The History of Puerto Rico | Page 2

should learn to do for themselves. The
island needed a radically new governmental activity--an activity that
would develop each citizen into a self-respecting and self-directing
force in the island's uplift. This has been supplied by the institution of
civil government. The outlook of the people is now infinitely better
than ever before. The progress now being made is permanent. It is an
advance made by the people for themselves. Civil government is the
fundamental need of the island.
Under civil government the entire reorganization of the life of the
people is being rapidly effected. The agricultural status of the island
was never so hopeful. The commercial activity is greatly increased. The
educational awakening is universal and healthy. Notwithstanding the
disastrous cyclone of 1898, and the confusion incident to a radical
governmental reorganization, the wealth per capita has increased, the
home life is improved, and the illiteracy of the people is being rapidly
lessened.
President McKinley declared to the writer that it was his desire "to put
the conscience of the American people into the islands of the sea." This
has been done. The result is apparent. Under wise and conservative
guidance by the American executive officers, the people of Puerto Rico
have turned to this Republic with a patriotism, a zeal, an enthusiasm
that is, perhaps, without a parallel.
In 1898, under President McKinley as commander-in-chief, the army of
the United States forcibly invaded this island. This occupation, by the

treaty of Paris, became permanent. Congress promptly provided civil
government for the island, and in 1901 this conquered people, almost
one million in number, shared in the keen grief that attended
universally the untimely death of their conqueror. The island on the
occasion of the martyr's death was plunged in profound sorrow, and at
a hundred memorial services President McKinley was mourned by
thousands, and he was tenderly characterized as "the founder of human
liberty in Puerto Rico."
The judgment of the American people relative to this island is based
upon meager data. The legal processes attending its entrance into the
Union have been the occasion of much comment. This comment has
invariably lent itself to a discussion of the effect of judicial decision
upon our home institutions. It has been largely a speculative concern.
In some cases it has become a political concern in the narrowest
partizan sense. The effect of all this upon the people of Puerto Rico has
not been considered. Their rights and their needs have not come to us.
We have not taken President McKinley's broad, humane, and exalted
view of our obligation to these people. They have implicitly entrusted
their life, liberty, and property to our guardianship. The great Republic
has a debt of honor to the island which indifference and ignorance of its
needs can never pay. It is hoped that this record of their struggles
during four centuries will be a welcome source of insight and guidance
to the people of the United States in their efforts to see their duty and
do it.
M. G. BRUMBAUGH. PHILADELPHIA, January 1, 1903.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Some years ago, Mr. Manuel Elzaburu, President of the San Juan
Provincial Atheneum, in a public speech, gave it as his opinion that the
modern historian of Puerto Rico had yet to appear. This was said, not in
disparagement of the island's only existing history, but rather as a
confirmation of the general opinion that the book which does duty as
such is incorrect and incomplete.

This book is Friar Iñigo Abbad's Historia de la Isla San Juan Bautista,
which was written in 1782 by disposition of the Count of Floridablanca,
the Minister of Colonies of Charles III, and published in Madrid in
1788. In 1830 it was reproduced in San Juan without any change in the
text, and in 1866 Mr. José Julian Acosta published a new edition with
copious notes, comments, and additions, which added much data
relative to the Benedictine monks, corrected numerous errors, and
supplemented the chapters, some of which, in the original, are
exceedingly short, the whole history terminating abruptly with the
nineteenth chapter, that is, with the beginning of the eighteenth century.
The remaining 21 chapters are merely descriptive of the country and
people.
Besides this work there are others by Puerto Rican authors, each one
elucidating one or more phases of the island's history. With these
separate and diverse materials, supplemented by others of my own, I
have constructed the present history.
The transcendental change in the island's social and political conditions,
inaugurated four years ago, made the writing of an English history of
Puerto Rico necessary. The American officials who are called upon to
guide the destinies and watch over the moral, material, and intellectual
progress of the inhabitants of this new accession to the great Republic
will be able to do