In 1898, the United States gained control of the Caribbean island Puerto Rico, which was previously an imperial holding of Spain. This regime shift opened the doors for American missionaries to evangelize the region, which had primarily been Catholic under Spanish rule (Melton, “Protestantism in Puerto Rico”). However, this spread of Protestantism was also a key Americanization strategy used by the United States to incorporate Puerto Rico into the American Empire. This mission of incorporation was presented as a way for Puerto Rico to eventually reach self-rule, but the true goal was Americanization. A key aspect of this campaign was the push to remove administrative associations with the Catholic Church and replace them with “secular” rules. In reality, this meant that Catholicism was replaced by Protestantism and Protestant values (Connorton, 128). However, during this political and religious shift, some Puerto Ricans were able to retain agency, resulting in “a new fusion between the history of Christianity, mission history, and theology emerged as soon as new converts embraced and began to preach the gospel.” (Santiago-Vendrell, 2).
By shedding light on missionaries as a tool of imperialistic power and presenting differing perspectives on their impacts, two things become clear. First, this type of critical thinking improves our understanding of the United States as an empire and how agency can sometimes be achieved in the oppressive environment of imperialism. Secondly, understanding this series of historical events helps us better understand the relationship between religion and government and how they are used in tandem to control populations. These historical sources, because of the variance in perspective, can widen our understanding of how religion is used as an extension of imperial power, but also as an avenue for agency.
To better understand Puerto Rico at the time the United States gained control of the Island, it is first helpful to understand Puerto Rico under Spanish rule. Under Spain, Puerto Rico was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Catholic control extended beyond the traditional understanding of the “religious sphere” into social and political aspects of life. For example, the Spanish imperial government and the Catholic Church “promoted Catholic marriage as the ideal status for the island’s adult population and combated concubinage, adultery, bigamy, homosexuality, and incest.” (Martínez-Fernández, 265). In other words, the religious and civil ceremony of marriage was promoted in Puerto Rico because Catholicism and the formation of Catholic families were seen as a civilizing and moralizing mission that controlled the island’s population. This example of marriage shows how integral Catholicism and Catholic ideals were to the social and political structure of the island.
Under Spanish control, all other forms of religion, including Protestantism, were outlawed until 1869 (Martínez-Fernández, 270). This did not mean that there were no Protestants or people who practiced other religions in Puerto Rico while the island was under Spanish control. There were small Protestant groups or people who practiced their religion, however, they had to practice in secret (Martínez-Fernández, 270-271). As can be expected, these small groups or pockets of individual worshippers did not have the governmental or political sway that the Roman Catholic Church held. In many aspects, religious law and civil law were intertwined and controlled by the Catholic Church. In short, before American control of the island, Puerto Rico was predominantly Roman Catholic, and the religion was a large part of social and political life.
The United States gained control of Puerto Rico following the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War. After the war, Spain lost its imperial holdings of Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the United States. While Cuba and the Philippines eventually gained their independence, Puerto Rico remained, and remains, under the control of the United States (Cruz, 522). As already discussed above, because of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was largely Catholic, therefore, the American takeover allowed the spread of Protestantism. In other words, the regime change opened the door for American missionaries to enter the island (Melton “Protestantism in Puerto Rico”). As historian Winnifred Connorton put it, Puerto Rico was seen as a “new Protestant mission field” because of its lack of the religion under Spain (Connorton, 129).
Moreover, in the United States Catholicism was viewed as a backward and superstitious religion that was incompatible with American ideals and government (Cruz, 523). Some Protestant branches, like the Preserbiteryian Church, even viewed Roman Catholicism as a “false religion” (Santiago-Vendrell, 2). Usually, Protestant missionaries saw Puerto Ricans as children who needed to be shown the light of true religion after years of Catholicism under Spanish rule (Santiago-Vendrell 2).In other words, the United States, and American missionaries, saw it as necessary to convert Puerto Ricans from Catholicism to Protestantism so they were more compatible with American laws and beliefs, which were (and still are) rooted in Protestantism.
