GENERAL CONDITIONS OF THE ISLAND--THE DAWN OF FREEDOM
1874-1898
The Spanish Republic was but short lived. From the day of its
proclamation (February 11, 1873) to the landing in Barcelona of
Alphonso XII in the early days of 1876 its history is the record of an
uninterrupted series of popular tumults.
The political restlessness in the Peninsula, accentuating as it did
the party antagonisms in Cuba and Puerto Rico, led the governors, most
of whom were chosen for their adherence to conservative principles, to
endeavor, but in vain, to stem the tide of revolutionary and
Separatist ideas with more and more drastic measures of repression.
This persistence of the colonial authorities in the maintenance of an
obsolete system of administration, in the face of a universal
recognition of the principles of liberty and self-government, added to
the immediate effect on the economic and social conditions in this
island of the abolition of slavery, for which it was unprepared,[58]
brought it once more to the brink of ruin.
From 1873 to 1880 the resources of the island grew gradually less,
the country's capital was being consumed without profit, credit became
depressed, the best business forecasts turned out illusive, the most
intelligent industrial efforts remained sterile. The sun of prosperity
which rose over the island in 1815 set again in gloom during this
period of seven years.
The causes were clear to every unbiased mind and must have been so
even to the prejudiced officials of the Government. They consisted in
the anomalous restrictions on the coasting trade, the unjustifiable
difference in the duties on Spanish and island produce, the high duty
on flour from the United States, the export duties, the extravagant
expenditure in the administration, irritating monopolies, and
countless abuses, vexatious formalities, and ruinous exactions.
Mr. James McCormick, an intelligent Scotchman, for many years a
resident of the island, who, in 1880, was commissioned by the
Provincial Deputation to draw up a report on the causes of the
agricultural depression in this island and its removal by the
introduction of the system of central sugar factories, describes the
situation as follows:
" ... The truth is, that the country is in a pitiable condition.
Throughout its extent it resents the many drains upon its vitality.
Its strength is wasted, and the activities that utilized its favorable
natural conditions are paralyzed. The damages sustained have been
enormous and it is scarcely possible to appraise them at their true
value. With the produce of the soil diminished and the sale thereof at
losing prices the value of real estate throughout the island has
decreased in alarming proportions. Everybody's resources have been
wasted and spent uselessly, and many landholders, wealthy but
yesterday, have been ruined if not reduced to misery. The leading
merchants and proprietors, men who were identified with the progress
of the country and had vast resources at their command, after a long
and tenacious struggle have succumbed at last under the accumulation
of misfortunes banded against them."
Such was the situation in 1880.
To relieve the financial distress of the country a series of
ordinances were enacted[59] which culminated in the reform laws of
March 15, 1895, and if royal decrees had had power to cure the
incurable or remove the causes that for four centuries had undermined
the foundations of Spain's colonial empire, they might, possibly, have
sustained the crumbling edifice for some time longer.
But they came too late. The Antilles were slipping from Spain's grasp;
nor could Weyler's inhuman proceedings in Cuba nor the tardy
concession of a pseudo-autonomy to Puerto Rico arrest the movement.
The laws of March 15, 1895, for the administrative reorganization of
Cuba and Puerto Rico, the basis of which was approved by a unanimous
vote of the leaders of the Peninsula and Antillean parties in Cortes,
remained without application in Cuba because of the insurrection, and
in Puerto Rico because of the influence upon the inhabitants of this
island of the events in the neighboring island.
After the death of Macéo and of Marti, the two most influential
leaders of the revolution, and the terrible measures for suppressing
the revolt adopted by Weyler, the Spanish Colonial Minister, Don Tomas
Castellano y Villaroya, addressed the Queen Regent December 31, 1896.
He declared his belief in the proximate pacification of Cuba, and
said: That the moment had arrived for the Government to show to the
world (_vide licet_ United States) its firm resolution to comply with
the spontaneous promises made by the nation by introducing and
amplifying in Puerto Rico the reforms in civil government and
administration which had been voted by Cortes.
He further stated that the inconditional party in Puerto Rico, guided
by the patriotism which distinguished it, showed its complete
conformity with the reforms proposed by the Government, and that the
"autonomist" party, which, in the beginning, looked upon the proposed
reforms with indifference, had also accepted and declared its
conformity with them.
Therefore, the minister continued: "It would not be just in the
Government to indefinitely postpone the application in Puerto Rico of
a law which awakens so many hopes of a better future."
The minister assures the Queen Regent that the proposed laws respond
to an ample spirit of decentralization, and expresses confidence that,
as soon as possible, her Majesty will introduce in Cuba also, not
only the reforms intended by the law of March 15th, but will extend to
Puerto Rico the promised measures to provide the Antilles _with an
exclusively local administration and economic personnel_. "The reform
laws," the minister adds, "will be the foundation of the new regimen,
but an additional decree, to be laid before the Cortes, will amplify
them in such a way that a truly autonomous administration will be
established in our Antilles." Then follow the proposed laws, which are
to apply, explain, and complement in Puerto Rico, the reform laws of
March 15th--namely, the Provincial law, the Municipal law, and the
Electoral law.
The Peninsular electoral law of June, 1890, was adapted to Cuba and
Puerto Rico at the suggestion of Sagasta, who, in the exposition to
the Queen Regent, which accompanied the project of autonomy, stated:
That the inhabitants of the Antilles frequently complained of, and
lamented the irritating inequalities which alone were enough to
obstruct or entirely prevent the exercise of constitutional
privileges, and he concludes with these remarkable words: " ... So
that, if by arbitrary dispositions without appeal, by penalties
imposed by proclamations of the governors-general, or by simply
ignoring the laws of procedure, the citizen may be restrained,
harassed, deported even to distant territories, it is impossible for
him to exercise the right of free speech, free thought, or free
writing, or the freedom of instruction, or religious tolerance, nor
can he practise the right of union and association." These words
constitute a synopsis of the causes that made the Spanish
Government's tardy attempts at reform in the administration of its
ultramarine possessions illusive; that mocked the people's legitimate
aspirations, destroyed their confidence in the promises of the home
Government, and made the people of Puerto Rico look upon the American
soldiers, when they landed, not as men in search of conquest and
spoliation, but as the representatives of a nation enjoying a full
measure of the liberties and privileges, for a moderate share of which
they had vainly petitioned the mother country through long years of
unquestioning loyalty.
The royal decree conceding autonomy to Puerto Rico was signed on
November 25, 1897. On April 21, 1898, Governor-General Manuel Macias,
suspended the constitutional guarantees and declared the island in
state of war. A few months later Puerto Rico, recognized too late as
ripe for self-government by the mother country, became a part of the
territory of the United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: The slaveholders were paid in Government bonds
(schedules), redeemable in ten years. They lost their labor supply,
and had neither capital nor other means to replace it. Their ruin
became inevitable. An English or German syndicate bought up the bonds
at 15 per cent.]
[Footnote 59: See Part II, chapter on Finances.]
PART II
THE PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS
CHAPTER XXVII
SITUATION AND GENERAL APPEARANCE OF PUERTO RICO
The island of Puerto Rico, situated in the Atlantic Ocean, is
about 1,420 miles from New York, 1,000 miles from Havana, 1,050 miles
from Key West, 1,200 miles from Panama, 3,450 miles from Land's End in
England, and 3,180 from the port of Cadiz. It is about 104 miles in
length from east to west, by 34 miles in average breadth, and has an
area of 2,970 square miles. It lies eastward of the other greater
Antilles, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, and although inferior even to the
last of these islands in population and extent, it yields to none of
them in fertility.
By its geographical position Puerto Rico is peculiarly adapted to
become the center of an extensive commerce. It lies to the windward of
Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Jamaica, and of the Gulf of Mexico and Bay of
Honduras. It is contiguous to all the English and French Windward
Islands, only a few hours distant from the former Danish islands Saint
Thomas, Saint John, and Santa Cruz, and a few days' sail from the
coast of Venezuela.
Puerto Rico is the fourth in size of the greater Antilles. Its first
appearance to the eye of the stranger is striking and picturesque.
Nature here offers herself to his contemplation clothed in the
splendid vesture of tropical vegetation. The chain of mountains which
intersects the island from east to west seems at first sight to form
two distinct chains parallel to each other, but closer observation
makes it evident that they are in reality corresponding parts of the
same chain, with upland valleys and tablelands in the center, which
again rise gradually and incorporate themselves with the higher
ridges. The height of these mountains is lofty, if compared with those
of the other Antilles. The loftiest part is that of Luguillo, or
Loquillo, at the northeast extremity of the island, which measures
1,334 Castilian yards, and the highest point, denominated El Yunque,
can be seen at the distance of 68 miles at sea. The summit of this
ridge is almost always enveloped in mist, and when its sides are
overhung by white fleecy clouds it is the certain precursor of the
heavy showers which fertilize the northern coast. The soil in the
center of the mountains is excellent, and the mountains themselves are
susceptible of cultivation to their summits. Several towns and
villages are situated among these mountains, where the inhabitants
enjoy the coolness of a European spring and a pure and salubrious
atmosphere. The town of Alboníto, built on a table-land about eight
leagues from Ponce, on the southern coast, enjoys a delightful
climate.
To the north and south of this interior ridge of mountains, stretching
along the seacoasts, are the fertile valleys which produce the chief
wealth of the island. From the principal chain smaller ridges run
north and south, forming between them innumerable valleys, fertilized
by limpid streams which, descending from the mountains, empty
themselves into the sea on either coast. In these valleys the majestic
beauty of the palm-trees, the pleasant alternation of hill and dale,
the lively verdure of the hills, compared with the deeper tints of the
forest, the orange trees, especially when covered with their golden
fruit, the rivers winding through the dales, the luxuriant fields of
sugar-cane, corn, and rice, with here and there a house peeping
through a grove of plantains, and cattle grazing in the green pasture,
form altogether a landscape of rural beauty scarcely to be surpassed
in any country in the world.
The valleys of the north and east coasts are richest in cattle and
most picturesque. The pasturage there is always verdant and luxuriant,
while those of the south coast, richer in sugar, are often parched by
excessive drought, which, however, does not affect their fertility,
for water is found near the surface. This same alternation of rain and
drought on the north and south coasts is generally observed in all the
West India islands.
Few islands of the extent of Puerto Rico are watered by so many
streams. Seventeen rivers, taking their rise in the mountains, cross
the valleys of the north coast and fall into the sea. Some of these
are navigable for two or three leagues from their mouths for small
craft. Those of Manati, Loisa, Trabajo, and Arecibo are very deep and
broad, and it is difficult to imagine how such large bodies of water
can be collected in so short a course. Owing to the heavy surf which
continually breaks on the north coast, these rivers have bars across
their embouchures which do not allow large vessels to enter. The
rivers of Bayamón and Rio Piedras flow into the harbor of the capital,
and are also navigable for boats. At Arecibo, at high water, small
brigs may enter with perfect safety, notwithstanding the bar. The
south, west, and east coasts are also well supplied with water.
