Tobacco Growers, Resistance and Accommodation to American Domination in Puerto Rico, 1899–1940

Abstract

The inclusion of Puerto Rico in the tariff structure of the United States after 1898 guaranteed the free entrance of many island products into the mainland and dramatically accelerated the existing production of agricultural commodities. Tobacco leaf was included in this tariff exemption, and Puerto Rican farmers in the highland regions of the island made the cultivation of tobacco for the American market their most important economic activity during the first four decades of the twentieth century.¹ Puerto Rico’s absorption into the United States also created new and dynamic political opportunities for the island’s farmers that tobacco growers exploited for their economic benefit. The study of the highland tobacco regions provides a unique opportunity to examine how a local population adapted to a new colonial regime, resisted unilateral political decision-making and redefined global (or in this case United States) commodity production.