Notes:
Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: "Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico", IPA estado libɾe asosjado de pweɾto riko), is a self governing unincorporated territory of the United States with Commonwealth ststatus located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of the Virgin Islands; approximately 1,280 miles (2,000 km) off the coast of Florida (the nearest of the mainland United States). The archipelago of Puerto Rico includes the main island of Puerto Rico, the smallest of the Greater Antilles, and a number of smaller islands and keys, the largest of which are Mona, Vieques, and Culebra. Puerto Ricans sometimes refer to their island as Borikén, or the Spanish variant Borinquen, a name for the island used by indigenous Taíno people. The current term boricua derives from the Taíno name for the island, and is commonly used to identify oneself as Puerto Rican.
Even though all people born in Puerto Rico are statutory U.S. citizens, the nature of Puerto Rico's political relationship with the United States is the subject of ongoing debate on the island, in the United States Congress, and in the United Nations. Those who support maintaining the status quo (i.e., Commonwealth status) insist that upon attaining this status, Puerto Rico entered into a voluntary association with the U.S. "in the nature of a compact", but according to a President's T Task Force report, Puerto Rico is an unincorporated organized territory of the United States, subject to the plenary powers of the U.S. Congress and with the "right to establish a constitution for the internal administration of government and on matters of purely local concern".
Pre-Columbian era
The history of the island of Puerto Rico (Spanish for rich port) before the arrival of Christopher Columbus is not well understood. What is known today comes from findings and from early Spanish accounts. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Iñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, 293 years after the first Spaniards arrived on the island.
The first indigenous settlers of Puerto Rico were the Ortoiroid, an Archaic age culture. An archaeological dig in the island of Vieques in 1990 found the remains of what is believed to be an Arcaico (Archaic) man (named Puerto Ferro man) which was dated to around 2000 BC. Between AD 120 and 400, the Igneri, a tribe from the Orinoco region, arrived on the island. Between the 7th and 11th century the Taíno culture developed on the island and, by approximately AD 1000, the Taíno culture had become dominant, a trend that lasted until the Spanish arrived in 1493.
Spanish colony
When Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico during his second voyage on November 19, 1493, the island was inhabited by a group of Arawak Indians known as Taínos. The Taínos called the island "Borikén" or "Borinquen". Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist. Later the island took the name of Puerto Rico (English: Rich Port) while the capital was named San Juan. In 1508, Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León became the island's first governor to take office.
The island was soon colonized by the Spanish. Taínos were forced to work for the Spanish crown but were decimated by diseases brought by the Spaniards and the harsh conditions in which they were forced to work. African slaves were introduced as labor to replace the decreasing populations of Taíno. Puerto Rico soon became an important stronghold and port for the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean, gaining the title of "La Llave de las Americas" (The Key of the Americas). Colonial emphasis during the late 17th - 18th centuries, however, focused on the more prosperous mainland territories, leaving the island impoverished of settlers. A prominent resident of this early period was Bernardo de Balbuena, Bishop of Puerto Rico, who wrote Baroque poetry extolling the beauty of the New World, especially Mexico. Many of his manuscripts were burned by Dutch pirates when they sacked the island in 1625.
Because of concerns of threats from European enemies, over the centuries various forts and walls, such as La Fortaleza, El Castillo San Felipe del Morro and El Castillo de San Cristóbal, were built to protect the port of San Juan. The French, Dutch and English made several attempts to capture Puerto Rico but failed to wrest long-term occupancy of the island.
In 1809, while Napoleon occupied the majority of the Iberian peninsula, a populist assembly based in Cádiz recognized Puerto Rico as an overseas province of Spain with the right to send representatives to the Spanish Court. The representative Ramon Power y Giralt died soon after arriving in Spain. These constitutional reforms were reversed when autocratic monarchy was restored. Nineteenth century reforms augmented the population and economy, and expanded the local character of the island. After the rapid gains of independence by the South and Central American states in the first part of the century, Puerto Rico and Cuba became the sole New World remnants of the large Spanish empire.
