Since the 15th century, Puerto Rico has engaged in resistance against the brutality and the injustice of colonisation and exploitation that began when Christopher Columbus made his second trip to the ‘New World’. The Spanish looted and plundered Puerto Rico’s gold mines and developed the island to be reliant on first sugar and then coffee production. The indigenous Taino population was taken into slavery, fuelling resistance. To their number was added thousands of slaves from Africa, brought in to work the plantations. ‘Forced to mutually toil side by side in mines, farms, construction projects, and private homes, Tainos and Black people formed tightknit alliances throughout the first half of the sixteenth century’ (A. Ozuna). Slave revolts swept through the Caribbean. By the 1600s there had been four slave rebellions in Puerto Rico. On 23 September 1868, 1,000 revolutionaries led an uprising in the Lares province, demanding Puerto Rico be independent, holding banners which read, ‘Libertad ó Muerte; Vive Puerto Rico Libre 1868’ (Liberty or Death; Free Puerto Rico Lives 1868).
The continued pressure resulted in concessions being made to the people, however this did not last long as the United States invaded, claiming to be liberators from the Spanish. Truth is, Puerto Rico was first used by the US as a safety valve to ship slaves in case the ‘black problem’ became too intense regarding the slave revolts.
In 1899 the US declared the currency of Puerto Rico was now only worth 60 US cents, rather than one US dollar, devastating the economy of the island. Puerto Ricans lost 40% of their savings overnight. This was compounded by a devastating hurricane the same year that destroyed the island’s only crop – coffee. The people were left with nothing. The US sent financial help in the insulting amount of eight cents per person; and they claimed to be liberators. Early on the United States saw that devalued property and a people stripped of financial resources would be beneficial for them to create a paradise for rich parasites.
The devastation of the coffee crop forced the island to revert to a one-crop sugar cash cow. Charles Herbert Allen, the first civilian governor of Puerto Rico, became ‘king of sugar’, redirecting railroad subsidies to US-owned sugar plantations. Under Allen’s tenure, almost all the Puerto Rican Executive Council were US expatriates. US imperialism had its grip on the island.
While being a US colony, Puerto Ricans have been systematically abandoned and abused by the US. Between 1930 and 1970, approximately one-third of the female population of Puerto Rico was sterilised in a programme designed by the US Eugenics Board. Through our understanding of imperialism and capitalism, we are able to see that the ways that Puerto Rican neighbourhoods in the US are systematically neglected and brutalised are part of the same system of oppression under which Puerto Rico has been colonised. The struggle against the pigs that shoot and kill us within Amerikkka and against the forced sterilisation of Puerto Rican women is the same struggle against the genocidal US state. The same forces that kill us within the United States are the same forces that kill Puerto Ricans on the mainland.
In 2017, the category 5 Hurricane Maria devastated the island. The official death toll for the storm was 64 people. The reality is that over 4,500 people were killed, with some estimates reaching over 5,000 people. A large number of those people died from the aftermath: health services were so depleted that people were unable to get medicine for treatable diseases and medical equipment couldn’t be plugged in because the electricity grid was down for months. The Amerikkkan president at the time, Donald Trump, lied about the state of devastation and mocked the people by throwing rolls of paper towels into a crowd in dire need of resources.
The then Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello used the catastrophe of Hurricane Maria to privatise the power grids throughout the island, selling them off to a US and Canadian owned corporation. As recently as 2021, over one million people in Puerto Rico were left without power. La Plata water dam was forced to go offline, leaving over 250,000 people without water services.
After Hurricane Maria and Covid-19, investors are flocking to the island looking to exploit the local population for cheap labour and tax breaks. Investors are given two years in which time they must buy property in order to be able to take advantage of tax breaks. The knock-on housing market boom is causing local residents to be displaced from their homes as they can no longer afford to live where they have been located their entire lives. Still, resistance remains strong. Recently hundreds protested against Yankees who moved onto the island and tried to privatise beaches that had long been public and people dominated.
We understand that it is our duty to be free by any means necessary. Our fight is the continuation of the fight that has been started long before us and it is our duty to win. The Young Lords were a revolutionary organisation and movement that started in the 1960s calling for the independence of Puerto Rico and for self-determination of all oppressed people. Working with Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords were part of the Rainbow coalition that was developed to transcend racial and class based lines to organise in the interest of a socialist society. We understand that the key to our freedom is self-determination and to be free from capitalism/imperialism once and for all and we aim to bring that message to the people. The New Era Young Lords (NEYL) are the official legacy of the Young Lords and aim to call out and fight to get this monster off of the backs of the people. We fight and demand an egalitarian society that is run for the people by the people. As Fred Hampton said: ‘We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity. We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism’ and ‘let me just say, peace to you: if you’re willing to fight for it.’
LIBERTAD Ó MUERTE; VIVE PUERTO RICO LIBRE; AÑO 2022
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE
FREE THEM ALL
ALLPA’LANTE
New Era Young Lords
Young Lords Chicago Chapter
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 289 August/September 2022
