Toward Puerto Rico's Grito de Lares

Coffee, Social Stratification, and Class Conflicts, 1828-1868

Bibliographic Data

ID2835190
AuthorsLaird W Bergad (corresponding author)
Year1980
Volume60
Issue4
Pages617
Publication date1980-11-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2513669
OpenAlexW4251203319, W2335702999
LanguageEN
Citations received6

HE Grito de Lares has become a fixture in all historical surveys of nineteenth-century Puerto Rico. On two dramatic days in September 1868, a small group of coffee planters, day laborers, and slaves seized the western mountain town of Lares, declared a republic for the only time in Puerto Rico's history, and then were routed by Spanish counterattacks before the revolt could spread to other areas of the island. The chronology of events is wellknown and there have been few deviations from the standard interpretations. These usually consider the revolt as part of an island-wide revolutionary conspiracy led by Ramon Emeterio Betances and a small nucleus of patriots guided by anticolonialism, abolitionism, and a commitment to political democracy.' The political ideology of the urban leaders who presumably conceptualized but did not participate in the revolt has been seen as the motive force provoking the revolutionary rising. Accordingly, the social and economic structure of Lares preceding the revolutionary period has never been considered. That the local economy revolved around coffee production has been almost completely ignored.2 Yet the leaders of the

Biology · Class (philosophy) · Epistemology · Geography · Social science · Social stratification · Sociology · Stratification (seeds) · Cuban History and Society · Latin American and Latino Studies · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Philosophy

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