History - Puerto Rico - page 457

It was Puerto Rican nationalists who fired the first shot, proclaiming the abortive Grito
de Lares ( Click here ) in 1868. Following Puerto Rico's lead two weeks later, Cuba's
machete-wielding mambises (19th-century Cuban independence fighters) unleashed their
own independence cry. Both failed, but several key factors led to different outcomes:
Puerto Rico's move to independence was launched from an isolated mountain town and
spearheaded primarily by intellectuals; Cuba's movement had wider grassroots support
and better leadership, sustained with a brutal, though ultimately unsuccessful, 10-year war
against the Spanish.
While the rapid defeat in Puerto Rico was a major political setback for the nationalist
movement, all was not yet lost. Igniting a second Cuban-Spanish Independence War in
1895, José Martí proclaimed that Cuba and Puerto Rico still stood shoulder to shoulder as
'two wings of the same dove' and, had it not been for the timely intervention of the Amer-
icans in 1898 when the Spanish were almost defeated, history could have been very differ-
ent.
Cuba and Puerto Rico's political divergence began in 1900 when the US Congress
passed the Foraker Act (1900), making Puerto Rico the first unincorporated territory of the
US. Cuba, meanwhile, thanks to the so-called Teller Amendment (passed through Congress
before the Spanish-American War had started), gained nominal independence with some
strings attached in 1902.
Resistance to the new arrangement in Puerto Rico was spearheaded by the Partido Unión
de Puerto Rico (Union Party), which for years had been calling for a resolution to their lack
of fundamental democratic rights. The Union Party was led by Luis Muñoz Rivera, one of
the most important political figures in the history of Puerto Rico. But unlike his more rad-
ical Cuban contemporaries, such as José Martí and - later on - Fidel Castro, Muñoz Rivera
was a diplomat who was willing to compromise with the US on key issues. Under pressure
from President Woodrow Wilson he ultimately ceded on his demand for outright independ-
ence in favor of greater autonomy via an amendment to the Foraker Act.
In 1917, just months after Muñoz Rivera's death, President Woodrow Wilson signed the
Jones Act. It granted US citizenship to all Puerto Ricans and established a bicameral le-
gislature whose decisions could be vetoed by the US president. No Puerto Ricans were in-
volved in the debate over citizenship.
GRITO DE LARES
As well as boasting the world's largest radio telescope and its youngest-ever boxing
champion, Puerto Rico also holds the dubious distinction of having created history's