From the Cabeza de San Juan, which is the northeast extremity of the
island, to Cape Mala Pascua, which lies to the southeast, nine rivers
fall into the sea. From Cape Mala Pascua to Point Aguila, which forms
the southwest angle of the island, sixteen rivers discharge their
waters on the south coast.
On the west coast, three rivers, five rivulets, and several
fresh-water lakes communicate with the sea. The rivers of the north
coast are well stocked with edible fish.
The roads formed in Puerto Rico during the Spanish administration are
constructed on a substantial plan, the center being filled with gravel
and stones well cemented. Each town made and repaired the roads of its
respective district. Many excellent and solid bridges, with stone
abutments, existed at the time of the transfer of the island to the
American nation.
The whole line of coast of this island is indented with harbors, bays,
and creeks where ships of heavy draft may come to anchor. On the north
coast, during the months of November, December, and January, when the
wind blows sometimes with violence from the east and northeast, the
anchorage is dangerous in all the bays and harbors of that coast,
except in the port of San Juan.
On the western coast the spacious bay of Aguadilla is formed by Cape
Borrigua and Cape San Francisco. When the southeast winds prevail it
is _not_ a safe anchorage for ships.
Mayaguez is also an open roadstead on the west coast formed by two
projecting capes. It has good anchorage for vessels of large size and
is well sheltered from the north winds.
The south coast also abounds in bays and harbors, but those which
deserve particular attention are the ports of Guánica and Hobos, or
Jovos, near Guayama. In Guánica vessels drawing 21 feet of water may
enter with perfect safety and anchor close to the shore. Hobos or
Jovos is a haven of considerable importance; sailing vessels of the
largest class may anchor and ride in safety; it has 4 fathoms of water
in the shallowest part of the entrance, but it is difficult to enter
from June to November as the sea breaks with violence at the entrance
on account of the southerly winds which prevail at this season.
All the large islands in the tropics enjoy approximately the same
climate. The heat, the rains, the seasons, are, with trifling
variations, the same in all, but the number of mountains and running
streams, the absence of stagnant waters and general cultivation of the
land in Puerto Rico do, probably, powerfully contribute to purify the
atmosphere and render it more salubrious to Europeans than it
otherwise would be. In the mountains one enjoys the coolness of
spring, but the valleys, were it not for the daily breeze which blows
from the northeast and east, would be almost uninhabitable for white
men during part of the year. The climate of the north and south coasts
of this island, though under the same tropical influence, is
nevertheless essentially different. On the north coast it sometimes
rains almost the whole year, while on the south coast sometimes no
rain falls for twelve or fourteen months. On the whole, Puerto Rico is
one of the healthiest islands in the West Indies, nor is it infested
to the same extent as other islands by poisonous snakes and other
noxious reptiles. The laborer may sleep in peace and security in the
midst of the forest, by the side of the river, or in the meadow with
his cattle with no other fear than that of an occasional centipede or
guabuá (large hairy spider).
Unlike most tropical islands there are no indigenous quadrupeds and
scarcely any of the feathered tribe in the forests. On the rivers
there are a few water-fowl and in the forests the green parrot. There
are neither monkeys nor rabbits, but rats and mongooses infest the
country and sometimes commit dreadful ravages in the sugar-cane. Ants
of different species also abound.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ORIGIN, CHARACTER, AND CUSTOMS OF THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF BORIQUÉN
The origin of the primitive inhabitants of the West Indian Archipelago
has been the subject of much learned controversy, ending, like all
such discussions, in different theories and more or less verisimilar
conjecture.
It appears that at the time of the discovery these islands were
inhabited by three races of different origin. One of these races
occupied the Bahamas. Columbus describes them as simple, generous,
peaceful creatures, whose only weapon was a pointed stick or cane.
They were of a light copper color, well-proportioned but slender,
rather good-looking, with aquiline noses, salient cheek-bones,
medium-sized mouths, long coarse hair. They had, perhaps, formerly
occupied the eastern part of the archipelago, whence they had
gradually disappeared, driven or exterminated by the Caribs, Caribós,
or Guáribos, a savage, warlike, and cruel race, which had invaded the
West Indies from the continent by way of the Orinoco, along the
tributaries of which river tribes of the same race are still to be
found. The larger Antilles, Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico, were
occupied by a race which probably originated from some part of the
southern division of the northern continent. The chroniclers mention
the Guaycures and others as their possible ancestors, and Stahl traces
their origin to a mixture of the Phoenicians with the aborigines of
remote antiquity.
The information which we possess with regard to the habits and customs
of the inhabitants of Boriquén at the time of discovery is too scanty
and too unreliable to permit us to form more than a speculative
opinion of the degree of culture attained by them.
Friar Abbad, in the fourth chapter of his history, gives us a
description of the character and customs of the people of Boriquén
taken wholly from the works of Oviedo, Herrera, Robertson, Raynal, and
others.
Like most of the aboriginal inhabitants of America, the natives of
Boriquén were copper-colored, but somewhat darker than the inhabitants
of the neighboring islands. They were shorter of stature than the
Spaniards, but corpulent and well-proportioned, with flat noses, wide
nostrils, dull eyes, bad teeth, narrow foreheads, the skull
artificially flattened before and behind so as to give it a conical
shape, with long, black, coarse hair, beardless and hairless on the
rest of the body. Says Oviedo: " ... Their heads were not like other
people's, their skulls were so hard and thick that the Christians by
fighting with them have learned not to strike them on the head because
the swords break."
Their whole appearance betrayed a lazy, indolent habit, and they
showed extreme aversion to labor or fatigue of any kind. They put
forth no exertion save what was necessary to obtain food, and only
rose from their "hamácas" or "jamácas," or shook off their habitual
indolence to play a game of ball (batey) or attend the dances
(areytos) which were accompanied by rude music and the chanting of
whatever happened to occupy their minds at the time.
Notwithstanding their indolence and the unsubstantial nature of their
food, they were comparatively strong and robust, as they proved in
many a personal tussle with the Spaniards.
Clothing was almost unknown. Only the women of mature age used an
apron of varying length, the rest, without distinction of age or sex,
were naked. They took great pains in painting their bodies with all
sorts of grotesque figures, the earthy coloring matter being laid on
by means of oily or resinous substances extracted from plants or
trees.
These coats of paint, when fresh, served as holiday attire, and
protected them from the bites of mosquitoes and other insects. The
dandies among them added to this airy apparel a few bright feathers in
their hair, a shell or two in their ears and nostrils. And the
caciques wore a disk of gold (guarim) the size of a large medal round
their necks to denote their rank.
The huts were built square or oblong, raised somewhat above the
ground, with only one opening for entrance and exit, cane being the
principal building material. The chief piece of furniture was the
"hamáca," made with creepers or strips of bark of the "emajágua" tree.
The "totúmo" or "jigüera" furnished them with their domestic
utensils, as it furnishes the "jíbaro" of to-day with his cups and
jugs and basins. Their mode of making fire was the universal one
practised by savages. Their arms were the usual macána and bow and
arrows, but they did not poison the arrows as did the Caribs. The
largest of their canoes, or "piráguas," could contain from 40 to 50
men, and served for purposes of war, but the majority of their canoes
were of small size used in navigating the coast and rivers.
There being no mammals in the island, they knew not the use of flesh
for food, but they had abundance of fish, and they ate besides
whatever creeping or crawling thing they happened to find. These with
the yucca from which they made their casabe or bread, maize, yams, and
other edible roots, constituted their food supply.
There were in Boriquén, as there are among all primitive races,
certain individuals, the embryos of future church functionaries, who
were medicine-man, priest, prophet, and general director of the moral
and intellectual affairs of the benighted masses, but that is all we
know of them.[60]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 60: For further information on this subject, see Estudios
Ethnologicos sobre los indios Boriqueños, by A. Stahl, 1888. Revista
Puertoriqueña, Año II, tomo II.]
CHAPTER XXIX
THE "JÍBARO," OR PUERTO RICAN PEASANT
"There is in this island a class of inhabitants, not the least
numerous by any means, who dwell in swamps and marshes, live on
vegetables, and drink muddy water." So wrote Dr. Richard Rey[61] a
couple of decades ago, and, although, under the changed political and
social conditions, these people, as a class, will soon disappear, they
are quite numerous still, and being the product of the peculiar social
and political conditions of a past era deserve to be known.
To this considerable part of the population of Puerto Rico the name of
"jíbaros" is applied; they are the descendants of the settlers who in
the early days of the colonization of the island spread through the
interior, and with the assistance of an Indian or negro slave or two
cleared and cultivated a piece of land in some isolated locality,
where they continued to live from day to day without troubling
themselves about the future or about what passed in the rest of the
universe.
The modern jíbaro builds his "bohío," or hut, in any place without
regard to hygienic conditions, and in its construction follows the
same plan and uses the same materials employed in their day by the
aboriginal inhabitants. This "bohío" is square or oblong in form,
raised on posts two or three feet from the ground, and the materials
are cane, the trunks of the coco-palm, entire or cut into boards, and
the bark of another species of palm, the "yaguas," which serves for
roofing and walls. The interior of these huts is sometimes divided by
a partition of reeds into two apartments, in one of which the family
sit by day. The other is the sleeping room, where the father, mother,
and children, male and female, of all ages, sleep, promiscuously
huddled together on a platform of boards or bar bacao.
The majority of the jíbaros are whites. Mestizoes, mulattos, and
negroes are numerous also. But we are here concerned with the jíbaro
of European descent only, whose redemption from a degraded condition
of existence it is to the country's interest should be specially
attended to.
Mr. Francisco del Valle Atilés, one of Puerto Rico's distinguished
literary men, has left us a circumstantial description of the
character and conditions of these rustics.[62] He divides them into
three groups: those living in the neighborhood of the large sugar and
coffee estates, who earn their living working as peons; the second
group comprises the small proprietors who cultivate their own patch of
land, and the third, the comparatively well-to-do individuals or
small proprietors who usually prefer to live as far as possible from
the centers of population.
The jíbaro, as a rule, is well formed, slender, of a delicate
constitution, slow in his movements, taciturn, and of a sickly aspect.
Occasionally, in the mountainous districts, one meets a man of
advanced age still strong and robust doing daily work and mounting on
horseback without effort. Such a one will generally be found to be of
pure Spanish descent, and to have a numerous family of healthy,
good-looking children, but the appearance of the average jíbaro is as
described. He looks sickly and anemic in consequence of the
insufficient quantity and innutritious quality of the food on which he
subsists and the unhealthy conditions of his surroundings. Rice,
plantains, sweet potatoes, maize, yams, beans, and salted fish
constitute his diet year in year out, and although there are Indian
races who could thrive perhaps on such frugal fare, the effect of such
a _régime_ on individuals of the white race is loss of muscular energy
and a consequent craving for stimulants.
