Colonialism, planters, sugarcane, and the agrarian economy of caguas, Puerto Rico, between the 1890s and 1930

Abstract

This article presents new research on the impact and consequences of the incorporation of Puerto Rico into the American economic sphere of influence and how much change truly took place during the first decades of the twentieth century. As reconstructed here, Puerto Rico's social and economic structure did change after the American invasion. However, a closer look at the data reveals that, contrary to the generally accepted conclusions, land tenure did not become concentrated in fewer hands. Puerto Rico did experience profound changes with the rapid growth of US agribusiness and the penetration of American capital. In the process of arriving on the island, these two interests found a land tenure system in the firm control of local farmers (small, medium, and large). The American invasion and subsequent incorporation of the island into the American economic/political system as a nonincorporated territory provided the conditions for the numerical increase of farms and farmers in the island during the first three decades of the twentieth century. © the Agricultural History Society, 2011.