Who Am I
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WHO AM I
The effect of colonialism on a colonized people can often result in a situation better known to us today as an “identity crisis.” Studying the history of Puerto Rico under Spanish rule helps us to identify the problems found within modern notions of Puerto Rican identity. Such notions of national identity stem from the belief that Puerto Rico is a “self-defined community of people who share a sense of solidarity based on a belief in a common heritage and who claim political rights that may include self-determination” (Morris 12).
However, such modern notions of solidarity contradict the fact that by 1898 Puerto Rican society was characterized by great racial and class differences. As claimed by Josй Luis Gonzбlez in his Puerto Rico: The Four Storied Country, these differences made “Puerto Rico [] a country so divided racially, socially, economically and culturally that it should be described as two countries rather than one” (Gonzalez14). The rise and fall of the international sugar market, and the subsequent ascendancy of the coffee market in the Puerto Rican economy, helped to create the “foreign elements” within Puerto Rico that make modern views of Puerto Rican identity extremely problematic.
The study and use of history has played an important role in helping to construct the concept of Puerto Rican national heritage. Francisco Scarano, in his Sugar and Slavery in Puerto Rico, 1815-1949: An Overview, asserts that notions of Puerto Rican national heritage have been portrayed as being an “anomalous case” within the Americas. He writes that many historians have claimed that Puerto Rico had an “economy and society which developed an advanced sugar industry during times of fairly open Atlantic slave trade, yet did not rely to any significant degree on the labor of African slaves” (Scarano 25). This suggests that the racial “heritage” of Puerto Ricans is not predominately black, and therefore, other races must have attributed to this hybridism, as well. Moreover, it also suggests that because forced slavery was not widely practiced on the island, a notion of solidarity could have existed amongst the Puerto Rican people during the 19th Century. However, could this example also serve as a precedent for modern uses of history to reinforce perceptions of national identity?
Unfortunately, the details surrounding the islands social and economic structure at that particular time prevent its history from serving as a model for national unity. In the 1840s, sugar became very important in the international market. New technologies resulted from both the European and American Industrial Revolutions, and as a result, sugarcane producers were able to process their crops more efficiently. This dramatic increase in the consumption of sugarcane created a greater demand for labor by the Spanish Empire, transforming Puerto Rico from a dependent colony on the outskirts of an empire, to a profit-making enterprise. However, did an alternative free labor force exist in 19th Century Puerto Rico to substantiate the claims that African slave labor was not important to its sugar economy?
Evidence suggests that the native population could not fulfill the economic goals of the Spanish Empire. Scarano claims that “the haciendas needed a mass of inexpensive disciplined workers, and for nearly three decades after 1815, the African slave trade satisfied that demand. Except on very small farms using a balanced combination of slaves and jornaleros, slaves constituted the majority of sugar workers in the principal producing districts until well beyond the middle of the century” (Scarano 26). These ideas demonstrate that modern constructions of Puerto Rican heritage are incomplete without a discussion of the strong African heritage in Puerto Rican culture.
Internal domestic conditions concerning Puerto Rican labor discipline problems also contributed to the large importations of African slaves. The large “hinterland” area of central Puerto Rico, for centuries, had created a respite for free population in which they could live their day to day lives fairly autonomous from Spanish rule (Scarano 4). The Vagrancy Laws of 1838 and 1849, and the policies against “amancibamiento,” suggest that Spaniards recognized the impending end of the African Slave trade, and thus tried to turn the free population into a reliable labor force. This evidence indicates that “there is every reason to believe that the planters would have employed free workers instead of slaves if the cost and work discipline of the former matched that of the enslaved blacks” (Scarano 32). However, since the free population was not widely used, the culture of the African slaves is integral to understanding the historical heritage of modern Puerto Rico.
If the above statements are true, what does this say about the possibility of there having ever existed a “self-defined community of people who share a sense of solidarity” in Puerto Rico under Spanish rule (Morris 12)? Can one with pride claim both the heritage of a 19th Century creole plantation owner and that of a slave? Clearly, these two people would not view themselves as having a similar “Puerto Rican identity” (if they would define themselves as Puerto Ricans at all). The above analysis of the effects of the sugar economy in Puerto Rico validates Gonzalez claims that in the 19th Century there were “two countries rather than one,” thus making it difficult to claim one single Puerto Rican heritage today (Gonzalez 14).
Similarly, one must question the complex nature of viewing those “who claim political rights that may [or may not] include self-determination,” as an essential part of a modern definition for Puerto Rican identity (Morris 12). Upon examining Puerto Rico throughout the second half of the 19th Century we see how Gonzalez vision of two Puerto Rican societies consist really of three or more segregated societies, each with their own separate interests. The rigid class hierarchies characterizing Puerto Rico during this time period would have meant that the individuals most able to claim political rights would not have represented most Puerto Ricans. This reality may also be the case in Puerto Rico today. For example, the Spanish Empire was governed by a hierarchical structure that favored peninsulares such as the merchants born in Spain over the creoles born on the island. Often, the peninsulare merchants were appointed to distinguished political positions, while the creoles were forced to serve in positions of substantially lesser power. Subsequently, the creole plantations owners found themselves in “secondary economic positions occupied by the agrarian sector