Toward the end of the 19th century, poverty and political estrangement with Spain led to a small but significant uprising in 1868 known as "Grito de Lares". The uprising was easily and quickly crushed. Leaders of this independence movement included Ramón Emeterio Betances, considered the "father" of the Puerto Rican nation, and other political figures such as Segundo Ruiz Belvis. Later, another political stronghold was the autonomist movement originated by Román Baldorioty de Castro and, toward the end of the century, by Luis Muñoz Rivera. In 1897, Muñoz Rivera and others persuaded the liberal Spanish government to agree to a Charters of Autonomy for Cuba and Puerto Rico. The following year, Puerto Rico's first, but short-lived, autonomous government was organized. The charter maintained a governor appointed by Spain, who held the power to annul any legislative decision he disagreed with, and a partially elected parliamentary structure.
Puerto Rico under United States rule
On July 25, 1898 at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, Puerto Rico was invaded by the United States with a landing at Guánica. Following the outcome of the war, Spain was forced to cede Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, the Philippines, and G Guam to the United States under the Treaty of Paris (1898). Puerto Rico began the twentieth century under the military rule of the United States with officials, including the governor, appointed by the President of the United States. The Foraker Act of 1900 had given Puerto Rico a certain amount of popular government including a popularly-elected House of Representatives. By 1917, the Jones-Shafroth Act granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans - a status they still hold today - and provided for a popularly-elected Senate to complete a bicameral elected Legislative Assembly. Until the first gubernatorial election in 1948, the Presidency of the Senate and the Resident Commissioner seat in Congress were held by Puerto Rico's ts top politicians. Many Puerto Ricans served in the U.S. Armed Forces beginning in World War I. Natural disasters and the Great Depression impoverished the island. Some political leaders demanded change; some, like Pedro Albizu Campos, would leaad a nationalist (The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party) movement in favor of independence. He served many years in prison for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government in Puerto Rico. Luis Muñoz Marín initially favored independence, bubut saw a severe decline of the Puerto Rican economy, as well as growing violence and uprisings and opted to support the "commonwealth" option instead. The "commonwealth" was supported before Luis Muñoz Marín by other political leaders. Change in the nature of the internal governance of the island came about during the later years of the Roosevelt–Truman administrations, as a form of compromise spearheaded by Muñoz Marín and others, and which culminated with the appointment by Presidenent Harry Truman in 1946 of the first Puerto Rican-born governor, Jesus T. Piñero. In 1947, the United States granted the right to democratically elect the governor of Puerto Rico. Luis Muñoz Marín became the first elected governor of Puerto Rico in the 1948 general elections, serving as such for 16 years, until 1964.
Starting at this time, there was heavy migration from Puerto Rico to the Continental United States, particularly New York City, in search of better economic conditions. Puerto Rican migration to New York displayed an average yearly migration that is summarized as follows: 1930-1940, 1,800; 1946-1950, 31,000; 1951-1960, 45,000, 1953 (peak year), 75,000. As of 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are more people of Puerto Rican birth or ancestry living in the United States than in Puerto Rico itself.
On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate President Harry S Truman. Subsequently, the Truman Administration allowed for a democratic referendum in Puerto Rico to determine whether Puerto Ricans desired to draft their own local constitution. Puerto Rico adopted its own local constitution in July 25, 1952 which adopted the name of "Estado Libre Asociado" (Free Associated State), translated into English as Commonwealth, for the body politic and which continues to denote Puerto Rico's current relationship with the United States. During the 1950s Puerto Rico experienced a rapid industrialization, due in large part to Operación Manos a la Obra ("Operation Bootstrap") (an offshoot of FDR's New Deal) which aimed to industrialize Puerto Rico's economy from agriculture-based into manufacturing-based.
Present-day Puerto Rico has become a major tourist destination and a leading pharmaceutical and manufacturing center. Still, Puerto Rico continues to struggle to define its political status. Three locally-authorized plebiscites have been held in recent decades to decide whether Puerto Rico should pursue independence, enhanced commonwealth status, or statehood. Narrow victories by commonwealth supporters over statehood advocates in the first two plebiscites and an unacceptable definition of Commonwealth by the pro statehood leadership on the ballots in the third has allowed the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States government to remain unchanged. In the latest status referendum of 1998, the "none of the abovee" option won over Statehood, a rejection by Commonwealthers of the definition of their status on the ballots, with 50.2% of the votes. Support for the pro-statehood party (Partido Nuevo Progresista or PNP) and the pro-commonwealth party (Partido Popular Democrático or PPD) remains about equal. The only registered independence party on the island, the Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño or PIP, usually receives 3-5% of the electoral votes, though there are several smaller independence groups like the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rican Nationalist Party), el Movimiento Independentista Nacional Hostosiano (National Hostosian Independence Movement), and the Macheteros - Ejercito Popular Boricua (or Boricua Popular Army).
