The Sugarcane Farmer Colonist and Planting and Milling Contracts in the Central-Eastern Region of Puerto Rico

Abstract

This study analyzes the origin of the colonist in Puerto Rico. The performance of the agricultural colonist had an impact on the economic, social and political relations of the country during the boom of the ‘central’ model, from 1899 to its decline at the beginning of the 21st century. The work focuses on the perspective of regional history to examine the origin of the colonists, the sowing and milling contracts they signed with the directors of the sugar mills, and the establishment of colonist associations in the municipality of Juncos, which sought to prevent the outrages of the centralists and represent a case still unknown in the historiography of the central-eastern region of the country.