Beyond this deprecation of Roman Catholicism because of its “falseness,” missionaries saw Puerto Ricans as “naturally” immoral and sinful. They were often described as lazy, overly sexual, and avid gamblers. These racist stereotypes were seen as further reasoning for religious intervention and the spread of the “true” Christian faith (Santiago-Vendrell, 2). Simply put, Protestant missions attempted to sever the Puerto Rican converts from their previous Roman Catholic socio-religious identities and assigned them a new Protestant and American identity. As a result, the American missionaries almost immediately began to preach “the gospel freely everywhere they could, on street corners and public plazas, at house services, and to everyone they encountered in their path” after the United States acquired the island (Santiago-Vendrell, 2).
This calling of Protestant missionaries to evangelize fit nicely with the plan of the United States government to Americanize their new imperial holding and “prepare them” for democratic self-rule. Winnifred Connorton, historian of colonial missions and nursing explains that “eventually, the government decided to take an educative role in the territories, preparing them for self-rule at some unspecified date” (Connorton, 128). This vague “end goal” of self-rule was a direct reaction to the uneasiness felt by many Americans about acquiring Spain’s colonial holdings after the Spanish-American War, however, the excuse of preparing the regions for participatory democracy allowed the government to extend imperial control without public pushback (Connorton, 128). Many missionaries understood that their work was political. For example, missionaries might teach Puerto Ricans how to read so that they could read the Bible, but also so they could participate in the democratic process (Connorton, 129). In short, when the United States acquired Puerto Rico, it was mostly dominated by Roman Catholicism and there were very few Protestants and Protestant Churches. This meant that the island was attractive to missionaries because they saw it as an opportunity to evangelize and advance the Americanization campaign of the United States government, which supported Protestant values.
The purpose of this project is to compose a mini-archive of historical documents related to American missionary work in Puerto Rico. Now that the historical background of these missions has been established, we as historians and readers can engage with these documents and understand them in context. Understanding these documents is important for several reasons. First, the authors and creators of these documents come from different backgrounds, so engaging with all of these perspectives allows up to form a complex and more complete image of what was happening at that time. Second, this type of critical thinking helps us expand our understanding of the United States as an empire and how, despite the oppressive nature of imperialism, agency of indigenous populations can still be achieved. Finally, understanding this series of historical events helps us better understand the relationship between religion and government and how they often work together to control populations.
Sources
Connerton, Winifred C. “Working towards Health, Christianity and Democracy: American Colonial and Missionary Nurses in Puerto Rico, 1900–30.” In Colonial Caring: A History of Colonial and Post-Colonial Nursing, edited by Helen Sweet and Sue Hawkins, 126–44. Manchester University Press, 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18dzrdn.12.
Cruz, Joel Morales. “Puerto Rico.” In The Histories of the Latin American Church: A Handbook, 513–34. 1517 Media, 2014. . https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9m0t2k.29.
Gordon, Melton J. “Protestantism in Puerto Rico.” In Encyclopedia of World Religions: Encyclopedia of Protestantism, by J. Gordon Melton. 2nd ed. Facts On File, 2016. https://wooster.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/fofecvt/protestantism_in_puerto_rico/0?institutionId=4607
Graybill, Beth E. 1999. “‘Finding My Place as a Lady Missionary:’ Mennonite Women Missionaries to Puerto Rico, 1945-1960.” Journal of Mennonite Studies 17 (January): 152–73. https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ahl&AN=38119974&site=ehost-live.
Santiago-Vendrell, Angel. 2021. “Give Them Christ: Native Agency in the Evangelization of Puerto Rico, 1900 to 1917.” Religions 12: 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel12030196.
Martínez-Fernández, Luis. 2000. “Marriage, Protestantism, and Religious Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico.” Journal of Religious History 24 (3): 263. doi:10.1111/1467-9809.00112.