On 25 October 2006, the Puerto Rico State Department conferred to Juan Mari Brás Puerto Rico Citizenship. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court and the Puerto Rican Secretary of Justice determined that the Puerto Rican citizenship in fact exists and waas recognized in the Constitution of Puerto Rico, as in the Insular Cases (Casos Insulares in Spanish) of 1901 through 1922 of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Puerto Rico State Department has developed, since the summer of 2007, the protocol to grant the Puerto Rican citizenship to Puerto Ricans
Geography
Puerto Rico consists of a main island of Puerto Rico and various smaller islands, including Vieques, Culebra, Mona, Desecheo, and Caja de Muertos. Of the latter five, only Culebra and Vieques are inhabited year-round. Mona is uninhabited through large parts of the year except for employees of the Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources. There are also many other even smaller islands including Monito and "La Isleta de San Juan" known as Old San Juan.
The mainland measures some 100 nautical miles (190 km) by 35 nautical miles (65 km). It is mostly mountainous with large coastal areas in the north and south regions of the island. The main mountainous range is called "La Cordillera Central" (Thhe Central Range). The highest elevation point of Puerto Rico, Cerro de Punta (4,390 feet; 1,338 m), is located in this range. Another important peak is El Yunque, located in the Sierra de Luquillo at the El Yunque National Forest, with a maximum elevation of 3,494 feet (1,065 m). The capital, San Juan, is located on the main island's north coast.
Located in the tropics, Puerto Rico enjoys an average temperature of 82.4 °F (28 °C) throughout the year. The seasons do not change very drastically. The temperature in the south is usually a few degrees higher than the north and temperatures in the central interior mountains are always cooler than the rest of the island. Hurricane season spans between June and November.
See also: Climate of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico has 17 lakes, all of which are man-made reservoirs, and more than 50 rivers, most born in the Cordillera Central. The rivers in the northern region of the island are typically larger and with higher water flow rates than those of the south region, given that the south receives less rain than the central and north regions.
As of 1998, 239 plants, sixteen birds and 39 amphibians/reptiles have been discovered that are endemic to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. The majority of these (234, 12 and 33 respectively) are found on the main island. The most recognizable endemic species and a symbol of Puerto Rican pride is the Coquí, a small frog easily recognized by the sound from which it gets its name. The El Yunque National Forest, previously known as the Caribbean National Forest, a tropical rainforest is home to the majority (13 of 16) of species of coquí. It is also home to more than 240 plants, 26 of which are endemic and 50 bird species, including one of the top 10 endangered birds in the world, the Puerto Rican Amazon.
Geology
Puerto Rico is composed of Cretaceous to Eocene volcanic and plutonic rocks, which are overlain by younger Oligocene to recent carbonates and other sedimentary rocks. Most of the caverns and karst topography on the island occurs in the northerern Oligocene to recent carbonates. The oldest rocks are approximately 190 million years old (Jurassic) and are located at Sierra Bermeja in the southwest part of the island. These rocks may represent part of the oceanic crust and are believed to come from the Pacific Ocean realm.
Puerto Rico lies at the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates and is currently being deformed by the tectonic stresses caused by the interaction of these plates. These stresses may cause earthquakes and tsunamis. These seismic events, along with landslides, represent some of the most dangerous geologic hazards in the island and in the northeastern Caribbean. The most recent major earthquake occurred on October 11, 1918 and had an estimated magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale. It originated off the coast of Aguadilla and was accompanied by a tsunami.
The Puerto Rico Trench, the largest and deepest trench in the Atlantic, is located about 75 miles (120 km) north of Puerto Rico in the Atlantic Ocean at the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates. The trench is 1,090 miles (1,754 km) long and about 60 miles (97 km) wide. At its deepest point, named the Milwaukee Deep, it is 27,493 feet (8,380 m) deep, or about 5.2 miles (8.38 km).
