American leaders were fearful of German
efforts to turn Latin American govern-
ments against the United States. New
proposed legislation, the Jones Bill, prom-
ised to bolster Puerto Rican loyalty by
giving Puerto Ricans greater self-rule.
Muñoz died in November 1916, too
soon to see his efforts bear fruit. In March
1917, the Jones Act became law. It made
Puerto Ricans citizens, gave them a Bill of
Rights consistent with the U.S.
Constitution, and gave Puerto Rico its
own elected legislature, though subject to
veto by an appointed governor. It did
not confer statehood or independence,
but it gave a greater degree of self-
government. Puerto Ricans were exempt
from federal income tax and could not
vote in national elections. Significantly, it
also made Puerto Ricans subject to the
draft. After the United States entered
World War I a month later, many Puerto
Ricans found themselves serving in the
armed forces of a country that had only
recently made them citizens.
Economically, Puerto Ricans
remained disadvantaged. Puerto Rican
senator José Celso Barbosa (1857–1921)
wrote, “We now enjoy under the
American flag the same political rights as
any other Americans. But economically
we have advanced very little. One cannot
say one controls a country if one does not
control its wealth.”Cuba: Imperfect
IndependenceBefore fighting Spain for Cuba’s inde-
pendence, the United States had declared
in the Teller Amendment its intention to
“leave the government and control of the
island [of Cuba] to its people.” But the
end of the Spanish-American War left
Cuba under military occupation by the
United States, which was reluctant to
leave. The island was in shambles, its
sugar plantations and mills devastated by
war. The rebels’ ragtag provisional gov-
ernment had little influence outside east-
ern Cuba and seemed unlikely to be able
to maintain peace and order. American
businesspeople who had invested in the
island wanted their interests protected, as
did wealthy Cuban conservatives.
Furthermore, the United States wanted
to preserve Cuba as a strategic base for
control of the Caribbean.For all these reasons, the United
States soon backpedaled from its promise
to leave Cuba to the Cubans. American
authorities left rebel leaders like Gómez
out of positions of real power and sum-
marily rejected a Cuban plan for immedi-
ate independence. The military
government provided many helpful serv-
ices, including emergency relief for the
poor, reconstruction of public works, and
improvement of health and sanitation.
But U.S. officials thwarted Cuban aspira-
tions for self-rule. Military governor
Leonard Wood wrote to President
McKinley: “The people... know they are
not ready for self-government and those
who are honest make no attempt to dis-
guise the fact.... This is not the work of
a day or of a year, but of a longer period.”
American control of Cuba was insti-
tutionalized with the Platt Amendment,
named for U.S. senator Orville Platt,
who introduced it in Congress in 1901.
The amendment provided for long-term
leases for U.S. naval bases in Cuba,
required the Cuban republic to maintain
low public debt, forbade Cuba to enter
into treaty relations unacceptable to the
United States, and effectively gave the
United States the right to intervene mil-
itarily to preserve order and protect
American lives and property. The United
States threatened to continue occupying
the island until Cuba incorporated the
Platt Amendment into its constitution.
Faced with that ultimatum, Cuba reluc-
tantly accepted the amendment, and U.S.
forces withdrew in 1902. The republic
they left was independent in name only;
its sovereignty was compromised by the
domination of its economy by U.S. cor-
porate interests. In accordance with the
Platt Amendment, the U.S. naval base at
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was established
in 1903 and remains there to this day.
Corporate domination of Cuba
increased during the occupation, with
American investments in Cuba rising
from $50 million in 1895 to $100 million
in 1902. Among the new investors was
banana magnate Minor Keith, who
founded United Fruit Company in 1899
and bought 200,000 acres in Cuba for
$400,000. United Fruit Company would
play an important role in Caribbean and
Central American politics throughout the
20th century.
In the decades that followed, the
United States several times applied its126 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY