A Patchwork of Plantations in Puerto Rico

There’s never a dull moment in the Geography and Map Division, particularly when our collections are as vibrantly-hued as this. While perusing our collections, this large, colorful map caught my eye (as large, colorful maps are wont to do).

Titled Chart of comparative areas of the staple products of Porto Rico, the map is based on a “general assessment” taken by the Treasury Department in 1902-1903, just a few years after the US took control of Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War. Two other Spanish colonies – Guam and the Philippines – also came under the US flag at the conclusion of the war.

The turn of the 20^th century was a busy time for the US government in Puerto Rico. Several agencies carried out mapping activities around this time. In 1903 a magnetic observatory was established on the island of Vieques, for the purpose of aiding in the general magnetic survey being conducted by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey. Various US military bodies had mapped the island before and during the war, and cartographic operations continued after. Commercial map publishers such as Colton were also eager to produce maps of this “new territory U.S.A.”

Puerto Rico’s agricultural landscape was also of prime importance to the federal government. In 1903, funds were appropriated for an agricultural experiment station in Mayagüez. The Secretary of the Treasury’s annual report of the same year lists “the value of the merchandise brought into the country during the year from the islands which have recently come under the American flag;” for Puerto Rico, this was $11,051,195. Commerce with the island and with other recently-acquired territories “showed a gratifying increase during the year.”

It is against this backdrop that J.W. Swift and J. Stuart Ball of the Treasury Department of Puerto Rico created this Chart of comparative areas of the staple products of Porto Rico. The map plots different agricultural and economic uses of land across the island of Puerto Rico and neighboring Vieques; Culebra and the islands to the west of Puerto Rico are not depicted.

Many of the crops marked on the map were cash crops, meant for export to the United States. The largest area of land, however, is taken up by pasture, likely for cattle and goats, among other livestock. Pasture is colored green on the map, with a checkerboard pattern.

In the center of the island, large areas of uncultivated land, shown with vertical stripes and no color, are frequently found in mountainous areas. Public lands also fall into this category. Some areas of higher elevation, though, are marked with a red diamond pattern. These are coffee plantations. According to the Register of Porto Rico for 1903, published by the office of the Secretary of Porto Rico, “coffee is the staple to which Porto Ricans generally pin their faith in future prosperity.”

An area of “timber, exclusive of public lands” near the northeastern tip of the island is today El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the US National Forest system. Other areas of timber, shown in black, dot the island.

Roughly rectangular sections of yellow represent sugar plantations. Sugar has been grown in Puerto Rico since the 16^th century, and the sugar industry shaped the island’s environmental and human geography in profound ways, not least through the enslavement of Africans until the institution’s abolition in 1873. After the American takeover, sugar would grow in importance over all other crops on the island. The most productive sugar plantations would develop in the east and south of the island.

Dark red (with diagonal lines, not a diamond pattern) marks the locations of a small number of tobacco plantations. Blue is “minor crops,” including “oranges, bananas, vegetables, &c.” A few coastal swamps and wetlands are indicated with a horizontal pattern with lines depicting vegetation.

Place names across the map are those of Puerto Rico’s then 76 (today 78) municipalities, administrative divisions comparable to counties or townships in the US. This system has its origins in the Spanish colonial period.

The city of San Juan, which in 1899 had a population of 32,048, is indicated by a large star, and a tight checkerboard pattern not used anywhere else on the map. Hand-drawn roads and railroad lines show its connections to other urban areas on the island.

A visualization in vivid color of the Treasury Department’s priorities, the map provides a partial snapshot of Puerto Rico’s agricultural history.

Learn more:

• Learn about a 1942 sugar strike in Puerto Rico in the Story Map ¡a la huelga todos!
• Find photos and documentation of 20^th-century Puerto Rican agriculture in the research guide Puerto Rico’s Plantation Economy: Snapshots from the Library of Congress
• Read more about Puerto Rico’s administrative divisions in this post on the Law Library’s blog, In Custodia Legis