Puerto Rico experiences warm temperatures trought the year with an average annual temperature of 78° - 83 °F (26° - 28 °C).
Demographics
During the 1800s, hundreds of Corsican, French, Lebanese, Chinese, and Portuguese families, along with large numbers of immigrants from Spain (mainly from Catalonia, Asturias, Galicia, the Balearic Islands, Andalusia, and the Canary Islands) and numerous Spanish loyalists from Spain's former colonies in South America, arrived in Puerto Rico. Other settlers have included Irish, Scots, Germans, Italians, and thousands others who were granted land from Spain during the Real Cedula de GraGracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815), which allowed European Catholics to settle in the island with a certain amount of free land. This mass immigration during the 19th century helped the population grow from 155,000 in 1800 to almosst a million at the close of the century. A census conducted by royal decree on September 30, 1858, gives the following totals of the Puerto Rican population at this time, with 300,430 identified as Whites ; 341,015 as Free colored; and 41,736 aas Slaves. More recently, Puerto Rico has become the permanent home of over 100,000 legal residents who immigrated from not only Spain, but from Latin America as well. Argentines, Cubans, Dominicans, Colombians and Venezuelans can also be counted as settlers.
Emigration has been a major part of Puerto Rico's recent history as well. Starting in the Post-WWII period, due to poverty, cheap airfare, and promotion by the island government, waves of Puerto Ricans moved to the continental United States, particularly to New York City, New York Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Camden, New Jersey; Chicago; Springfield and Boston, Massachusetts; Orlando, Miami and Tampa, Florida; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Hartford, Connecticut; Washington, D.C., aand Los Angeles, California. This continued even as Puerto Rico's economy improved and its birth rate declined. Emigration continues at the present time, and this, combined with Puerto Rico's greatly lowered birth rate, suggests that the island's population will age rapidly and start to decline sometime within the next couple of decades.
In the 2000 U.S. Census Puerto Ricans were asked to indicate in which racial categories they consider themselves to belong.95.8% answered. The breakdown is as follows: 80% described themselves as "white"; 8% described themselves as "black"; 12% described themselves as "mulatto" and only 0.4% described themselves as "American Indian or Alaska Native" (the US Census does not consider Hispanic to be a race, and asks if a person considers himself Hispanic in a separate question).
A recent study of Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 800 individuals found 61.1% as having Amerindian maternal mtDNA, 26.4% as having African maternal mtDNA, and 12.5% as having Caucasian maternal mtDNA. Conversely, patrilineal input, as indicated by the Y chromosome, showed that 70% of all Puerto Rican males have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male European ancestor, 20% have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male African ancestor, and fewer than 10% have inherited Y chromosome DNA from a male Amerindian ancestor. In summary, the results suggest that the three largest components of the Puerto Rican genetic pool are Amerindian, African, and European.
Languages
The official languages of the island are Spanish and English. Spanish is the primary language of Puerto Ricans, though English is taught as a foreign language in public schools from elementary levels to high school. English is, with limitations, spoken by about only 1/4 of the population.
In 1991, Governor Rafael Hernández Colón signed a law declaring Spanish as the sole official language of the island's government. While some applauded the governor's decision (mainly members of the political parties supporting commonwealth-statutus and independence), others opposed it, including statehood supporters. As a result of his actions, the People of Puerto Rico won the Literature's Prince of Asturias Award in 1991, which is awarded annually to those who defend and contribute to the growth of the Spanish language. Upon his election as governor in 1993, pro-statehood former Governor Pedro Rosselló overturned the law enacted by his predecessor and once again established both English and Spanish as official languages. This move by the pro-statehood governor was seen by many as another attempt to move the island closer to statehood, however, despite many attempts and plebiscites, it never came about during his two consecutive terms.
County/Shire : Latitude: 18.198625, Longitude: -66.583635Matches 1 to 1 of 1
Last Name, Given Name(s)  |
Death  |
Person ID | Tree | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Kramer, Elisabeth Jansen | Saturday 24 January 1778 | Puerto Rico | I164569 | Veenkoloniale voorouders |
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