ONE LAND · 7 ATLASES
History of Puerto Rico in maps
Puerto Rico as it appears in 7 interactive history atlases, from 1750 to 2015: Puerto Rico. Each era below lists who ruled the land and when control changed, linked to the dated map that shows it.
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What was Puerto Rico before it was Puerto Rico? Below, every era of this land in the Maps of History atlases — who ruled it, what it was called, and when control changed — each line linked to the dated map that shows it. Modern borders stand in as an honest approximation; every atlas says so on the map itself.
Puerto Rico · Industrial Revolution
| Colony or dependency — the opening position |
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Puerto Rico · Age of Revolutions
| Colonial possessions — the opening position |
AGE OF REVOLUTIONS: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Puerto Rico · Haiti and Kenya independence
Spanish Puerto Rico grew sugar on a smaller scale than Cuba and stayed loyal to Spain through the wars of Spanish American independence. Its leaders, like Cuba’s, feared that the example of Haiti would spread. Slavery was abolished in 1873, and in 1898 the island passed to the United States, under whose flag it remains as a commonwealth.
| Under colonial rule — the opening position |
HAITI AND KENYA INDEPENDENCE: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Spanish Puerto Rico · American Civil War
| Neighbors & the outside world — the opening position |
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Puerto Rico · WWI
| The Entente & Allies — the opening position | |
| The Entente & Allies |
Puerto Rico · Cold War
| NATO & core Western allies — the opening position |
COLD WAR: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
Puerto Rico (US territory) · Feminism and the Tunisian Revolution
Puerto Rico, a US territory, was where the contraceptive pill was first tested on a large scale in 1956, and where by 1965 a government survey found that about a third of ever-married women aged 20 to 49 had been sterilised, a practice so common it was called la operación. Puerto Rican activists such as Dr Helen Rodríguez-Trías founded the Committee to End Sterilization Abuse in New York in 1974.
| Right won in law — the opening position | |
| No reform yet / outside this story | |
| Partial or unequal; treaty signed only; transition |
FEMINISM AND THE TUNISIAN REVOLUTION: EVERY CHAPTER AND MAP →
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