Borinquen MadeA history magazine in Spanish
The history of Puerto Rico in one order of time
Puerto Rico is the easternmost island of the Greater Antilles, a Caribbean territory whose history reads as a single arc: the first Taíno peoples, the centuries of colony under Spain, the transfer of the island to the United States, the territory and the Free Associated State. Current events on that arc are dated on News. This magazine arranges that arc by the time of the events, with no sections breaking the reading. Choose the years you want to read and start there.
Freeze 2026-08-22. Not current events in these History essays; News is. Not original historical research.
Caguana, Utuado, a National Historic Landmark
NRIS 92001671; ball courts of the Capa phase, 1200–1500.
The status plebiscites of 1993 and 1998
Puerto Rico voted twice more on its status, and the second time a narrow majority chose an option that was not even a real status.
Status plebiscite, November 14, 1993
Estado Libre Asociado by a narrow margin; statehood close behind.
When Washington switched off the tax break
The ten-year phase-out of a federal exemption, completed in 2006, is one of the least-told root causes of Puerto Rico's debt crisis.
Georges, 1998
A Category Three crossing of Puerto Rico, September 21, with a public-health record that treated the deaths as a countable local list.
Status vote, December 13, 1998: none of the above
None of the above won, near 50.3 percent.
The Navy leaves Vieques
A Navy bombing range that lasted six decades on Vieques ended in 2003, after a civil disobedience movement forced the full withdrawal.
David Sanes, Vieques, April 19, 1999
An accident on the Navy range killed a civilian security guard. The island's live-fire politics changed that afternoon.
Vieques: from bombing range to protest movement
The death of a civilian security guard on a Navy bombing range reignited a protest movement that had first won its fight on neighboring Culebra.
A diaspora bigger than the island
More Puerto Ricans live in the fifty states today than on the island itself: a decades-long shift that accelerated sharply after María.
The Cordillera as a climate wall
Trade winds, a mountain spine, a wet north and east, a dry south. Not a drought-monitor map.
Martínez-Cruzado 2001, and its limits
Maternal mtDNA, not a census of identity.
The Navy leaves Vieques, May 1, 2003
Live-fire bombing ended. The land passed to Interior. Cleanup is a longer verb than departure.
The upset in Athens
Puerto Rico's national basketball team beat a U.S. roster full of NBA stars by 19 points at the 2004 Olympic Games.
Gasolina: reggaetón goes global
A 2004 Daddy Yankee single was the song that took reggaetón out of Puerto Rico's clubs and put it on the world's radio.
COFINA: borrowing against tomorrow's sales tax
A public corporation created in 2006 let Puerto Rico borrow billions against future sales-tax revenue: a tool that would later become central to the debt crisis.
Two weeks with the government shut down
In May 2006, Puerto Rico's central government ran out of cash and shut down for two weeks, closing schools and leaving public employees unpaid.
Section 936 and the 2006 sunset
A federal possessions tax credit, phased out from 1996, expired in 2006. A root of fiscal crisis, not a mood.
Act 7 and the 2009 layoffs
Governor Luis Fortuño answered a worsening budget with the largest public-sector layoff in Puerto Rico's history.
Sixty days of student strike
University of Puerto Rico students shut their largest campus for more than sixty days over budget and tuition cuts.