AramisDec 25
The Treaty of Paris of 1898 forced Spain to cede Puerto Rico to the U.S., which allowed the U.S. to appoint a civilian governor under the Foraker Act, Charles Herbert Allen, and placed the island under military rule. Allen was a corrupt businessman with no background in governmental practices and policies. He slashed operating expenses on the island, refusing to use the budget surplus to make essential infrastructure and education investments.
(1/?)
Show threadAramis
With the extra funds, he instead re-directed them to no-bid contracts for U.S. businessmen, building roads at double the cost, railroad subsidies for U.S.-owned sugar plantations (his father owned Otis Allen and Son, a lumber business that created wooden boxes and sold railroad ties, housing frames, and road building materials), and high salaries for U.S. bureaucrats in the island government (Allen & McKinley, 1901).
(2/?)
Dec 25 at 7:58pmWeb
Show threadAramisDec 25
He was also listed as one of the “Politicians in the Lumber and Timber Business in Puerto Rico” (Library of Congress). In the single year Allen was governor, he managed to appoint half of the offices in the government to visiting Americans (626 individuals), and nearly all the Executive Council were U.S. expatriates (Maldonado-Denis, 1972).
In 1901, Allen resigned as governor, fled to Wall Street,
(3/?)
Show threadAramisDec 25
and joined the House of Morgan (J.P. Morgan & Co.) and the Guaranty Trust Company of New York as their vice president. In 1907 he created the world’s largest sugar syndicate in Puerto Rico, the American Sugar Refining Company (later the Sugar Trust). This Trust owned and controlled 98% of the sugar processing capacity in the United States. Allen’s political appointees in Puerto Rico provided him with land grants, tax subsidies, water rights, railroad easements, foreclosure sales,
(4/5)
Show threadAramisDec 25
and favorable tariffs (Tovar et al., 1971). By 1930, Allen and his banking partners converted 45% of all arable land into sugar plantations. They owned the insular postal system, the entire coastal railroad, and the international seaport of San Juan. Today, the syndicate is known as Domino Sugar.
(5/5)
#PuertoRico #Boriken #History #USA