The Impact Of Spanish Rule On Puerto Ricans Today

Two other aspects of the Spanish and Puerto Rican culture are their governments and food. Spain and Puerto Rico have two different types of government. Spain’s government has both a parliamentary government and constitutional monarchy (Pena, 2012). Puerto Rica happens to be a commonwealth island of the United States (Puerto Rico, 2012). The influence on food found within Spain and Puerto Rico comes from many different backgrounds. Spain’s food background is influenced by the Roman, Greek, Celtic, Jewish, and Muslim backgrounds (Pena, 2012). Puerto Rican food comes from the influences of the Taino Indian, Spanish, African, and U.S. American peoples. Not only can similarities be found with the family unit, religion, and traditions. They are also found within the government and food within the countries.

It is not uncommon that you’ll hear Puerto Ricans refer to themselves as the mutts of the Spanish community, this is because of the island’s history. Soon after Christopher Columbus “discovered” the island in 1493, it became known as the “rich port” for the Spanish or Puerto Rico, due to the fact that it produced mass amounts of cattle, sugar cane, tobacco, and coffee, especially considering the island’s size. Such prosperity and wealth opened the door for the slave trade to enter the colony, and as a result Puerto Rican bloodlines and cultures evolved not only from the Spanish, but also from Africans, and indigenous Taíno and Carib people (“Puerto Rico- History and Heritage”). In addition, over the centuries many failed attempts where made by the French, Dutch, and English to conquer the island which even further changed the bloodlines. Of course, as history has it, at the end of the Spanish American war in 1898, the Treaty of Paris declared the the Spanish would surrender Puerto Rico to the United States, therefore infiltrating American culture and beauty ideals.

Puerto Ricans are another major Hispanic group that has also arrived to the U.S and brought less work for Americans. Puerto Ricans' current association with the United States, like that of the Mexican people, began as the result of the outcome of a war. The island of Borinquen, subsequently called Puerto Rico, was claimed by Spain in 1493. The native inhabitants, the Taino Indians, were significantly reduced in number by conquest, slavery, and genocide. (Schaefer, R. 2006, p.266). After Puerto Rico had been ruled by Spain for four centuries, the island was seized by the United States in 1808 during the Spanish-American War. The value of Puerto Rico for the United States, as it had been for Spain, was mainly its strategic location, which was advantageous for maritime trade. (Schaefer, R. 2006, p.226). The most significant difference between the meaning of race in Puerto Rico and on the mainland is that Puerto Rico, like so many other

In Reproducing Empire, Laura Briggs provides her readers with a very thorough history of the mainland U.S. and Puerto Rican discourses and its authors surrounding Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans, from Puerto Rico's formation in the mainland elite's "mind" as a model U.S. (not) colony in 1898* to its present status as semi-autonomous U.S.

As a child, Espada travelled from Brooklyn, New York to his homeland, Puerto Rico to visit his family for the first time. During his visit, Espada fears that Puerto Rican culture is vanishing and threatened by American values imposed on them due to the presence of American corporate powers. It is known that Puerto Rican culture is a mix of many cultures and is strongly influenced by Taino Indians, America, Africa and Spain ("Culture and Traditions in Puerto Rico"). During the Spanish-American War, Puerto Rico became the territory of the United States when it was conquered on July 25, 1898 ("Puerto Rico: A U.S. Territory").

Puerto Rico has had a long history of dependency. Puerto Rico was first colonized by Spain until the Spanish American war, which resulted in the colonization by the United States in 1898. While Spain was in the process of devising an agreement with Puerto Rico that would grant the island autonomy, the invasion of the United States ended any plans that would grant this reprise (Figueroa, 11/19/98). The U.S. decided to partake in this colonial expansion because Puerto Rico had tremendous potential for investment and commerce as well as being geo-politically strategic. The U.S. had intentions to take Spain and its influence out of the western-hemisphere. In 1917 Puerto Ricans were granted

The people on the island had no clue what a sword was so they would cut themselves when they would touch the blade. Christopher Columbus thought it was going to be easy if needed to fight with them. They had no way of protecting themselves. He and his men ended up killing these poor people little by little. Even when they tried to help them out by directing them to find gold or help them when they got hurt. On his trip when he arrived in Hispaniola the Taino people living on the island welcomed and were gentle with him and his men. When Columbus left the island he left forty of his men and those men raped and fought the Tainos after they helped them out.2 On his second trip Columbus set up a permanent colony and again his men raped, stole gold ornaments and food that provoked war with the Tainos. The Spanish killed tens of thousands out of population and the ones who did survive the Spanish ended up chopping off their hands if they did not provide their allotment.3 At the end the Spanish wiped out the islands either by killing the people or they left to surrounding countries.

