The history of tobacco cultivation in Puerto Rico, 1899--1940

This dissertation is a study of the tobacco-growing regions in the eastern and western highlands of Puerto Rico from 1898 to 1940. The American influx of capital and technology that began in 1899 set off a series of economic, cultural, and political processes that altered the existing patterns of life on the island. The inclusion of Puerto Rico within the tariff structure of the U.S. resulted in expanded opportunities for farmers to participate in the American market. In the highland regions, tobacco cultivation became the most important commercial crop.; The economic history of the tobacco-producing highlands provides a very different vision of early 20th-century Puerto Rican history than the one-dimensional agricultural narrative that has been created based principally on the development of the sugar industry. In contrast to the sugar economy, with its high degree of absentee ownership and concentration of production, tobacco cultivation was a Puerto Rican owner-operated, small-scale commercial enterprise, even in the face of massive influx of private and corporate American capital into the industrial portion of the tobacco sector.; This dissertation is a point for departure for the reinterpretation of several themes in Puerto Rican history from 1898 to 1940. First, the agricultural history of Puerto Rico must not be presented as a simple narrative of colonial abuse based on the development of the sugar sector. The changes in the tobacco regions demonstrate that there were significant variations among the agricultural regions of Puerto Rico in terms of land use, social structure, and income possibilities. The debate over the effects of the U.S. occupation of the island must include these particularities.; Second, the well-documented efforts of Puerto Rican tobacco farmers to participate in the new colonial structures demonstrate that they were neither docile nor intimated. Tobacco growers effectively manipulated the colonial system to effect changes that impacted their daily lives. The discussion of the effects of American colonialism on the people of Puerto Rico must acknowledge that, even though ultimate authority resided in Washington, Puerto Ricans actively challenged and redefined what colonialism meant in terms of their daily lives.