His clothing, too, is scanty. He wears no shoes, and when drenched
with rain or perspiration he will probably let his garments dry on his
body. For the empty feeling in his stomach, the damp and the cold to
which he is thus daily exposed, his antidotes are tobacco and rum, the
first he chews and smokes. In the use of the second he seldom goes to
the extent of intoxication.
Under these conditions, and considering his absolute ignorance and
consequent neglect of the laws of hygiene, it is but natural that the
Puerto Rican peasant should be subject to the ravages of paludal
fever, one of the most dangerous of the endemic diseases of the
tropics.
Friar Abbad observes: " ... No cure has yet been discovered (1781) for
the intermittent fevers which are often from four to six years in
duration. Those who happen to get rid of them recover very slowly;
many remain weak and attenuated; the want of nutritious food and the
climate conduce to one disease or another, so that those who escape
the fever generally die of dropsy."
However, the at first sight apathetic and weak jíbaro, when roused to
exertion or when stimulated by personal interest or passion, can
display remarkable powers of endurance. Notwithstanding his reputation
of being lazy, he will work ten or eleven hours a day if fairly
remunerated. Under the Spanish _régime_, when he was forced to present
himself on the plantations to work for a few cents from sunrise to
sundown, he was slow; or if he was of the small proprietor class, he
had to pay an enormous municipal tax on his scanty produce, so that it
is very likely that he may often have preferred swinging in his
hammock to laboring in the fields for the benefit of the municipal
treasury.
Mr. Atilés refers to the premature awakening among the rustic
population of this island of the procreative instincts, and the
consequent increase in their numbers notwithstanding the high rate of
mortality. The fecundity of the women is notable; from six to ten
children in a family seems to be the normal number.
[Illustration: A tienda, or small shop.]
Intellectually the jíbaro is as poor as he is physically. His
illiteracy is complete; his speech is notoriously incorrect; his
songs, if not of a silly, meaningless character, are often obscene;
sometimes they betray the existence of a poetic sentiment. These songs
are usually accompanied by the music of a stringed instrument of the
guitar kind made by the musician himself, to which is added the
"güiro," a kind of ribbed gourd which is scraped with a small stick to
the measure of the tune, and produces a noise very trying to the
nerves of a person not accustomed to it.
In religion the jíbaro professes Catholicism with a large admixture of
fetichism. His moral sense is blunt in many respects.
Colonel Flinter[63] gives the following description of the jíbaros of
his day, which also applies to them to-day:
"They are very civil in their manners, but, though they seem all
simplicity and humility, they are so acute in their dealings that they
are sure to deceive a person who is not very guarded. Although they
would scorn to commit a robbery, yet they think it only fair to
deceive or overreach in a bargain. Like the peasantry of Ireland, they
are proverbial for their hospitality, and, like them, they are ever
ready to fight on the slightest provocation. They swing themselves to
and fro in their hammocks all day long, smoking their cigars or
scraping a guitar. The plantain grove which surrounds their houses,
and the coffee tree which grows almost without cultivation, afford
them a frugal subsistence. If with these they have a cow and a horse,
they consider themselves rich and happy. Happy indeed they are; they
feel neither the pangs nor remorse which follow the steps of
disappointed ambition nor the daily wants experienced by the poor
inhabitants of northern regions."
This entirely materialistic conception of happiness which, it is
certain, the Puerto Rican peasant still entertains, is now giving way
slowly but surely before the new influences that are being brought to
bear on himself and on his surroundings. The touch of education is
dispelling the darkness of ignorance that enveloped the rural
districts of this island until lately; industrial activity is placing
the means of greater comfort within the reach of every one who cares
to work for them; the observance of the laws of health is beginning to
be enforced, even in the bohío, and with them will come a greater
morality. In a word, in ten years the Puerto Rican jíbaro will have
disappeared, and in his place there will be an industrious,
well-behaved, and no longer illiterate class of field laborers, with a
nobler conception of happiness than that to which they have aspired
for many generations.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 61: Estudio sobre el paludismo en Puerto Rico.]
[Footnote 62: El campesino Puertoriqueño, sus condiciones, etc.
Revista Puertoriqueña, vols. ii, iii, 1887, 1888.]
[Footnote 63: An Account of the Present State of the Island of Puerto
Rico. London, 1834.]
CHAPTER XXX
ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF THE MODERN INHABITANTS OF PUERTO
RICO
During the initial period of conquest and colonization, no Spanish
females came to this or any other of the conquered territories.
Soldiers, mariners, monks, and adventurers brought no families with
them; so that by the side of the aboriginals and the Spaniards "pur
sang" there sprang up an indigenous population of mestizos.
The result of the union of two physically, ethically, and
intellectually widely differing races is _not_ the transmission to the
progeny of any or all of the superior qualities of the progenitor, but
rather his own moral degradation. The mestizos of Spanish America, the
Eurasians of the East Indies, the mulattoes of Africa are moral, as
well as physical hybrids in whose character, as a rule, the worst
qualities of the two races from which they spring predominate. It is
only in subsequent generations, after oft-repeated crossings and
recrossings, that atavism takes place, or that the fusion of the two
races is finally consummated through the preponderance of the
physiological attributes of the ancestor of superior race.
The early introduction of negro slaves, almost exclusively males, the
affinity between them and the Indians, the state of common servitude
and close, daily contact produced another race. By the side of the
mestizo there grew up the zambo. Later, when negro women were brought
from Santo Domingo or other islands, the mulatto was added.
Considering the class to which the majority of the first Spanish
settlers in this island belonged, the social status resulting from
these additions to their number could be but little superior to that
of the aboriginals themselves.
The necessity of raising that status by the introduction of white
married couples was manifest to the king's officers in the island, who
asked the Government in 1534 to send them 50 such couples. It was not
done. Fifty bachelors came instead, whose arrival lowered the moral
standard still further.
It was late in the island's history before the influx of respectable
foreigners and their families began to diffuse a higher ethical tone
among the creoles of the better class. Unfortunately, the daily
contact of the lower and middle classes with the soldiers of the
garrison did not tend to improve their character and manners, and the
effects of this contact are clearly traceable to-day in the manners
and language of the common people.
From the crossings in the first degree of the Indian, negro, and white
races, and their subsequent recrossings, there arose in course of time
a mixed race of so many gradations of color that it became difficult
in many instances to tell from the outward appearance of an individual
to what original stock he belonged; and, it being the established
rule in all Spanish colonies to grant no civil or military employment
above a certain grade to any but Peninsulars or their descendants of
pure blood, it became necessary to demand from every candidate
documentary evidence that he had no Indian or negro blood in his
veins. This was called presenting an "expediente de sangre," and the
practise remained in force till the year 1870, when Marshal Serrano
abolished it.
Whether it be due to atavism, or whether, as is more likely, the
Indians did not really become extinct till much later than the period
at which it is generally supposed their final fusion into the two
exotic races took place,[64] it is certain that Indian characteristics,
physical and ethical, still largely prevail among the rural population
of Puerto Rico, as observed by Schoelzer and other ethnologists.
The evolution of a new type of life is now in course of process. In
the meantime, we have Mr. Salvador Brau's authority[65] for stating
the general character of the present generation of Puerto Ricans to be
made up of the distinctive qualities of the three races from which
they are descended, to wit: indolence, taciturnity, sobriety,
disinterestedness, hospitality, inherited from their Indian ancestors;
physical endurance, sensuality, and fatalism from their negro
progenitors; and love of display, love of country, independence,
devotion, perseverance, and chivalry from their Spanish sires.
A somewhat sarcastic reference to the characteristics due to the
Spanish blood in them was made in 1644 by Bishop Damian de Haro in a
letter to a friend, wherein, speaking of his diocesans, he says that
they are of very chivalric extraction, for, "he who is not descended
from the House of Austria is related to the Dauphin of France or to
Charlemagne." He draws an amusing picture of the inhabitants of the
capital, saying that at the time there were about 200 males and 4,000
women "between black and mulatto." He complains that there are no
grapes in the country; that the melons are red, and that the butcher
retails turtle meat instead of beef or pork; yet, says he, "my table
is a bishop's table for all that."
To a lady in Santo Domingo he sent the following sonnet:
This is a small island, lady,
With neither money nor provisions;
The blacks go naked as they do yonder,
And there 're more people in the Seville prison.
The Castilian coats of arms
Are conspicuous by their absence,
But there are plenty cavaliers
Who deal in hides and ginger,
There's water in the tanks, when 't rains,
A cathedral, but no priests,
Handsome women, but not elegant,
Greed and envy are indigenous.
Plenty of heat and palm-tree shade,
And best of all a refreshing breeze.
Of the moral defects of the people it would be invidious to speak.
The lower classes are not remarkable for their respect for the
property of others. On the subject of morality among the rural
population we may cite Count de Caspe, the governor's report to the
king: " ... Destitute as they are of religious instruction and moral
restraint, their unions are without the sanction of religious or civil
law, and last just as long as their sensual appetites last; it may
therefore be truly said, that in the rural districts of Puerto Rico
the family, morally constituted, does not exist."
Colonel Flinter's account of the people and social conditions of
Puerto Rico in 1834 is a rather flattering one, though he acknowledges
that the island had a bad reputation on account of the lawless
character of the lower class of inhabitants.
All this has greatly changed for the better, but much remains to be
done in the way of moral improvement.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 64: Abbad points out that in 1710-'20 there were still two
Indian settlements in the neighborhood of Añasco and San German.]
[Footnote 65: Puerto Rico y su historia, p. 369.]
CHAPTER XXXI
NEGRO SLAVERY IN PUERTO RICO
From the early days of the conquest the black race appeared side by
side with the white race. Both supplanted the native race, and both
have marched parallel ever since, sometimes separately, sometimes
mixing their blood.
The introduction of African negroes into Puerto Rico made the
institution of slavery permanent. It is true that King Ferdinand
ordered the reduction to slavery of all rebellious Indians in 1511,
but he revoked the order the next year. The negro was and remained a
slave. For centuries he had been looked upon as a special creation for
the purpose of servitude, and the Spaniards were accustomed to see him
daily offered for sale in the markets of Andalusia.
Notwithstanding the practical reduction to slavery of the Indians of
la Española by Columbus, under the title of "repartimientos," negro
slaves were introduced into that island as early as 1502, when a
certain Juan Sanchez and Alfonso Bravo received royal permission to
carry five caravels of slaves to the newly discovered island. Ovando,
who was governor at the time, protested strongly on the ground that
the negroes escaped to the forests and mountains, where they joined
the rebellious or fugitive Indians and made their subjugation much
more difficult. The same thing happened later in San Juan.
In this island special permission was necessary to introduce negroes.
Sedeño and the smelter of ores, Giron, who came here in 1510, made
oath that the two slaves each brought with them were for their
personal service only. In 1513 their general introduction was
authorized by royal schedule on payment of two ducats per head.
Cardinal Cisneros prohibited the export of negro slaves from Spain in
1516; but the efforts of Father Las Casas to alleviate the lot of the
Indians by the introduction of what he believed, with the rest of his
contemporaries, to be providentially ordained slaves, obtained from
Charles II a concession in favor of Garrebod, the king's high steward,
to ship 4,000 negroes to la Española, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica
(1517). Garrebod sold the concession to some merchants of Genoa.
