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Puerto Rico: The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World
Jose Trias Monge, former Chief Justice of Puerto Rico's Supreme Court and author of a fivevolume constitutional history of the island, investigates on the fundamental question of Puerto Rican politics: has the island-a "commonwealth" with almost four million US citizens-achieved a level of self-government unambiguously stripped of colonial connotations? As the title of the book indicates, his answer is no. In the course of his presentation,Trias Monge provides a short history of relations between the US federal government and Puerto Rico, addresses why Puerto Rico has not achieved greater self-government,and presents his own recommendation for a decolonization policy for the commonwealth.
The author begins by discussing US-PuertoRican relations in their historical context. Immediately before the Spanish-American War (1898), Puerto Ricans were full-fledged Spanish citizens. Their Autonomy Charter, granted a year before, gave the island more capacity for self-government than was granted by other European powers to their Caribbean possessions at the time. The insular parliament first convened on April 25, 1898,the same day the United States declared war on Spain. The Treaty of Paris signed by Spain and the United States in 1899 ended the conflict and placed the sovereignty and the political status of the island's inhabitants under the control of the US Congress.
Trias Monge, one of the chief architects of the current status of the island, argues that attempts to place relations between the US federal government and Puerto Rico...