However, these marron communities differ strongly from the communities in Brazil. Due to the Spanish conquest, Haiti, Saint Domingue at the time, was depleted of its indigenous populations. Courlander speaks about how Spaniards wipeout the Taino population (3). Many Tainos either died under the conditions of the Spanish rule or left on canoes to the mainland of the Americas. This left Spaniards with no one to work for them and so they resorted to Africa in which its populations were seen as more resilient than the natives of Hispaniola (Courlander 3).

The Arawak Indians were the original natives of the land and they are now called haitians. When Christopher Columbus landed on Mole St. Nicholas in Haiti's north, it began a new phase of life on the Island of Hispaniola. The Arawak culture is very gentle. all of the men had 2, or 3 wives but the Caciques had as many as 30! It was an honor for a woman to be married to a Cacique. They did not have any large animals like horses. but they did have a river for sea. They used dugout canoes which were made from trees that the middle was cut out. The Arawak/Taino themselves were quite peaceful people, but they did have to defend themselves from the Caribs who were cannibals. The Caribs of this area were centered at what is today Puerto Rico,

In 1493 Christopher Columbus found Puerto Rico and claimed it for Spain. While under the Spanish rule Puerto Rico and Cuba were the only two colonies that stayed loyal to Spain by not going against them to gain their independence. The Spanish imported slaves to Puerto Rico in 1517. The slaves were forced to work in the mines and on the field growing ginger and sugar. Ginger and Sugar were raw material that Puerto Rico was best known for. During the Spanish-American war Cuba tried to rebel against Spain to gain their independence. The Cuban revolt failed but the Cubans forced Spain to abolish slavery in 1886. In 1896 President McKinley had the U.S.S. Marine to go to Cuba and get American citizens from there who are in danger. The Marine ship blew up on February

The first inhabitants of the island, the Taíno, were a complexly structured, polytheistic society that upheld peace and nonviolence as tenants of their culture. Since the Taíno tribes almost exclusively occupied all of Cuba’s surrounding islands, aside from small skirmishes, the natives engaged in very little conflict, leading to a culture ingrained with peace. Bartolome de Las Casas, a crewmember and explorer with one of the first Spanish fleets in the Caribbean, illustrated a people who whose culture favored peace and benevolence, describing them as “neither exciteable nor quarrelsome” and remarkably “humble… and peaceable.” De Las Casas’ account further indicated that the Taíno’s original response to the Spanish as a whole was welcoming, as opposed to immediately violent and confrontational. Thus, when the first Spanish fleet arrived in Cuba 1492, the Taíno offered exotic gifts and willingly accepted the glass, beads, and other manufactured items from the Spanish conquistadors, symbolically cementing an initially friendly

Sale west of the Indies, between the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean and hold, for this is where the Isle del Encanto lies. Otherwise known as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, this island is rich with an abundance of flora and fauna. Life truly feeds on life in this exotic isle. The commonwealth has beard homage to some of the world’s greatest composers, novelists, poets and artists. Inspired by the aesthetic wealth of this land, it comes to no surprise that these philanthropists were so successful in enriching the now blossoming culture that is now Puerto Rico. The islands’ custodians are the Puerto Rican natives, a vibrant and robust people, full of tenacity and strong will. This island has gone through a great deal of conflict over time. While the land inspires a serine bliss, there is a great deal of political history that has reconstituted Puerto Ricos’ destiny as an isle, and as Commonwealth.

The Puerto Rican culture is a but complex. The broad range of visual manifestation sand interactions with the

To begin with the demographics of people and society in Puerto Rico the currently has a population of about 3.4 million people. In 2016 of that population 93.57% accounted for people living in urban areas. 15 With the extensive history of colonization that has occured in Puerto Rico’s history an array of different cultures collide on the island. In the 1500s pre colonization Indigenous Taino culture was what dominated the island. Juan Ponce De Leon a spanish explorer conquered the island in 1508. Shortly after in 1520 nearly all the native population was extinct due to the Taino Genocide. As a part of the early colonization process in 1513 African Slaves were introduced to the island. 16 Today all three cultures that first influenced the island

The articles “Rescued From Their Invisibility: The Afro-Puerto Ricans of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century San Mateo de Cangrejos, Puerto Rico”, “Contested Mestizos, Alleged Mulattos: Racial Identity and Caste Hierarchy in Eighteenth Century Patzcuaro, Mexico”, “Slave Morality and Reproduction on Jesuit Haciendas in Colonial Peru”, and “Human Capital and Other Determinants of the Price Life Cycle of a Slave: Peru and La Plata in the Eighteenth Century” all deal with the topic of changes in populations and its effects on various societies. Analysis on this overall topic included, racial identity, experiences of slaves and runaways, and slave statistics. Even though these works help in learning more about the history, experiences and struggles of African populations in Latin America, they do not reveal the entire history. They only have scratched half of the surface, in what is a continuous pursuit by scholars to uncover more information.