Puerto Rico Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Colonization under the Habsburgs==== [[File:Hendricksz 1625 attack on San Juan, Puerto Rico.jpg|thumb|[[Battle of San Juan (1625)|1625 attack on San Juan]] by [[Boudewijn Hendricksz]]]] In 1520, [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|King Charles I of Spain]] issued a royal decree collectively emancipating the remaining Taíno population. By that time, the Taíno people were few in number and their culture extirpated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/puerto-rico/index.html |title=Puerto Rico – Colonial Genocides – Genocide Studies Program |publisher=Yale University |access-date=30 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110908234849/http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/puerto-rico/index.html |archive-date=8 September 2011}}</ref> [[slavery in the Spanish Empire|Enslaved Africans had already begun to be imported]] to compensate for the native labor loss, but their numbers were proportionate to the diminished commercial interest Spain soon began to demonstrate for the island colony. Other nearby islands, like [[Cuba]], [[Hispaniola]], and [[Guadeloupe|Guadalupe]], attracted more of the slave trade than Puerto Rico, probably because of greater agricultural interests in those islands, on which colonists had developed large sugar plantations and had the capital to invest in the [[Atlantic slave trade]].<ref name="Stark">{{cite journal |title=A New Look at the African Slave Trade in Puerto Rico Through the Use of Parish Registers: 1660–1815 |last=Stark |first=David M. |journal=Slavery & Abolition |year=2009 |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=491–520 |doi=10.1080/01440390903245083|s2cid=144704852 }}</ref> The colonial administration relied heavily on the industry of enslaved Africans and creole blacks for public works and defenses, primarily in coastal ports and cities, where the tiny colonial population had hunkered down. With no significant industries or large-scale agricultural production as yet, enslaved and free communities lodged around the few littoral settlements, particularly around San Juan, also forming lasting [[Afro–Puerto Ricans|Afro]]-[[Criollo people|Criollo]] communities. Meanwhile, in the island's interior, there developed a mixed and independent peasantry that relied on a subsistence economy. This mostly unsupervised population supplied villages and settlements with foodstuffs and, in relative isolation, set the pattern for what later would be known as the [[Jíbaro (Puerto Rico)|Puerto Rican Jíbaro culture]]. By the end of the 16th century, the Spanish Empire was diminishing and, in the face of increasing raids from European competitors, the colonial administration throughout the Americas fell into a "[[Siege mentality|bunker mentality]]". Imperial strategists and urban planners redesigned port settlements into military posts to protect Spanish territorial claims and ensure the safe passing of the king's silver-laden [[Spanish treasure fleet|Atlantic Fleet]] to the [[Iberian Peninsula]]. San Juan served as an important port-of-call for ships driven across the Atlantic by its powerful [[Atlantic Ocean#Climate|trade winds]]. West Indies convoys linked Spain to the island, sailing between [[Cádiz]] and the [[Spanish West Indies]]. The colony's seat of government was on the fortified [[Isleta de San Juan|Islet of San Juan]] and for a time became one of the most heavily fortified settlements in the [[Spanish West Indies|Spanish Caribbean]] earning the name of the "[[City Wall of San Juan|Walled City]]". The islet is still dotted with various forts and walls, such as [[La Fortaleza]], [[Castillo San Felipe del Morro]], and [[Castillo San Cristóbal (San Juan)|Castillo San Cristóbal]], designed to protect the population and the strategic [[Port of San Juan]] from the raids of the European competitors and corsairs. In 1625, in the [[Battle of San Juan (1625)|Battle of San Juan]], the [[Dutch people|Dutch]] commander [[Boudewijn Hendricksz]] tested the defenses' limits like no one else before. Learning from [[Francis Drake]]'s previous [[Battle of San Juan (1595)|failures here]], he circumvented the cannons of the castle of San Felipe del Morro and quickly brought his 17 ships into the [[San Juan Bay]]. He then occupied the port and attacked the city while the population hurried for shelter behind El Morro's moat and high battlements. Historians consider this event the worst attack on San Juan. Though the Dutch set the village on fire, they failed to conquer El Morro, and its batteries pounded their troops and ships until Hendricksz deemed the cause lost. Hendricksz's expedition eventually helped propel a fortification frenzy. Constructions of defenses for the San Cristóbal Hill were soon ordered so as to prevent the landing of invaders out of reach of El Morro's artillery. Urban planning responded to the needs of keeping the colony in Spanish hands. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page