With the same view of saving the Indians, the Jerome fathers, who
governed the Antilles in 1518, requested the emperor's permission to
fit out slave-ships themselves and send them to the coast of Africa
for negroes. It appears that this permission was not granted; but in
1528 another concession to introduce 4,000 negroes into the Antilles
was given to some Germans, who, however, did not comply with the terms
of the contract.
Negroes were scarce and dear in San Juan at this period, which caused
the authorities to petition the emperor for permission to each settler
to bring two slaves free of duty, and, this being granted, it gave
rise to abuse, as the city officers in their address of thanks to the
empress, stated at the same time that many took advantage of the
privilege to transfer or sell their permit in Seville without coming
to the island. Then it was enacted that slaves should be introduced
only by authorized traffickers, who soon raised the price to 60 or 70
Castilian dollars per head. The crown officers in the island
protested, and asked that every settler might be permitted to bring 10
or 12 negroes, paying the duty of 2 ducats per head, which had been
imposed by King Ferdinand in 1513. A new deposit of gold had been
discovered about this time (1533), and the hope that others might be
found now induced the colonists to buy the negroes from the authorized
traders on credit at very high prices, to be paid with the gold which
the slaves should be made instrumental in discovering. But the
longed-for metal did not appear. The purchasers could not pay. Many
had their property embargoed and sold, and were ruined. Some were
imprisoned, others escaped to the mountains or left the island.
From 1536 to 1553 the authorities kept asking for negroes; sometimes
offering to pay duty, at others soliciting their free introduction;
now complaining that the colonists escaped _with their slaves_ to
Mexico and Peru, then lamenting that the German merchants, who had the
monopoly of the traffic, took them to all the other Antilles, but
would bring none to this island. However, 1,500 African slaves entered
here at different times during those seventeen years, without
reckoning the large numbers that were introduced as contraband.
Philip II tried to reduce the exorbitant prices exacted by the German
monopolists of the West Indian slave-trade, but, finding that his
efforts to do so diminished the importation, he revoked his
ordinances.
A Genoese banking-house, having made him large advances to help equip
the great Armada for the invasion of England, obtained the next
monopoly (1580).
During the course of the seventeenth century the privilege of
introducing African slaves into the Antilles was sold successively to
Genoese, Portuguese, Holland, French, and Spanish companies. The
traffic was an exceedingly profitable one, not so much on account of
the high prices obtained for the negroes as on account of the
contraband trade in all kinds of merchandise that accompanied it. From
1613 to 1621 during the government of Felipe de Beaumont, 11
ship-loads of slaves entered San Juan harbor.
During the eighteenth century the traffic expanded still more. To
induce England to abandon the cause of the House of Austria, for which
that nation was fighting, Philip V offered it the exclusive privilege
of introducing 140,000 negro slaves into the Spanish-American colonies
within a period of thirty years; the monopolists to pay 33-13 silver
crowns for each negro introduced, to the Spanish Government.[66]
War interrupted this contract several times, and long before the
termination of the thirty years the English ceased to import slaves.
Several contracts for the importation of slaves into the Antilles were
made from 1760 to the end of the century. First a contract was made
with Miguel Uriarte to take 15,000 slaves to different parts of
Spanish America. In 1765 the king sanctioned the introduction by the
Carácas company of 2,000 slaves to replace the Indians in Carácas and
Maraeaíbo, who had died of smallpox. All duties on the introduction of
negroes into Santo Domingo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Margarita, and Trinidad
were commuted in the same year for a moderate capitation tax, and the
Spanish firm of Aguirre, Aristegui & Co. was authorized to provide the
Antilles with negroes, on condition of reducing the price 10 pesos per
head, besides the amount of abolished duty.
This firm abused the privileges granted, and the inhabitants of all
the colonies, excepting Peru, Chile, and the Argentina, were allowed
to provide themselves, as best they could, with slaves from the French
colonies while the war lasted (1780).
Four years later, January 16, 1784, a certain Lenormand, of Xantes,
received the king's permission to take a ship-load of African slaves
to Puerto Rico on condition of paying 6 per cent of the product to the
Government.
In this same year the barbarous custom of branding the slaves was
abolished.
The abominable traffic was declared entirely free in Santo Domingo,
Cuba, and Puerto Rico by royal decree, February 28, 1789. Foreign
ships were placed under certain restrictions, but a bounty of 4 pesos
per head was paid for negroes brought in Spanish bottoms, to meet
which a per capita tax of 2 pesos per head on domestic slaves was
levied.
By this time the famous debates in the British Parliament and other
signs of the times announced the dawn of freedom for the oppressed
African race. Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Buxton, the English
abolitionists, continued their denunciations of the demoralizing
institution. Their effects were crowned with success in 1833. The
traffic was abolished, and ten years later Great Britain emancipated
more than twelve million slaves in her East and West Indian
possessions, paying the masters over one hundred millions of dollars
as indemnity.
Spain agreed in 1817 to abolish the slave-trade in her dominions by
May 30,1820. By Articles 3 and 4 of the convention, England offered to
pay to Spain $20,000,000 as complete compensation to his Catholic
Majesty's subjects who were engaged in the traffic.
The Spanish Government illegally employed this money to purchase from
Russia a fleet of five ships of the line and eight frigates.
The slaves in Puerto Rico were not emancipated until March 22, 1873,
when 31,000 were manumitted in one day, at a cost to the Government of
200 pesos each, plus the interest on the bonds that were issued.
The nature of the relations between the master and the slave in Puerto
Rico probably did not differ much from that which existed between them
in the other Spanish colonies. But these relations began to assume an
aspect of distrust and severity on the one hand and sullen resentment
on the other when the war of extermination between whites and blacks
in Santo Domingo and the establishment of a negro republic in Haiti
made it possible for the flame of negro insurrection to be wafted
across the narrow space of water that separates the two islands.
There was sufficient ground for such apprehension. The free colored
population in Puerto Rico at that time (1830-'34) numbered 127,287,
the slaves 34,240, as against 162,311 whites, among whom many were of
mixed blood.[67] Prim, the governor-general, to suppress every attempt
at insurrection, issued the proclamation, of which the following is a
synopsis:
"I, John Prim, Count of Ecus, etc., etc., etc.
"Whereas, The critical circumstances of the times and the afflictive
condition of the countries in the neighborhood of this island, some of
which are torn by civil war, and others engaged in a war of
extermination between the white and black races; it is incumbent on me
to dictate efficacious measures to prevent the spread of these
calamities to our pacific soil.... I have decreed as follows:
"ARTICLE 1. All offenses committed by individuals of African race,
whether free or slaves, shall be judged by court-martial.
"ART. 2. Any individual of African race, whether free or slave, who
shall offer armed resistance to a white, shall be shot, if a slave,
and have his right hand cut off by the public executioner, if a free
man. Should he be wounded he shall be shot.
"ART. 3. If any individual of African race, whether slave or free,
shall insult, menace, or maltreat, in any way, a white person, he will
be condemned to five years of penal servitude, if a slave, and
according to the circumstances of the case, if free.
"ART. 4. The owners of slaves are hereby authorized to correct and
chastise them for slight misdemeanors, without any civil or military
functionary having the right to interfere.
"ART. 5. If any slave shall rebel against his master, the latter is
authorized to kill him on the spot.
"ART. 6 orders the military commanders of the 8 departments of the
island to decide all cases of offenses committed by colored people
within twenty-four hours of their denunciation."
This Draconic decree is signed, Puerto Rico, May 31, 1843.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 66: Treaty of Madrid, March 16, 1713, ratified by the treaty
of Utrecht. There were two kinds of silver crowns, one of 8 pesetas,
the other of 10, worth respectively 4 and 5 English shillings.]
[Footnote 67: Flinter, p. 211.]
CHAPTER XXXII
INCREASE OF POPULATION
ALL statements of definite numbers with respect to the aboriginal
population of this island are essentially fabulous. Columbus touched
at only one port on the western shore. He remained there but a few
days and did not come in contact with the inhabitants. Ponce and his
men conquered but a part of the island, and had no time to study the
question of population, even if they had had the inclination to do so.
They did not count the enemy in time of war, and only interested
themselves in the number of prisoners which to them constituted the
spoils of conquest. Any calculation regarding the numbers that
remained at large, based on the number of Indians distributed, can not
be correct.
The same may be said of the computations of the population of the
island made by Abbad, O'Reilly, and others at a time when there was
not a correct statistical survey existing in the most civilized
countries of Europe. None of these computations exceed the limits of
mere conjecture.
With regard to the attempts to explain the causes of the decay and
ultimate disappearance of the aboriginal race, this subject also
appears to be involved in considerable doubt and obscurity,
notwithstanding the positive statements of native writers regarding
it. It has been impossible to ascertain in what degree they became
amalgamated by intermarriage with the conquerors; yet, that it has
been to a much larger degree than generally supposed, is proved by the
fact that many of the inhabitants, classed as white, have, both in
their features and manners, definite traces of the Indian race.[68]
With respect to the census taken by the Spanish authorities at
different times, though they may have taken great pains to obtain
correct statistical accounts, there is little doubt that the real
numbers greatly exceeded those which appear in the official returns.
The reason for this discrepancy is supposed by the author mentioned to
have been the _direct contribution_ which was levied on agricultural
property, inducing the landed proprietors to conceal the real number
of their slaves in order to make their crops appear to have been
_smaller_ than they were.
Nor does it appear that the increase in the population of Puerto Rico
is so much indebted to immigration as is generally supposed; for,
notwithstanding the advantages offered to colonists by the Government
in 1815, and the influx of settlers from Santo Domingo and Venezuela
during the civil wars in these republics, there were only 2,833
naturalized foreigners in the island in 1830. It appears also that the
Spanish immigration from the revolted colonies did not exceed 7,000
souls.
Puerto Rico had the reputation of being very poor, consequently, no
immigrants were attracted by the prospect of money-making. The
increase in the population of this island is sufficiently accounted
for by the fact that three-fourths of the inhabitants are engaged in
agricultural pursuits, which, of all occupations, are most conducive
to health. To which must be added the people's frugal habits, the easy
morals, the effect of climate, and the fecundity of the women of all
mixed races. These, and the peace which the island enjoyed in the
beginning of the nineteenth century, together with the abolition of
some of the restrictions on commerce and industry, promoted an era of
prosperity the like of which the inhabitants had never before known,
and the natural consequence was increase in numbers.
"In those days," says Colonel Flinter, "if some perfect stranger had
dropped from the clouds as it were, on this island, naked, without any
other auxiliaries than health and strength, he might have married the
next day and maintained a family without suffering more hardships or
privations than fall to the lot of every laborer in the ordinary
process of clearing and cultivating a piece of land."
The earliest information on the subject was given by Alexander
O'Reilly, the royal commissioner to the Antilles in 1765, who
enumerates a list of 24 towns and settlements with a total population
of
_Free_ men, women, and children of all colors....39,846
Slaves of both sexes, including their children ........5,037
Total.................................................44,883
Abbad, in his "general statistics of the island," corresponding to
the end of the year 1776, gives the details of the population in 30
"partidas," or ecclesiastical districts, as follows:
Whites 29,263
Free colored people 33,808
Free blacks 2,803
Other free people ("agregados") 7,835
Slaves 6,537
------
Total 80,246
That is to say, an increase of 7-311 per cent per annum during the
eleven years elapsed since O'Reilly's computation, which was a period
of constant apprehension of attacks by pirates and privateers.
From 1782 to 1802 there were three censuses taken showing the
following totals:
In 1782 81,180 souls.
" 1792 115,557 "
" 1802 163,192 "
From 1800 to 1815, there was universal poverty and depression in the
island in consequence of the prohibitive system introduced by the
Spanish authorities in all branches of commerce and industry, and the
sudden failure of the annual remittances from Mexico in consequence of
the insurrection. Still, the population had increased from 163,192 in
1802 to 220,892 in 1815.
From this year forward a great improvement in the island's general
condition set in, thanks to the efforts of Don Ramon Power, Puerto
Rico's delegate to Cortes, who obtained for the island, in November,
1811, the freedom of commerce with foreign nations, and by the
appointment of Intendant Ramirez procured the suppression of many
abuses and monopolies.
The royal schedule of August 13, 1815, called "the schedule of
graces," also contributed to the general improvement by the opening of
the ports to immigrants, though short-sighted restrictions destroyed
the beneficent effects of the measure to no small extent. However,
immigrants came, and among them 83 practical agriculturists from
Louisiana, with slaves and capital.
The census of 1834 gives the total population on an area of 330 square
leagues, in the proportion of 981-16 inhabitants per square league,
as follows:
Whites.......................... 188,869
Colored..........................126,400
Slaves........................... 41,817
Troops and prisoners.............. 1,730
Total........................... 358,836
This year shows an increase in the proportion of the slave population
over the free population since 1815, due to the free introduction of
slaves and the slaves brought by the immigrants.
A statistical commission for the island of Puerto Rico was created in
1845. The census taken under its auspices in the following year may be
considered reliable. The total figures are:
Whites........................... 216,083
Free colored......................175,791
Slaves............................ 51,265
Total............................ 443,139
In 1855 cholera morbus raged throughout the island, especially among
the colored population, and carried off 9,529 slaves alone.
The next census shows the progressive increase of inhabitants. It was
conducted by royal decree of September 30,1858, on the nights of
December 25 and 26, 1860. The official memorial gives the following
totals:
Whites................................ 300,430
Free colored.......................... 341,015
Slaves................................ 41,736
Unclassified.......................... 127
Total............................. 583,308
or 1,802.2 inhabitants per square league; one of the densest
populations on the globe, and the densest in the Antilles at the time
except Barbados.
The annual increase of population in Puerto Rico, according to the
calculations of Colonel Flinter, was:
From 1778-1802 ... 24 years ... 5-12 per cent per annum.
" 1802-1812 ... 10 " ... 1-15 " "
1812-1820 ... 8 " ... 3-14 " "
" 1820-1830 ... 10 " ... 4 " "
" 1830-1846 ... 16 " ... 3-15 " "
" 1846-1860 ... 14 " ... 3.72 " "
or an average annual increase of a little less than 4 per cent in a
period of eighty-two years.
From 1860 to 1864 the increase was small, but from that year to the
end of Spanish domination the percentage of increase was larger than
in any of the preceding periods.
The treaty of Paris brought 894,302 souls under the protection of the
American flag. They consisted of 570,187 whites, 239,808 of mixed
race, and 75,824 negroes.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 68: Flinter.]
CHAPTER XXXIII
AGRICULTURE IN PUERTO RICO
After the cessation of the gold produce, when the colonists were
forced by necessity to dedicate themselves to agriculture, they met
with many adverse conditions:
The incursions of the Caribs, the hurricanes of 1530 and 1537, the
emigration to Peru and Mexico, the internal dissensions, and last, but
not least, the heavy taxes. The colonists had found the soil of Puerto
Rico admirably adapted to sugar-cane, which they brought from Santo
Domingo, where Columbus had introduced it on his second voyage, and
the nascent sugar industry was beginning to prosper and expand when a
royal decree imposing a heavy tax on sugar came to strangle it in its
birth. Bishop Bastidas called the Government's attention to the fact
in a letter dated March 20, 1544, in which he says: " ... The new tax
to be paid on sugar in this island, as ordained by your Majesty, will
still further reduce the number of mills, which have been diminishing
of late. Let this tax be suspended and the mills in course of
construction will be finished, while the erection of others will be
encouraged."
The prelate's efforts seem to have produced a favorable effect.
Treasurer Castellanos, in 1546, loaned 6,000 pesos for the
Government's account, to two colonists for the erection of two
sugar-cane mills. In 1548 Gregorio Santolaya built, in the
neighborhood of the capital, the first cane-mill turned by
water-power, and two mills moved by horse-power. Another water-power
mill was mounted in 1549 on the estate of Alonzo Perez Martel with the
assistance of 1,500 pesos lent by the king. Loans for the same purpose
continued to be made for years after.
But if the Government encouraged the sugar industry with one hand,
with the other it checked its development, together with that of other
agricultural industries appropriate to the island, by means of
prohibitive legislation, monopolies, and other oppressive measures.
The effects of this administrative stupidity were still patent a
century later. Bishop Fray Lopez de Haro wrote in 1644: " ... The only
crop in this island is ginger, and it is so depreciated that nobody
buys it or wants to take it to Spain.... There are many cattle farms
in the country, and 7 sugar mills, where the families live with their
slaves the whole year round."
Canon Torres Vargas, in his Memoirs, amplifies the bishop's statement,
stating that the principal articles of commerce of the island were
ginger, hides, and sugar, and he gives the location of the
above-mentioned 7 sugar-cane mills. The total annual produce of ginger
had been as much as 14,000 centals, but, with the war and excessive
supply, the price had gone down, and in the year he wrote (1646) only
4,000 centals had been harvested. He informs us, too, that cacáo had
been planted in sufficient quantity to send ship-loads to Spain
within four years. The number of hides annually exported to Spain was
8,000 to 10,000. Tobacco had begun to be cultivated within the last
ten years, and its exportation had commenced. He pronounces it better
than the tobacco of Havana, Santo Domingo, and Margarita, but not as
good as that of Barinas.
The cultivation of tobacco in Puerto Rico was permitted by a special
law in 1614, but the sale of it to foreigners was prohibited _under
penalty of death and confiscation of property._[69] These and other
stringent measures dictated in 1777 and 1784 by their very severity
defeated their own purpose, and the laws, to a great extent, remained
a dead letter.
The cultivation of cacáo in Puerto Rico did not prosper for the reason
that the plant takes a long time in coming to maturity, and during
that period is exceedingly sensible to the effects of strong winds,
which, in this island, prevail from July to October. The first
plantations being destroyed by hurricanes, few new plantations were
made.
Of the other staple products of Puerto Rico, the most valuable,
coffee, was first planted in Martinique in 1720 by M. Declieux, who
brought the seeds from the Botanical Garden in Paris. The coco-palm
was introduced by Diego Lorenzo, a canon in the Cape de Verde Islands,
who also brought the first guinea-fowls; and, possibly, the plantain
species known in this island under the name of "guinéo" came from the
same part of the world. According to Oviedo, it was first planted in
Santo Domingo in 1516 by a monk named Berlangas.
Abbad gives the detailed agricultural statistics of the island in
1776, from which it appears that the cultivation of the new articles
introduced was general at the time, and that, under the influence of
climate and abundant pastures, the animal industry had become one of
the principal sources of wealth for the inhabitants.
There were in that year 5,581 farms, and 234 cattle-ranches (hatos).
On the farms or estates there were under cultivation:
Sugar-cane 3,156 cuerdas[70]
Plantains 8,315 "
Coffee-trees 1,196,184
Cotton-plants 103,591
On the cattle-ranches there were:
Head of horned cattle 77,384
Horses 23,195
Mules 1,534
Asses, swine, goats, and sheep 49,050
This was a comparatively large capital in stock and produce for a
population of 80,000 souls, but the reverend historian severely
criticizes the agricultural population of that day, and says of them:
" ... They scarcely know what implements are; ... they bring down a
tree, principally by means of fire; with a saber, which they call a
'machete,' they clear the jungle and clean the ground; with the point
of this machete, or a pointed stick, they dig the holes or furrows in
which they set their plants or sow their seeds. Thus they provide for
their subsistence, and when a hurricane or other mishap destroys their
crops, they supply their wants by fishing or collect edible roots.
"Indolence, rather than want of means, makes them confine their
cultivation to the level lands, which they abandon as soon as they
perceive that the fertility of the soil decreases, which happens very
soon, because they do not plow, nor do they turn over the soil, much
less manure it, so that the superficies soon becomes sterile; then
they make a clearing on some mountainside. Neither the knowledge of
the soil and climate acquired during many years of residence, nor the
increased facilities for obtaining the necessary agricultural
implements, nor the large number of cattle they possess that could be
used for agricultural purposes, nor the Government's dispositions to
improve the system of cultivation, have been sufficient to make these
islanders abandon the indolence with which they regard the most
important of all arts, and the first obligation imposed by God on
man--namely, the cultivation of the soil. They leave this to the
slaves, who are few and ill-fed, and know no more of agriculture than
their masters do; ... their great laziness, together with a silly,
baseless vanity, makes them look upon all manual labor as degrading,
proper only for slaves, and so they prefer poverty to doing honest
work. To this must be added their ambition to make rapid fortunes, as
some of them do, by contraband trading, which makes good sailors of
them but bad agriculturists.
"These are the reasons why they prefer the cultivation of produce that
requires little labor. Most proprietors have a small portion of their
land planted with cane, but few have made it their principal crop,
because of the expense of erecting a mill and the greater number of
slaves and implements required; yet this industry alone, if properly
fostered, would soon remove all obstacles to their progress.
"It is useless, therefore, to look for gardens and orchards in a
country where the plow is yet unknown, and which has not even made the
first step in agricultural development."
* * * * *
Under the royal decree of 1815 commerce, both foreign and inland,
rapidly developed.
From the official returns made to the Government in 1828 to 1830,
Colonel Flinter drew up the following statement of the agricultural
wealth of the island in the latter year (1830):
Wooden sugar-cane mills 1,277
Iron sugar-cane mills 800
Coffee estates with machinery 148
Stills for distilling rum 340
Brick ovens 80
Lime kilns 45
_Land under Cultivation_
Cane 14,803 acres.
Plantains 30,706 "
Rice 14,850 "
Maize 16,194 "
Tobacco 2,599 "
Manioc 1,150 "
Sweet potatoes 1,224 "
Yams 6,696 "
Pulse 1,100 "
Horticulture 31 "
Coffee-plants 16,750 acres 16,992,857
Cotton-trees 3,079 " 3,079,310
Coco-palms 2,402 " 60,050
Orange-trees 3,430 " 85,760
Aguacate-trees 2,230 " 55,760
Pepper or chilli or aji trees 500
The live stock of the island in the same year consisted of:
Cows 42,500 head.
Bulls 6,720 "
Oxen 20,910 "
Horses 25,760 "
Mares 27,210 "
Asses 315 "
Mules 1,112 "
Sheep 7,560 "
Goats 5,969 "
Swine 25,087 "
Turkeys 8,671 "
Other fowls 838,454 "
This agricultural wealth of the island, houses, lands, and slaves
_not_ included, was valued at $37,993,600, and its annual produce at
$6,883,371, half of which was exported. These statistics may be
considered as only _approximately correct,_ as the returns made by the
proprietors to the Government, in order to escape taxation, were less
than the real numbers existing.
The natural wealth of Puerto Rico may be divided into agricultural,
pastoral, and sylvan. According to the Spanish Government measurements
the island's area is 2,584,000 English acres. Of these, there were
Under cultivation in 1830, as above
detailed 117,244 acres.
In pastures 634,506 "
In forests 728,703 "
------------
Total _tax-paying lands_ 1,480,453 "
The pasture lands on the north and east coasts are equal to the best
lands of the kind in the West Indies for the breeding and fattening of
cattle. On the south coast excessive droughts often parch the grass,
in which case the cattle are fed on cane-tops at harvest time. There
are excellent and nutritive native grasses of different species to be
found in every valley. The cattle bred in the island are generally
tame.
From 1865 to 1872 was the era of greatest prosperity ever experienced
in Puerto Rico under Spanish rule. The land was not yet exhausted,
harvests were abundant, labor cheap, the quality of the sugar produced
was excellent, prices were high, contributions and taxes were
moderate. There were no export duties, and although, during this
period, the growing manufacture of beet-root sugar was lowering the
price of "mascabado" all over the world, no effect was felt in Puerto
Rico, because it was the nearest market to the United States, where
the civil war had put an end to the annual product by the Southern
States of half a million bocoyes,[71] or about 675,000,000 gallons;
and the abolition of all import duties on sugar in England also
favored the maintenance of high prices for a number of years.
However, the production of beet-root sugar and the increase of cane
cultivation in the East[72] caused the fall in prices which, in
combination with the numberless oppressive restrictions imposed by the
Spanish Government, brought Puerto Rico to the verge of ruin.
"The misfortunes that afflict us," says Mr. James McCormick to the
Provincial Deputation in his official report on the condition of the
sugar industry in this island in 1880, "come under different forms
from different directions, and _every inhabitant knows what causes
have contributed to reduce this island, once prosperous and happy, to
its actual condition of prostration and anguish_."
That condition he paints in the following words: "Mechanical arts and
industries languish because there is no demand or profitable market
for its products; commerce is paralyzed by the obstacles placed in its
way; the country never has had sufficient capital and what there is
hides itself or is withdrawn from circulation; foreign capital has
been frightened away; Puerto Rican landowners are looked upon with
special disfavor and credit is denied them, unfortunately with good
reason, seeing the lamentable condition of our agriculture. The
production of sugar scarcely amounts to half of what it was in former
years. From the year 1873 a great proportion of the existing sugar
estates have fallen to ruin; in 8 districts their number has been
reduced from 104 to 38, and of these the majority are in an agonizing
condition. In other parts of the island many estates, in which large
capitals in machinery, drainage, etc., have been invested, have been
abandoned and the land is returning to its primitive condition of
jungle and swamp. Ten years ago the island exported 100,000 tons of
sugar annually, the product of 553 mills; during the last three years
(1878-1880) the average export has been 60,000 tons, the product of
325 mills that have been able to continue working. Everywhere in this
province the evidences of the ruin which has overtaken the planters
meet the eye, and nothing is heard but the lamentations of proprietors
reduced to misery and desperation."
This state of things continued notwithstanding the representations
made before the "high spheres of Government" by the leading men in
commerce and agriculture, by the press of all political colors, and by
Congress. The Minister of Ultramar in Madrid recognized the gravity of
the situation, and it is said that the lamentations of the people of
Puerto Rico found an echo even at the foot of the throne.
And there they died. Nothing was done to remedy the growing evil, and
the writer of the pamphlet, not daring openly to accuse the Government
as the only cause of the island's desperate situation, counsels
patience, and timidly expresses the hope that the exorbitant taxes
and contributions will be lowered; that economy in the Government
expenditures will be practised; that monopolies will be abolished, and
odious, oppressive practises of all kinds be discontinued.
Such was the condition of Puerto Rico in 1880. The Government's
oppressive practises, and they only, were the causes of the ruin of
this and all the other rich and beautiful colonies that destiny laid
at the feet of Ferdinand and Isabel four centuries ago.
The following statement of the proportion of sugar to each acre of
land under cane cultivation in the Antilles, compared with Puerto
Rico, may be of interest.
The computation of the average sugar produce per acre, according to
the best and most correct information from intelligent planters, who
had no motives for deception, was, in 1830:[73]
For Jamaica 10 centals per acre.
Dominica 10 " "
Granada 15 " "
St. Vincent 25 " "
Tobago 20 " "
Antigua 7-12 " "
Saint Kitts 20 " "
Puerto Rico 30 " "
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 69: Leyes de Indias, Ley IV, Libro IV, Titulo XVIII.]
[Footnote 70: The actual cuerda is a square of 75 varas each side,
about one-tenth less than an acre. Abbad understood by a cuerda a
rectangle of 75 varas front by 1,500 varas depth, that is, 20 cuerdas
superficies of those actually in use.--_Acosta._]
[Footnote 71: The bocoy in Puerto Rico, equal from 12 to 20 centals of
sugar, according the quality.]
[Footnote 72: British India produced about that time over 1,500,000
tons of cane-sugar per annum.]
[Footnote 73: Colonel Flinter, An Account of the Island of Puerto
Rico. London, 1834]
CHAPTER XXXIV
COMMERCE AND FINANCES
Until the year 1813 the captains-general of Puerto Rico had the
superintendence of the revenues. The capital was the only authorized
port open to commerce. No regular books were kept by the authorities.
A day-book of duties paid and expended was all that was considered
necessary. Merchandise was smuggled in at every part of the coast,[74]
the treasury chest was empty, and the Government officers and troops
were reduced to a very small portion of their pay.
The total revenues of the island, including the old-established taxes
and contributions, produced 70,000 pesos, and half of that sum was
never recovered on account of the abuses and dishonesty that had been
introduced in the system of collection.
An intendancy was deemed necessary, and the Home Government appointed
Alexander Ramirez to the post in February, 1813. He promptly
introduced important reforms in the administration, and caused regular
accounts to be kept. He made ample and liberal concessions to
commerce, opened five additional ports with custom-houses, freed
agriculture from the trammels that had impeded its development, and
placed labor, instruments, seeds, and modern machinery within its
reach. He printed and distributed short essays or manuals on the
cultivation of different products and the systems adopted by other
nations, promoted the immigration of Canary Islanders, founded the
Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country, and edited the
Diario Económico de Puerto Rico, the first number of which appeared
February 28, 1814.
The first year after the establishment of these improvements,
notwithstanding the abolition of some of the most onerous taxes, the
revenues of the capital rose to $161,000, and the new custom-houses
produced $242,842.
Having placed this island's financial administration on a sound basis,
Ramirez was called upon by the Government to perform the same valuable
services for Cuba. Unfortunately, his successors here soon destroyed
the good effects of his measures by continual variations in the
system, and in the commercial tariffs. They attempted to prevent
smuggling by increasing the duties, the very means of encouraging
contraband trade, and the old mismanagement and malversations in the
custom-houses revived. One intendant, often from a mere spirit of
innovation, applied to the court for a decree canceling the
regulations of his predecessor, so that, from the concurring effects
of contraband and mismanagement, commerce suffered, and the country
became once more impoverished.
The revenues fell so low and the malversation of public money reached
such a height that the captain-general found it necessary in 1825 to
charge the military commanders of the respective districts with the
prevention of smuggling. He placed supervisors of known intelligence
and probity in each custom-house to watch and prevent fraud and
peculation. These measures almost doubled the amount of revenue in the
following year (1826).
As late as 1810 the imports in Puerto Rico exceeded three times the
sum of the produce exported. The difference was made up by the
"situados," or remittances in cash from Mexico, which began early in
the seventeenth century, when the repeated attacks on the island by
French and English privateers forced the Spanish Government to choose
between losing the island or fortifying it. The king chose the latter,
and made an assignment on the royal treasury of Mexico of nearly half
a million pesos per annum. With these subsidies all the fortifications
were constructed and the garrison and civil and military employees
were paid, till the insurrection in Mexico put a stop to the fall of
this pecuniary manna.
It was fortunate for Puerto Rico that it ceased. The people of the
island had become so accustomed to look to this supply of money for
the purchase of their necessities that they entirely neglected the
development of the rich resources in their fertile soil. When a
remittance arrived in due time, all was joy and animation; when it was
delayed, as was often the case, all was gloom and silence, and
recourse was had to "papeletas," a temporary paper currency or
promises to pay.
With the cessation of the "situados" the scanty resources of the
treasury soon gave out. The funds of the churches were first
requisitioned; then the judicial deposits, the property of people who
had died in the Peninsula, and other unclaimed funds were attached;
next, donations and private loans were solicited, and when all these
expedients were exhausted, the final resort of bankrupt communities,
paper money, was adopted (1812).
Then Puerto Rico's poverty became extreme. In 1814 there was at least
half a million paper money in circulation with a depreciation of 400
per cent. To avoid absolute ruin, the intendant had recourse to the
introduction of what were called "macuquinos," or pieces of rudely
cut, uncoined silver of inferior alloy, representing approximately the
value of the coin that each piece of metal stood for. With these he
redeemed in 1816 all the paper money that had been put in circulation;
but the emergency money gave rise to agioist speculation and remained
the currency long after it had served its purpose. It was not replaced
by Spanish national coin till 1857.
The royal decree of 1815, and the improvements in the financial
situation, as a result of the new administrative system established by
Ramirez, gave a strong impulse to foreign commerce. Though commerce
with the mother country remained in a languishing condition, because
the so-called "decree of graces" had fixed the import duty on Spanish
merchandise at 6 per cent _ad valorem_, while the valuations which
the custom-house officials made exceeded the market prices to such an
extent that many articles really paid 8 per cent and some 10, 12, and
even 15 per cent.
An estimate of the commerce of this island about the year 1830 divides
the total imports and exports which, in that year, amounted to
$5,620,786 among the following nations:
Per cent. Per cent.
West Indian Islands imports 53-12 Exports 26
United States imports 27-14 " 49
Spanish imports 12-18 " 7
English imports 2-34 " 6-12
French imports 2-58 " 6-58
Other nations' imports 1-34 " 8-34
The American trade at that time formed nearly one-third of the whole
of the value of the imports and nearly half of all the exports.
