U.S. Congress, which oversees it under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. Congress approved a territorial constitution in 1952, allowing residents of the archipelago to elect a governor in addition to a senate and house of representatives. The political status of Puerto Rico is an ongoing debate.
Beginning in the mid-20th century, the U.S. government, together with the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, launched a series of economic projects to develop Puerto Rico into an industrial high-income economy. It is classified by the International Monetary Fund as a developed jurisdiction with an advanced, high-income economy; it ranks 47th on the Human Development Index. The major sectors of Puerto Rico's economy are manufacturing, primarily pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and electronics, followed by services, namely tourism and hospitality.
Etymology
Puerto Rico is Spanish for 'rich port'. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen, a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, which is popularly said to mean 'Land of the Valiant Lord'. The terms boricua, borinqueño, and borincano are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage, and derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively. The island is also popularly known in Spanish as La Isla del Encanto, meaning "the island of enchantment".Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, while the capital city was named Ciudad de Puerto Rico. Eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city.
The island's name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898. The anglicized name was used by the U.S. government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico in 1931 by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila.
The official name of the entity in Spanish is Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, while its official English name is Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The Spanish official name was suggested by its architect Luis Muñoz Marín and adopted by a constitutional assembly on July 25, 1952. Some authorities have called it a euphemism and have charged that the official name in English of "Commonwealth" constitutes a fig leaf, i.e., associated with the covering up of an act that is actually embarrassing or distasteful with something of innocuous appearance. Puerto Rico remains a territory of the United States, exercising substantial internal self-government, but subordinated to the U.S. Constitution in areas such as foreign affairs or defense. For this reason, it is not considered to be a full-fledged associated state under either international or U.S. domestic law.
History
Early settlement and European conquest
The history of Puerto Rico began with the settlement of the Ortoiroid people before 430 BC. At the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1493, the dominant indigenous culture was that of the Taínos. The Taíno people's numbers went dangerously low during the later half of the 16th century because of new infectious diseases carried by Europeans, exploitation by Spanish settlers, and warfare.Located in the northeastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico formed a key part of the Spanish Empire from the early years of the exploration, conquest and colonization of the New World. The island was a major military post during many wars between Spain and other European powers for control of the region in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
In 1593, Portuguese soldiers, sent from Lisbon by order of Phillip II, composed the first garrison of the San Felipe del Morro fortress in Puerto Rico. Some brought their wives, while others married Puerto Rican women, and today there are many Puerto Rican families with Portuguese last names. The smallest of the Greater Antilles, Puerto Rico was a stepping-stone in the passage from Europe to Cuba, Mexico, Central America, and the northern territories of South America. Throughout most of the 19th century until the conclusion of the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico and Cuba were the last two Spanish colonies in the New World; they served as Spain's final outposts in a strategy to regain control of the American continents. Realizing that it was in danger of losing its two remaining Caribbean territories, the Spanish Crown revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. The decree was printed in Spanish, English and French in order to attract Europeans, with the hope that the independence movements would lose their popularity and strength with the arrival of new settlers. Free land was offered to those who wanted to populate the islands on the condition that they swear their loyalty to the Spanish Crown and allegiance to the Catholic Church.
U.S. era
In 1898, during the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico was invaded and subsequently became a possession of the U.S. The first years of the 20th century were marked by the struggle to obtain greater democratic rights from the U.S.The Foraker Act of 1900 established a civil government, ending rule by American generals and the Department of War. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Ortega v. Lara,, involving the Foraker Act and referring to the island as "the acquired country", soon affirmed that the U.S. Constitution applied within its territory and that any domestic Puerto Rican laws which did not conflict with it remained in force.
The Jones Act of 1917 made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens. The Jones Act paved the way for the drafting of Puerto Rico's Constitution and its approval by Congress and Puerto Rican voters in 1952 Puerto Rico is one of five territories with less representation in the Federal government, along with the Federal District.
21st century
In 2009, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization approved a draft resolution calling on the U.S. government to expedite a process that would allow the Puerto Rican people to exercise fully their inalienable right to self-determination and independence. In November 2012, a two-question referendum took place, simultaneous with the general elections. The first question, voted on in August, asked voters whether they wanted to maintain the current status under the territorial clause of the U.S. Constitution. 54% voted against the status quo, effectively approving the second question to be voted on in November. The second question posed three alternate status options: statehood, independence, or free association. 61.16% voted for statehood, 33.34% for a sovereign free-associated state, and 5.49% for independence.In 2016, President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 5278: PROMESA, establishing a Control Board over the Puerto Rican government. This board will have a significant degree of federal control involved in its establishment and operations. In particular, the authority to establish the control board derives from the federal government's constitutional power to "make all needful rules and regulations" regarding U.S. territories; The president would appoint all seven voting members of the board; and the board would have broad sovereign powers to effectively overrule decisions by Puerto Rico's legislature, governor, and other public authorities. There would be another referendum in 2017 in Puerto Rico, in favor of statehood although it was boycotted by some political opponents of it.
In 2017, Puerto Rico suffered back-to-back large hurricanes: the Category 5 Hurricane Irma and the Category 4 Hurricane Maria. The storms caused an extreme amount of damage to the island, causing the following effects: all power was knocked out, 95% cell service, 43% of waste water treatment plants, 40 thousand land slides, 97% of roads blocked, 28% of health facilities damaged, leading to over 90% of the population applying for assistance after the storms. See also Effects of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
It is thought that a combination of the debt crisis and two major hurricanes in the late 2010s, caused further departures from the island. Overall the population has decreased by about half a million in the 21st century, with many seeking better opportunities on the mainland.
Puerto Rico held its statehood referendum during the November 3, 2020, general elections; the ballot asked one question: "Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State?" The results showed that 52 percent of Puerto Rico voters answered yes. In the United States in the early 2020s, the Puerto Rico Status Act was being worked on by Congress, and H.R. 8393 passed the House in 2022—though it has not passed the Senate; this bill would support PR making a binding referendum. The bill does not decide PR's fate, it simply prepares the United States to respond to the outcome of the referendum. In the November 5, 2024, elections, there were three choices in a non-binding referendum which included Statehood, Independence, or Independence with Free Association on the ballot; Statehood won with 59%. In addition, on November 5, 2024, Jenniffer González-Colón, who is pro-statehood, won the office of Governor of Puerto Rico in the 2024 general election with nearly 40% of the vote.