Constructing a Colonial People: Puerto Rico and the United States, 1898-1932

by Pedro A. Cabán

Constructing Colonial People provides a new and comprehensive interpretation of how the United States attempted to transform Puerto Rico from a neglected backwater of the Spanish empire into one of its key props in establishing hegemony in the western hemisphere. The book looks at the formative three-and-one-half decades of U.S. colonial rule, when the colony's key institutions, economic structures, and legal doctrines were transformed. Policy papers, speeches, newspaper articles, and memoirs from the period inform the study with particular detail and insight. Cabán further examines the dynamics of U.S. expansionism during the Progressive Era and examines the normative and ideological constructions that were used to rationalize a campaign of territorial acquisition and colonial administration. He also demonstrates how the military and subsequent civilian regimes directed a process of institutional transformation, state building, and capitalist development.

300 pages, Paperback

First published August 12, 1999

Reviews

[Justin Harford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Those looking to understand the nature of the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico, As well as the history of the island's first 30 years under American colonialization will appreciate this book.

It's not easy to find a historian who possesses such a strong understanding of economics and finance. Like most riders, this author is able to analyze and critique his subject through an anti-colonial and social justice oriented lens. Unlike other writers, he vividly documents the economic damage and consequences of colonialization for Puerto Rico. For example, he demonstrates how Puerto Rico's diversified economy around tobacco, sugar, coffee and cattle was almost exclusively re-organized around sugar both through damaging American policies, As well as factors which were out of US control such as the island's loss of access to European markets.

This book leaves me with a few questions as follow up. I would like to know more about the condition of peasants and laborers under Spanish colonial is Asian compared with their condition under the United States sugar monopolies. The author argues that laborers were significantly worse off after 30 years of American colonialization, and I would've liked to have a chance to compare figures such as average incomes, or rates of unemployment. I would also like to see this author put together some research on the Hawaiian colonial experience, and discuss why, when American legislators feared giving Puerto Rico statehood because it would set a precedent for places like Hawaii they gave the ladder statehood 60 years later.