In the early 1950’s, Puerto Rico drafted a constitution, a necessary step toward statehood for U.S. territories. The U.S. Congress made some changes to the Puerto Rican Constitution and then, in 1952, passed legislation approving it.
When the bill went to President Truman’s desk, the State Department wrote a letter to the president recommending that the bill be signed it into law. President Truman did so.
The State Department letter ultimately formed the basis of the U.S. request to the United Nations to end Puerto Rico’s international status as a dependent U.S. colony. In 1953, the U.N. agreed.
Yet today Puerto Rico is widely recognized as a U.S. colony. How did we get here?
U.S. Response to International Critics
As World War II ended and a wave of decolonization spread across the globe, the U.S. similarly faced international pressure to provide more rights to the people of Puerto Rico. “The achievement of self-government by Puerto Rico will be a matter of great interest to Members of the United Nations in their discussions of the political progress of non-self-governing territories,” Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations, Jack McFall, wrote to President Truman in recommending that he sign into law the 1952 bill recognizing Puerto Rico’s new constitution.
“It will be a convincing answer to attacks by those who have charged the United States Government with imperialism and colonial exploitation, and it should be warmly welcomed by Members who have a sincere interest in the political advancement of dependent peoples,” McFall further explained.
McFall concluded that “[t]he new relationship which would be established by the approval of House Joint Resolution 430 would give Puerto Rico the full measure of self-government contemplated in Chapter XI of the Charter of the United Nations. The people of Puerto Rico themselves have stated, in a resolution adopted by their constitutional convention on February 4, 1952, that this compact entered into by mutual consent would mark Puerto Rico’s attainment of ‘complete self-government.'”
In 1953, the United Nations agreed and passed Resolution 748 (VIII) establishing that the U.N. Declaration regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories no longer applied to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Was the United Nations Decision Correct?
In retrospect, it is clear that while Puerto Rico did reach a higher level of local autonomy when the U.S. Congress approved its Constitution, full autonomy had not yet arrived. This was apparent from the beginning when Congress edited the Constitution before approving it.
Reports by both the United States Senate and House of Representatives were equally clear that the new law “would not change Puerto Rico’s fundamental political, social, and economic relations to the United States.”
Puerto Rico did gain control over its local government, a right that the District of Columbia still does not have, but it did not get sovereignty as an independent country or equal power with states in the United States.
Even today, Puerto Rico has no senators and no voting members in the House of Representatives. The PROMESA board can overrule the decisions of Puerto Rico’s elected officials, and Puerto Ricans cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections.
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it is clear that the U.S. misled the U.N., or at least overstated Puerto Rico’s degree of self government as a response to criticism from other countries. For a self-proclaimed beacon of democracy, owning a colony was a bad look.
It is still a bad look. After approval of its 1952 constitution, Puerto Rico remained – and remains – a U.S. territory, or as it’s being called again today, a colony.
