Puerto Rico: Why a territory?

Images combined from source.

This is a thumbnail sketch of Puerto Rico’s history with the United States. My perspective on the matter is as someone who cares about the principles of democracy, and knows that Puerto Rico’s status violates those principles.

Before Puerto Rico: Digesting Northern Mexico

Puerto Rico itself enters the picture in 1898, but to understand what happened to Puerto Rico, we have to understand what happened to the northern part of Mexico, a vast tract of land from Texas to California.

US territorial gains in one snapshot. The pink and blue territories were taken from Mexico during the Mexican-American War. (Map from source.)

This northern territory was sparsely inhabited, and Mexico’s ability to hold and govern it was challenged by the Apache, Comanche, Hopi, Navajo, and many others. The United States conquered most of this territory by force. (A small portion of what is today Arizona was purchased peacefully after the war.)

American settlers were lured to these territories by a combination of mineral wealth (including silver, gold, and oil) and the ability to claim large tracts of land. While the West retained a distinctive regional character, it Americanized rapidly through a combination of settlement, migration, and lower-level violent conflicts.