An American consul resided at the capital and all the principal ports
had deputy consuls. The articles of importation from the United States
were principally timber, staves for sugar-casks, flour and other
provisions, and furniture.[75]
* * * * *
The financial history of Puerto Rico commences about the middle of the
eighteenth century. In 1758 the revenues amounted to 6,858 pesos. In
1765, to 10,814, and in 1778 to 47,500. Their increase up to 1,605,523
in 1864 was due to the natural development of the island's resources,
which accompanied the increase of population; yet financial distress
was chronic all the time, and not a year passed without the
application of the supposed panacea of royal decrees and ordinances,
without the expected improvement.
From 1850 to 1864, for the first time in the island's history, there
happened to be a surplus revenue. The authorities wasted it in an
attempt to reannex Santo Domingo and in contributions toward the
expenses of the war in Morocco. The balance was used by the Spanish
Minister of Ultramar, the Government being of opinion that surpluses
in colonial treasuries were a source of danger. To avoid a plethora of
money contributions were asked for in the name of patriotism, which
nobody dared refuse, and which were, therefore, always liberally
responded to. Of this class was a contribution of half a million pesos
toward the expenses of the war with the Carlists to secure the
succession of Isabel II, and Sunday collections for the benefit of the
Spanish soldiers in Cuba, for the sufferers by the inundations in
Murcia, the earthquakes in Andalusia, etc. From 1870 to 1876 a series
of laws and ordinances relating to finances were promulgated. February
22d, a royal decree admitted Mexican silver coin as currency. December
3, 1880, another royal decree reformed the financial administration of
the island. This was followed in 1881 by instructions for the
collection of personal contributions. In 1882 the Intendant Alcázar
published the regulations for the imposition, collection, and
administration of the land tax; from 1882 to 1892 another series of
laws, ordinances, and decrees appeared for the collection and
administration of different taxes and contributions, and October 28,
1895, another royal decree withdrew the Mexican coin from circulation.
In the same year (March 15th) the reform laws were promulgated, which
were followed in the next year by the municipal law.[76]
In the meantime commerce languished. The excessively high export
duties on island produce imposed by Governor Sanz in 1868 to 1870
brought 600,000 pesos per annum into the treasury, but ruined
agriculture, and this lasted till the end of Spanish rule.
The directory of the Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and
Navigation of San Juan, at the general meeting of members in 1895,
reported that it had occupied itself during that year, through the
medium of the island's representative in Cortes, with the promised
tariff reform, but without result. Nor had its endeavors to obtain the
exchange of the Mexican coin still in circulation for Peninsular money
been successful on account of the opposition of those interested in
the maintenance of the system. The abolition of the so-called
"conciertos" of matches and petroleum had also occupied them, and in
this case successfully; but the directors complained of the apathy and
the indifference of the public in general for the objects which the
Chamber of Commerce was organized to advocate and promote, and they
state that within the last year the number of associates had
diminished.
The Directors' report of January, 1897, was even more gloomy. They
complain of the want of interest in their proceedings on the part of
many of the leading commercial houses, of the lamentable condition of
commerce, of the inattention of their "mother," Spain, to the
plausible pretentions of this her daughter, animated though she was by
the most fervent patriotism.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 74: Rafael Conty, subdelegate of the treasury of Aguadilla,
sailed round the island in a sloop in 1790 and confiscated eleven
vessels engaged in smuggling.]
[Footnote 75: For commercial statistics of Puerto Rico from 1813 to
1864, see Señor Acosta's interesting notes to Chapter XXVIII of
Abbad's history.]
[Footnote 76: _Vide_ Reseña del Estado Social, Económico é Industrial
de la Isla de Puerto Rico por el Dr. Cayetano Coll y Toste, 1899.]
CHAPTER XXXV
EDUCATION IN PUERTO RICO
In Chapter XXIII of this history we gave an extract from his
Excellency Alexander O'Reilly's report to King Charles IV, wherein,
referring to the intellectual status of the inhabitants of Puerto Rico
in 1765, he informs his Majesty that there were only two schools in
the whole island and that, outside of the capital and San German, few
knew how to read.
In the mother country, at that period, even primary instruction was
very deficient. It remained so for a long time. As late as 1838
reading, writing, and arithmetic only were taught in the best public
schools of Spain. The other branches of knowledge, such as geography,
history, physics, chemistry, natural history, could be studied in a
few ecclesiastical educational establishments.[77] The illiteracy of
the inhabitants of this, the least important of Spain's conquered
provinces, was therefore but natural, seeing that the conquerors who
had settled in it belonged to the most ignorant classes of an
illiterate country in an illiterate age. Something was done in Puerto
Rico by the Dominican and Franciscan friars in the way of preparatory
training for ecclesiastical callings. They taught Latin and philosophy
to a limited number of youths; the bishop himself gave regular
instruction in Latin.
A few youths, whose parents could afford it, were sent to the
universities of Carácas and Santo Domingo, where some of them
distinguished themselves by their aptitude for study. One of these,
afterward known as Father Bonilla, obtained the highest academic
honors in Santo Domingo.
From 1820 to 1823, under the auspices of a constitutional government,
intellectual life in Puerto Rico really began. A Mr. Louis Santiago
called public attention to the necessity of attending to primary
education. "The greatest evil," he said, "that which demands the
speediest remedy, is the general ignorance of the art of reading and
writing. It is painful to see the signatures of the alcaldes to public
documents." He wrote a pamphlet of instructions in the art of teaching
in primary schools, which was printed and distributed through the
interior of the island. The governor, Gonzalo Arostegui, addressed an
official note to the Provincial Deputation charging that body to
propose to him "without rest or interruption, and as soon as
possible," the means to establish primary schools in the capital and
in the towns of the interior; to the municipalities he sent a
circular, dated September 28, 1821, recommending them to facilitate
the coming to the capital of the teachers in their respective
districts who wished to attend, for a period of two months, a class in
the Lancasterian method of primary teaching, to be held in the Normal
School by Ramon Carpegna, the political secretary. A certain amount of
instruction, talent, and disposition for magisterial work was required
of the pupils, and those who already had positions as teachers could
assist at the two months' course without detriment to their salaries.
The fall of the constitutional government in Spain, brought about by
French intervention and the reaction that followed, extinguished the
light that had just begun to shine, and this unfortunate island was
again plunged into the intellectual darkness of the middle ages.
Persecution became fiercer than ever, and the citizens most
distinguished for their learning and liberal ideas had to seek safety
in emigration.
For the next twenty years the education of the youth of Puerto Rico
was entirely in the hands of the clergy. With the legacies left to
the Church by Bishop Arizmendi and other pious defuncts, Bishop Pedro
Gutierrez de Cos founded the Conciliar Seminary in 1831, and appointed
as Rector Friar Angel de la Concepción Vazquez, a Puerto Rican by
birth, educated in the Franciscan Convent of Carácas.
In the same year there came to Puerto Rico, as prebendary of the
cathedral, an ex-professor of experimental physics in the University
of Galicia, whose name was Rufo Fernandez. He founded a cabinet of
physics and a chemical laboratory, and invited the youth of the
capital to attend the lectures on these two sciences which he gave
gratis.
Fray Angel, as he was familiarly called, the rector of the seminary,
at Dr. Rufo's suggestion, asked permission of the superior
ecclesiastical authorities to transfer the latter's cabinet and
laboratory to the seminary for the purpose of adding the courses of
physics and chemistry to the curriculum, but failed to obtain it, the
reasons given for the adverse decision being, "that the science of
chemistry was unnecessary for the students, who, in accordance with
the dispositions of the Council of Trent, were to dedicate themselves
to ecclesiastical sciences only." The rector, while expressing his
regret at the decision, adds: "I can not help telling you what I have
always felt--namely, that there is some malediction resting on the
education of youth in this island, which evokes formidable obstacles
from every side, though there are not wanting generous spirits ready
to make sacrifices in its favor." [78]
Some of these generous spirits had organized, as early as 1813, under
the auspices of Intendant Ramirez, the Economic Society of Friends of
the Country. Puerto Rico owes almost all its intellectual progress to
this society. Its aim was the island's moral and material advancement,
and, in spite of obstacles, it has nobly labored with that object in
view to the end of Spanish domination. From its very inception it
established a primary school for 12 poor girls, and classes in
mathematics, geography, French, English, and drawing, to which a class
of practical or applied mechanics was added later. In 1844 the society
asked and obtained permission from the governor, the Count of
Mirasol, to solicit subscriptions for the establishment and endowment
of a central college. The people responded with enthusiasm, and in
less than a month 30,000 pesos were collected.
The college was opened. In 1846 four youths, under the guidance of Dr.
Rufo, were sent to Spain to complete their studies to enable them to
worthily fill professorships in the central school. Two of them died
shortly after their arrival in Madrid. When the other two returned to
Puerto Rico in 1849 they found the college closed and the
subscriptions for its maintenance returned to the donors by order of
Juan de la Pezuela, Count Mirasol's successor in the governorship.
If the unfavorable opinion of the character of the Puerto Ricans to
which this personage gave expression in one of his official
communications was the motive for his proceeding in this case, it
would seem that he changed it toward the end of his administration,
for he founded a Royal Academy of Belles-Lettres, and a library which
was provided with books by occasional gifts from the public. He
introduced some useful reforms in the system of primary instruction,
and inaugurated the first prize competitions for poetical compositions
by native authors.
From the returns of the census of 1860 it appears that at that time
only 17-12 per cent of the male population of the island knew how to
read, and only 12-12 per cent of the female population. Four years
later, at the end of 1864 there were, according to official data,
98,817 families in Puerto Rico whose intellectual wants were supplied
by 74 public schools for boys and 48 for girls, besides 16 and 9
private schools for boys and girls respectively.
In 1854 General Norzagery, then governor, assisted by Andres Viña, the
secretary of the Royal Board of Commerce and Industry, had founded a
school of Commerce, Agriculture, and Navigation. After sixteen years
of existence, this establishment was unfavorably reported upon by
Governor Sanz, who wished to suppress it on account of the liberal
ideas and autonomist tendencies of its two principal professors, José
Julian Acosta (Abbad's commentator) and Ramon B. Castro. In the
preamble to a secret report sent by this governor to Madrid he says:
"This supreme civil government has always secured professors who, in
addition to the required ability for their position, possess the moral
and political character and qualities to form citizens, lovers of
their country, i.e., lovers of Puerto Rico as a Spanish province, _not
of Puerto Rico as an independent state annexed to North America_."
Female education had all along received even less attention than the
education of boys. Alexander Infiesta, in an article on the subject
published in the Revista in February, 1888, states, that according to
the latest census there were 399,674 females in the island, of whom
293,247 could neither read nor write, 158,528 of them being white
women and girls. The number of schools for boys was 408, with an
attendance of 18,194, and that for girls 127, with 7,183 pupils.
