I Am the Other: Puerto Rico in
the Eyes of North Americans, 1898

Gervasio Luis García

In Puerto Rico, 1898 seemed at first a perfect moment of complicity between conqueror and conquered. Only afterward were discordant voices heard, and only then did the illusions of a shared goal give way to shifting alliances and antagonisms based on political expediency. The debate on colonialism and imperialism, us versus them, has hidden from view the fact that a Puerto Rican elite paved the way for United States domination, even as it shared many values with American elites. When, in the course of the war and its confused aftermath, armed bands of criollos (or Creoles) attacked the properties of Spanish hacendados (large landowners) and merchants, the Spaniards and propertied Creoles found that their class interests drew them closer to the United States than to the workers and peasants. This similarity in difference between dominator and subaltern resulted in the "other" being oneself, hence the title of this essay.	1
Focusing on 1898 as a year of both liberation and domination, I consider the positive and negative aspects of North American (that is, United States) imperialism. I attempt to clarify not only an important aspect of Puerto Rican history but also the contradictory efforts of the United States to build an empire without colonies. In the struggle to understand the newly conquered territory and to justify its submission, a plurality of North American voices were heard. There were anti-imperialist opponents of the large policy and advocates of it. Some of the latter were racist, but others, without challenging the expansionist exploits, favored respect for the native language and customs of Puerto Rico and a "democratic" Americanization of the Puerto Rican people.	2
Civilization and Barbarism à la Root . . . before the people of Porto Rico can be fully entrusted with self-government they must first learn the lesson of self-control and respect for the principles of the constitutional government, which require acceptance of its peaceful decisions. —Elihu Root, United States secretary of war, 1899 Since only time can modify customs, perhaps it would have been convenient to prolong the [North American] military regime in order to moderate the brusque transition from the old colonial regime to ample democratic methods, acclimating the popular masses not to confuse the practices of liberty with unbridled licentiousness. —Salvador Brau, Puerto Rican historian, 19041
The affinities of Elihu Root (1845–1937), executor of United States military and colonial politics at the end of the century, and of Salvador Brau (1842–1912), illustrious Creole champion of Puerto Rican autonomy under the Spanish Crown and the outstanding intellectual of his generation, challenge common assumptions. They suggest that the meanings of the North American invasion, and of Puerto Rico's long relationship with other great centers of attraction such as England and France, cannot be articulated in all their complexity if we remain trapped in the belief that the other and oneself are antitheses with irreconcilable visions and interests and that each speaks with a singular voice.2 Root and Brau's agreement that deficiencies in morality are the principal obstacle in the process of democracy leads us in another direction.	. . .