A brief history of Puerto Rico

                        Puerto Rico has a rich and interesting history. Although they don't exist anymore, the Taíno were the original indigenous people of Puerto Rico, as far as we understand. However, as Columbus and his men made short work of the land and the people of them, it quickly lead to their downfall. According to various research, "By 1514, barely two decades after first contact, an official survey showed that 40 percent of Spanish men had taken Indian wives. The unofficial number is undoubtedly higher," (Poole). The island wasn't captured immediately one in one big, dramatic fight, but incrementally over time. Columbus met the Taíno sometime in 1492, but as Poole describes it, "In short order, Columbus established the first American colony at La Isabela, on the north coast of Hispaniola, in 1494. After a brief period of coexistence, relations between the newcomers and natives deteriorated. Spaniards removed men from villages to work in gold mines and colonial plantations," (Poole).

So essentially, the Spanish colonists used the native Taíno as their personal slave labor. And in doing so, the colonists clearly misused and mistreated the natives through this act. According to Ricardo Alegría, "'Very few Indians were left after 50 years,'" (Poole). From this it can be understood that the natives to the island of Puerto Rico were systemically destroyed both by slavery and by disease. In fact, it can be additionally acknowledged that this happened because slavery exposed them to the diseases of the Spaniards that they did not have any kind of protection to inoculate them. According to research on hand, "Possibly as many as three million souls—some 85 percent of the Taíno population—had vanished by the early 1500s, according to a controversial extrapolation from Spanish records," (Poole). Clearly, this impact paved the way for Spanish colonial rule in Puerto Rico, overturning and outstripping the native Taíno. For centuries the Spanish would rule over the colony of Puerto Rico, until it was given to the United States of America in the Spanish-American war. Thus far, it has yet to gain independence from any host country.


Islands under consideration for adoption:
- Puerto Rico
- Dominican Republic
- Haiti





Citations:
 

Poole, Robert. “What Became of the Taíno?” Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Oct. 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/what-became-of-the-taino-73824867

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why you should travel to Puerto Rico

Image
Puerto Rico is a wonderful place with lots of things to visit and see. For one, for U.S. residents, Puerto Rico does not require a passport of any kind which makes travel much easier. As such, it becomes very easy to get a direct flight from a major U.S.  city straight to Puerto Rico. This lessens the cost and difficulty that comes up when making arrangements to other resort locations, leaving more money on hand to have fun with in Puerto Rico. Of important notice is to avoid the territory on it's holidays. One holiday specifically would be The Three Kings Day. Most places for tourists to have fun will be shut down on this holiday, which falls on January 6th. If you are interested in golf, Puerto Rico has some of the best golf courses in the world. One of the perceived difficulties of going to another country is dealing with language barriers. This is not such a big deal in Puerto Rico. While Spanish usage is very big there, English is also recognized and used quite frequently. One
Read more

Reflections.

 I am currently writing this as an assignment reflecting on the status of the blog right now. The goal of this particular assignment is to assess whether or not the blog is keeping up to par with the expectations of the course work. One question posed from this assignment is whether or not this blog meets all the rubric criteria. As it stands, I think this has been mostly  satisfied, though I have been dinged before for not adding pictures to these blogs on a consistent basis, much to my chagrin. The next question asks if any portions of the writing assignments have been confusing or have caused stress of any kind. I would say no to stress  though I have questioned the wisdom of some aspects of the rubric. In a sense, this could be a type of confusion. However, I am not the professor and/or school management and therefore my own opinion on the subject is quite irrelevant.  The question after that interrogates as to whether or not I have been putting my best effort into the maintenance
Read more

Another post about Puerto Rico.

Image
Puerto Rico is currently a territory of the United States of America. As it stands, it does not have representation within it's main legislative branch, Congress.Nor does it have the ability to vote for President of the United States of America. This makes the subject of statehood a rather contentious one. Several attempts in the territory's history have been made trying to attain statehood, but so far they have repeatedly failed. That is, until recently. As a result of the conditions that permeated under former President Trump, Puerto Rico held a referendum on the territory's potential statehood. According to the final tally, the referendum was passed by a 52% - 48% margin (rounded up). From what we can infer about those results (“CEE Event”) , the desire for statehood is split down the middle, though the problematic actions of the Trump administration likely had a lot to do with the increased desire for statehood. However, Puerto Rican statehood is not an issue that is un
Read more