Here is a neat graphic organizer that I received in one of my graduate classes sometime during the 1990s. It illustrates the ancestry of the three major blood lines which form the Puerto Rican race : Taino Indian, Spanish and Black.
When Christopher Columbus reached Puerto Rico in 1493, he encountered and enslaved the Taino people, who were already inhabiting the island, known then as Borinquén. Colonization of the island by Spain began fifteen years later, and shortly after that, the first slaves began arriving to the island in order to work in Puerto Rico’s three main agricultural industries: coffee, tobacco and sugar.
According to the Pew Research Center, Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group in the United States behind Mexicans, with an estimated 4.7 million people on the mainland and an estimated 3.7 million people on the island. Unlike other Hispanic groups that reside in the United States, Puerto Ricans are American citizens because their island is a U.S. territory.
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