Puerto Rican History and Demographics

Originally colonized by the Spanish after Columbus landed there on his second voyage in 1493, all of the original inhabitants, the Taino Indians, died of diseases brought over by the Europeans. Slaves from Africa were brought over and replaced the Indians as forced labor. Spain was forced to give up control of the island, along with Cuba, Guam, and the Philippines after they lost the Spanish-American War in 1898 in the Treaty of Paris (1898). In 1917 citizenship was extended to Puerto Ricans and many Puerto Ricans served in both World War I and II; they also had to participate in the draft. After WWII a heavy migration of Puerto Ricans began to enter the country and by 1953 there were nearly 700,000 Puerto Ricans living in the U.S., many of them settled in the Northeast, especially in the New York area. By 1980 the population of Puerto Ricans in the U.S. had reached a high of just over 2 million, but had dispersed and were not, therefore, all completely located in the North East.