From the memorial published by the Director of the Provincial
Institute for Secondary Education, regarding the courses of study in
that establishment during the year 1888-'89, we learn that the number
of primary schools in the island had increased to 600, but, according
to Mr. Coll y Toste's Reseña, published in 1899, there were, among a
total population of 894,302 souls, only 497 primary schools in the
island at the time of the American occupation. The total attendance
was 22,265 pupils, 15,108 boys and 7,157 girls.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 77: See Franco del Valle Atilés, Causas del atras
Intellectual del campesino Puertoriqueño. Revista Puertoriqueña, Año
II, tomo II, p. 7.]
[Footnote 78: Letter to Dr. Rufo Fernandez from Fray Angel de la
Concepcion Vazquez. See Acosta's notes to Abbad's history, pp. 412,
413, foot note.]
CHAPTER XXXVI
LIBRARIES AND THE PRESS
Books for the people were considered by the Spanish colonial
authorities to be of the nature of inflammable or explosive
substances, which it was not safe to introduce freely.
From their point of view, they were right. The Droits de l'homme of
Jean Jacques Rousseau, for example, translated into every European
language, had added more volunteers of all nationalities to the ranks
of the Spanish-American patriots than was generally supposed--and so,
books and printing material were subjected to the payment of high
import duties, and a series of annoying formalities, among which the
passing of the political and ecclesiastical censors was the most
formidable.
The result among the poorer classes of natives was blank illiteracy. A
pall of profound ignorance hung over the island, and although, with
the revival of letters in the seventeenth century the light of
intellect dawned over western Europe, not a ray of it was permitted to
reach the Spanish colonies.
The ruling class, every individual of whom came from the Peninsula,
kept what books each individual possessed to themselves. To the people
all learning, except such as it was considered safe to impart, was
forbidden fruit.
Under these conditions it is not strange that the idea of founding
public libraries did not germinate in the minds of the more
intelligent among the Puerto Ricans till the middle of the nineteenth
century; whereas, the other colonies that had shaken off their
allegiance to the mother country, had long since entered upon the road
of intellectual progress with resolute step.
Collegiate libraries, however, had existed in the capital of the
island as early as the sixteenth century. The first of which we have
any tradition was founded by the Dominican friars in their convent. It
contained works on art, literature, and theology.
The next library was formed in the episcopal palace, or "casa
parochial," by Bishop Don Bernardo de Valbuena, poet and author of a
pastoral novel entitled the Golden Age, and other works of literary
merit. This library, together with that of the Dominicans, and the
respective episcopal and conventual archives were burned by the
Hollanders during the siege of San Juan in 1625.
The Franciscan friars also had a library in their convent (1660). The
books disappeared at the time of the community's dissolution in 1835.
Bishop Pedro Gutierres de Cos, who founded the San Juan Conciliar
Seminary in 1832, established a library in connection with it, the
remains of which are still extant in the old seminary building, but
much neglected and worm-eaten.
A library of a semipublic character was founded by royal order dated
June 19, 1831, shortly after the installation of the Audiencia in San
Juan. It was a large and valuable collection of books on juridical
subjects, which remained under the care of a salaried librarian till
1899, when it was amalgamated with the library of the College of
Lawyers.
This last is a rich collection of works on jurisprudence, and the
exclusive property of the college, but accessible to professional men.
The library is in the former Audiencia building, now occupied by the
insular courts.
The period from 1830 to 1850 appears to have been one of greatest
intellectual activity in Puerto Rico. Toward its close Juan de la
Pezuela, the governor, founded the Royal Academy of Belles-Lettres, an
institution of literary and pedagogical character, with the functions
of a normal school. It was endowed with a modest library, but it only
lived till the year 1860, when, in consequence of disagreement between
the founder and the professors, the school was closed and the library
passed into the possession of the Economic Society of Friends of the
Country.
This, and the library of the Royal Academy, which the society had also
acquired, formed a small but excellent nucleus, and with, the produce
of the public subscription of 1884 it was enabled to stock its library
with many of the best standard works of the time in Spanish and
French, and open to the Puerto Ricans of all classes the doors of the
first long-wished-for public library.
Since then it has contributed in no small degree to the enlightenment
of the better part of the laboring classes in the capital, till it was
closed at the commencement of the war.
During the transition period the books were transferred from one
locality to another, and in the process the best works disappeared,
until the island's first civil governor, Charles H. Allen, at the
suggestion of Commissioner of Education Martin G. Brumbaugh, rescued
the remainder and made it the nucleus of the first _American_ free
library.
The second Puerto Rican public library was opened by Don Ramon
Santaella, October 15, 1880, in the basement of the Town Hall. It
began with 400 volumes, and possesses to-day 6,361 literary and
didactic books in different languages.
The Puerto Rican Atheneum Library was established in 1876. Its
collection of books, consisting principally of Spanish and French
literature, is an important one, both in numbers and quality. It has
been enriched by accessions of books from the library of the extinct
Society of Friends of the Country. It is open to members of the
Atheneum only, or to visitors introduced by them.
The Casino Español possesses a small but select library with a
comfortable reading-room. Its collection of books and periodicals is
said to be the richest and most varied in the island. It was founded
in 1871.
The religious association known under the name of Conferences of St.
Vincent de Paul had a small circulating library of religious works
duly approved by the censors. The congregation was broken up in 1887
and the library disappeared.
The Provincial Institute of Secondary Education, which was located in
the building now occupied by the free library and legislature,
possessed a small pedagogical library which shared the same fate as
that of the Society of Friends of the Country.
The Spanish Public Works Department possessed another valuable
collection of books, mostly on technical and scientific subjects. A
number of books on other than technical subjects, probably from the
extinct libraries just referred to, have been added to the original
collection, and the whole, to the number of 1,544 volumes in excellent
condition, exist under the care of the chief of the Public Works
Department.
Besides the above specified libraries of a public and collegiate
character, there are some private collections of books in the
principal towns of the island. Chief among these is the collection of
Don Fernando Juncos, of San Juan, which contains 15,000 volumes of
classic and preceptive literature and social and economic science,
1,200 volumes of which bear the author's autographs.
The desire for intellectual improvement began to manifest itself in
the interior of the island a few years after the establishment of the
first public library in the capital. The municipality of Ponce founded
a library in 1894. It contains 809 bound volumes and 669 pamphlets in
English, German, French, and Spanish, many of them duplicates. The
general condition of the books is bad, and the location of the library
altogether unsuitable. There was a municipal appropriation of 350
pesos per annum for library purposes, but since 1898 it has not been
available.
Mayaguez founded its public library in 1872. It possesses over 5,000
volumes, with a small archeological and natural history museum
attached to it.
Some of the smaller towns also felt the need of intellectual
expansion, and tried to supply it by the establishment of
reading-rooms. Arecibo, Véga-Baja, Toa-Alta, Yauco, Cabo-Rojo,
Aguadilla, Humacáo, and others made efforts in this direction either
through their municipalities or private initiative. A few only
succeeded, but they did not outlive the critical times that commenced
with the war, aggravated by the hurricane of August, 1898.
* * * * *
Since the American occupation of the island, four public libraries
have been established. Two of them are exclusively Spanish, the
Circulating Scholastic Library, inaugurated in San Juan on February
22, 1901, by Don Pedro Carlos Timothe, and the Circulating Scholastic
Library of Yauco, established a month later under the auspices of S.
Egózene of that town. The two others are, one, largely English, the
Pedagogical Library, established under the auspices of the
Commissioner of Education, and the San Juan Free Library, to which Mr.
Andrew Carnegie has given $100,000, and which is polyglot, and was
formally opened to the public April 20, 1901. There is also a growing
number of libraries in the public schools. From the above data it
appears that, owing to the peculiar conditions that obtained in this
island, the people of Puerto Rico were very slow in joining the
movement of intellectual expansion which began in Spanish America in
the eighteenth century. They did so at last, unaided and with their
own limited resources, even before the obstacles placed in their way
by the Government were removed. If they have not achieved more, it is
because within the last few decades the island has been unfortunate in
more than one respect. Now that a new era has dawned, it may
reasonably be expected that the increased opportunities for
intellectual development afforded them will be duly appreciated and
taken advantage of by the people, and if we may judge from the
eagerness with which the youth of the capital reads the books of the
San Juan Free Library, it seems clear that the seed so recently sown
has fallen in fruitful soil.
* * * * *
The history of the Press in Puerto Rico is short. The first printing
machine was introduced by the Government in 1807 for the purpose of
publishing the Official Gazette. No serious attempt at publication of
any periodical for the people was made till the commencement of the
second constitutional period (1820-'23), when, for the first time in
the island's history, public affairs could be discussed without the
risk of imprisonment or banishment. The right of association was also
recognized. The Society of Liberal Lovers of the Country and the
Society of Lovers of Science were formed about this time. The
Investigator and the Constitutional Gazette were published and gave
food for nightly discussions on political and social questions in the
coffee-house on the Marina.
The period of freedom of spoken and written thought was short, but an
impulse had been given which could not be arrested. In 1865 there were
eight periodicals published in the island. On September 29th of that
year a law regulating the publication of newspapers indirectly
suppressed half of them. It contained twenty articles, each more
stringent than the other. To obtain a license to publish or to
continue publishing a paper, a deposit of 2,000 crowns had to be made
to cover the fines that were almost sure to be imposed. The
publications were subject to the strictest censorship. They could not
appear till the proofs of each article had been signed by the censor,
and the whole process of printing and publishing was fenced in by such
minute and annoying regulations, the smallest infraction of which was
punished by such heavy fines that it was a marvel how any paper could
be published under such conditions. These conditions were relaxed a
decade or two later, and a number of publications sprang into
existence at once. When the United States Government took possession
of the island, there were 9 periodicals published in San Juan, 5 in
Ponce, 3 in Mayaguez, 1 in Humacáo, and a few others in different
towns of the interior.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE REGULAR AND SECULAR CLERGY
In Catholic countries the monastic orders constitute the regular
clergy. The secular clergy is not bound by monastic rules. Both
classes exercise their functions independently, the former under the
authority of their respective superiors or generals, the latter under
the bishops.
When, after the return of Columbus from his first voyage, the
existence of a new world was demonstrated and preparations for
occupying it were made, the Pope, to assure the Christianization of
the inhabitants, gave to the monks of all orders who wished to go the
privilege, pertaining till then to the secular clergy exclusively, of
administering parishes and collecting tithes without subjection to the
authority of the bishops.
The Dominicans and the Franciscans availed themselves of this
privilege at once. There was rivalry for power and influence between
these two orders from the time of their first installation, and they
carried their quarrels with them to America, where their differences
of opinion regarding the enslaving and treatment of the Indians
embittered them still more. The Dominicans secured a footing in Santo
Domingo and in Puerto Rico almost to the exclusion of their rivals,
notwithstanding the king's recommendation to Ceron in 1511 to build a
monastery for Franciscans, whose doctrines he considered "salutary."
[Illustration: San Francisco Church, San Juan; the oldest church in
the city.]