Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico was known as Boriquen to the indigenous Arawak Indians who had settled the Greater Antilles as traditional hoe-and-garden cultivators, fishermen, and gatherers. When Europeans first settled the island in 1508, the prosperity of the Arawaks prompted the notion that here indeed was a "rich port". Imported diseases soon decimated the Arawak population and from a population of more than 30,000 before the arrival of the Europeans, missionary reports of 1515 recorded only 4,000. Deprived of laborers for their gold mines and the lower yields made the European settlers abandon their mines and plantations and either return to Spain or move on to richer colonies. A few colonists, administrators, and merchants remained in San Juan and Ponce, while most of the nearby interior was turned over to range for cattle and subsistence farming. Puerto Rico remained a Spanish colony for the next three centuries, but it never matched the prosperity of its neighbors.

Slavery brought the African presence to Puerto Rico in the 18th and 19th centuries, and there was a rebirth of European influences. Immigration movements first brought Viscayans, then Catalonians, and finally Asturians, Gallegos, and Majorcans from Spain. A network of new colonial towns developed around the coastal plains. Thriving on sugar and coffee production, Puerto Rico prospered. Spanish loyalists from South America and the Caribbean as well as French planters from Haiti who were fleeing the revolutionary movements and bloodshed found refuge in Puerto Rico. It was in the 19th century that the culture of Puerto Rico and its transformation into a nation of people with traditions and history was created. Before this time the island was so scarcely populated and the transportation system was so poor (to travel the 30 miles from the north to the south side of the island people went in ships as the mountains made land travel almost impossible) that the social contacts necessary for cultural and political growth were few. In the 19th century Puerto Rico changed in all its aspects; from being underpopulated but almost self-sufficient, into an overpopulated and poor island but with a national character in its culture, politics and traditions.

When Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American War in1898, the United States had very little idea of the problems that affected the island. The officials that came to the island in 1900 were impressed by the overpopulation and by the level of poverty and sickness that affected the inhabitants. Added to that, the hurricane of 1899 had devastated the economy and the level of suffering was tremendous. The population of nearly 1 million was predominantly rural (83 percent in 1899). The farmers, jibaros, had always relied on labor-intensive cultivation and harvesting techniques. While this supported fairly high rural population densities, the changing circumstances led to pressure on the system when the island's population increased. There has been a population explosion in the 20th century which undermined the island's agricultural base and increased the need for structural and economic changes. The population rose to 1.3 million by 1920, to 2.2 million by 1950, and to 3.3 million in 1985, a growth of more than 300 percent since 1899.

To escape from poverty and overpopulation many Puerto Ricans undertook emigration as an escape, starting with a large group that emigrated to Hawaii at the start of the 20th century. During the 1940s, the island experienced the start of a rural exodus, and the capital of San Juan and other large cities experienced very rapid growth. San Juan now has a population exceeding 400,000, and Bayam�n, the second largest city, has well over 100,000 people. Emigration to the United States began in earnest after 1950 and rapidly swelled to a mass exodus with the Puerto Rican government's incentive and patronage. In 1953, for example, 75,000 emigrants left the island. New York City now has a Puerto Rican community in excess of three quarters of a million, and other Puerto Rican concentrations are found in several United States cities. Since 1965 the pattern has levelled out with the numbers of Puerto Ricans returning home equalling or exceeding those leaving.

The Puerto Ricans are an adaptable people with groups living in places like Alaska, Australia, the Far East and Hawaii. They are a mixture of the three main races that have inhabited the island, the Taino or Arawak, the black African ,the caucasian Spaniard and more recently the American anglo-saxon. The music reflects this cultural mixture from the "decimas" of the "jibaro", the modern "salsa" with the African influence, to the American rock. There is hardly any area where you won't find Puerto Ricans standing out among the crowd, whether it be in sports, the arts, entertainment, science or even opera
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Puerto Rico #1
History Of Puerto Rico
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