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.
The Moret Law, 1870
July 4, 1870 was a free-womb statute, not an abolition. Children born after the law were free. The mills were not.
Abolition, March 22, 1873
The Cortes abolished slavery in Puerto Rico and required a remaining labor contract. Freedom arrived with a shift.
Ponce, liberal sugar, and the south
The southern city made export money and liberal talk. It was not San Juan, and it was not yet a central.
El Componte, 1887
Governor Romualdo Palacio's Civil Guard "corrected" the autonomists with beatings. The year was called terrible.
Muñoz Rivera and the autonomists
Luis Muñoz Rivera bet on a Spanish charter, not another Lares. He got the charter. Then came the treaty.
The Autonomy Charter of 1897
After more than 400 years of direct colonial rule, Puerto Rico finally won from Spain its own elected government: a charter that worked for less than half a year before everything changed.
Autonomy Charter, November 25, 1897
Spain granted an autonomy charter eight months before the landing. The island was already a self-governing province on paper when it was ceded.
The 1898 American invasion at Guánica and the end of Spanish rule
The closing chapter of four centuries of Spanish rule came down to a hand-drawn map, an unopposed beach landing, and a treaty signed in Paris that changed the island's flag forever.
Rule by a general
For a year and a half, Puerto Rico had no legislature and no elected governor: only American generals in command.
From pesos to dollars
A currency swap and a new property tax quietly reordered who really owned Puerto Rico's land.
Luis Muñoz Rivera
He won autonomy from Spain days before the American invasion made it meaningless, and then spent his life fighting for it again.
Absentee sugar and the Wall Street advantage
American corporate capital, financed by Wall Street, quietly bought the island's most valuable farmland.
Sampson bombards San Juan, May 12, 1898
Rear Admiral William T. Sampson's squadron put industrial shells on O'Daly's stone.
The landing at Guánica, July 25, 1898
Nelson A. Miles landed on the southern coast, far from El Morro, and the Spanish war on the island became a march.
The landing at Guánica
American troops arrived unopposed at a southern beach, and five weeks later 390 years of Spanish rule were over.
The last Spanish governors and the Intendencia
Manuel Macías was still governing from San Juan while the south was already lost. On October 18 the capital changed hands.
Military government, 1898-1900
After the landing, the Treaty of Paris ceded the island. It was not liberation.
Treaty of Paris, December 10, 1898
Article II: Spain cedes Puerto Rico and Guam. The island was not liberated. It was transferred.
A country traded without a vote
The Treaty of Paris handed Puerto Rico to the United States. No Puerto Rican signed it, voted on it, or was consulted.
Coffee versus sugar
Two crops, two altitudes, two clocks. Highland shade versus coastal cane, before the factories took the hands.