The Useless Islands - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 60

Shortly afterwards, Le Guillou and his merry band of thugs, invaded Vieques and took
control of the island. In the process, they replicated the hellish conditions of Haiti by cre-
ating vast sugar cane plantations and importing slaves from Martinique and Guadaloupe to
work them.
And just like that, Vieques became a sugar “monoculture,” which it remained for the
next hundred years.
Other than the ruins of the sugar plantations, only two or three vestiges of that period
remain, most notably the fort that stands above Isabel. Begun around 1845, the fort went
so far over budget that Queen Isabella (a descendant of Columbus' famed patroness) asked
petulantly if its walls were made of gold.
This handsome fort, the last one ever built under Spanish control, first protected the
island from invasion, then housed its recalcitrants in a moldy jail (aptly called La Discip-
linaria ), and finally became Vieques' chief museum in the 1990s.
Despite its grandeur, the fort is named for the Count of Mirasol, whose title is vaguely
reminiscent of a toilet bowl cleaner.
El Fortín Conde de Mirasol
The U.S. first made its presence felt in Vieques in 1898 by defeating Spain in the aptly
named Spanish-American War, thereby claiming control of all of Puerto Rico for the dura-
tion. Vieques' downtrodden and weary residents hoped that the U.S. would upgrade living
standards. But alas, it was in vain.