CENTRO JOURNAL

Volume XX Number i
SPBiNC, 2008

INHABITING ISLA NENA:

IMPERIAL DRAMAS,
GENDERED GEOGRAPHICAL
IMAGININGS AND
VIEQUES, PUERTO RICO
MARIE CRUZ SOTO

ABSTRACT

This essay examines how Vieques bas been

geographically imagined as Isla Nena through the
struggles of communities to inhabit and of empires to
claim the island. The study traces such struggles from
the i6th to the 21st century in order to historicize Isla
Nena as the gendered ajid infantUized representation
of an island-community negotiating complex colonial
relationships with different metropolises. The study
further portrays, through the /ongwe dure framework,
howthisisland-communityhasforcenturies been caught
in the midst of imperial dramas and how such dramas
have influenced definitions ofthe Vieques-Puerto Rico
relationship. [Keywords: Vieques, Isla Nena, imperial
dramas, gender, geographical imaginings]

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LA ISLA MADRE, LA ISLA ENCINTA,

ROMPI EN EL MAR SU DOLOR;
LA ISLA MADRE ABRI SU ENTRAA
Y LA ISLA NENA NACI:
VIEQUES...
(Luis Llorns Torres, "La Isla Nena")

VIEQUES, a 2i-by-4-mile island, has been a millenary steppingstone for Caribbean

human crossings. In the midst of the crossings different cultures have attempted
to establish themselves in the small island. Forging a community in the heart of
this West Indian island-arc, however, has been for the would-be settlers an equally
millenary process. For varied reasons in different contexts the act of establishing a
stable community in this remote speck of the Caribbean has met with resistance
on the part of powerful historical actors like the Spanish and the U.S. empires.
These empires have, through invasions, diplomatic arguments and even massacres,
made evident that colonial fringes like Vieques can simultaneously be caught in the
center of imperial dramas. While Vieques was never permanently situated in the
center of the global schemes of these empires, the island was nonetheless an integral
part of their imperial designs. Vieques surfaced to prominence at different contexts,
posing both challenges and opportunities to metropolises. Spain's early ith-century
crusade against Caribs, for example, was redefmed through Vieques. The 17th to 19th
century rivalry between Spain and Great Britain for the control of the Caribbean
was manifested in Vieques. Even the United States ig6os pan-American campaign
was rethought through Vieques. Thus, Vieques represents a space where imperial
dramas have been acted out. The term imperial dramas refers to the schemes,
challenges and projects of empires. Vieques, in turn, was caught in the center of
imperial dramas because what happened in the island manifested and, maybe more
importantly, affected the global narratives these empires were weaving.
The struggle of populations to exercise control over the island has made difficult
the formulation of local imaginings capable of negotiating a collective identity.
Yet the challenges have inspired and been woven into the most sacred narratives
surrounding Viequense identity and community. The inhabitants of Vieques have
engaged the struggle through histories that tie their people to the island. Over a
time span lasting two centuries they have geographically imagined an enclosed space
inscribed with local meaning (Jess and Massey 1995: 134).' Such urgent imaginings of
the island as a private and domestic Viequense unit have been articulated through
very specific gender discourses. These discourses, built through kinship metaphors,
transfigured Vieques into an island child and gave life to Isla Nena: the daughter
of the Puerto Rican main island. Isla Nena, in turn, became the gendered and
infantilized representation of the Viequense island-community.
In the following pages I will discuss how Isla Nena, as the embodiment of the
Viequense island-community, was first conceived in the early ith century, what
historical contexts resulted in its birth during the 19th century, and how the child
evolved into the 21st century as it was adapted to the challenges brought about by
different imperial dramas. My organic historicizing of Isla Nena is informed by
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archival and ethnographic research as well as by my own 5iZ J

identity. While the history encompassed in the following pages will inevitably
silence different voices, it broadly engages the stories of "users," following Michel
de Certeau, that through tactics like walking and other everyday practices creatively
wove spaces claimed by different empires (Certeau 1988).^ I hope, accordingly,
to provide the reader with the long struggle of peoples to claim a place oftheir
own. The right to inhabit Vieques, after all, has been fought for on a daily basis
over the past 500 years.
Conception

The birth of Isla Nena was a long and anguish-ridden one. According to recent
archeological studies there are traces of human presence in Vieques dating as far
back as 150 B.C.3 Yet the traces are scarce and the presences of different preColumbian cultures have been confiated in Viequense collective memory under the
term Carib. This last indigenous group, if it indeed existed as a separate cultural
group from the Tainos, has survived in the archives oftheir Spanish victimizers.
The survival of narratives detailing Carib combativeness and resistance against
the Spanish colonial regime makes possible a fragmentary reconstruction of what
could have been the conception of Isla Nena during the 16th-century Carib-Spanish
encounter in Bieke.
Back in the early i6th century, Spanish chronicles and maps made reference to a
small island southeast of Puerto Rico known by its aboriginal inhabitants as Bieke.
Translated as "Small Island," Bieke was thought to be the hideout, or maybe lair,
of the Carib Indians that waged war against the Puerto Rican Tainos. Yet if the
indigenous groups were mutually hostile, the Spanish Empire apparently catalyzed an
indigenous union against the common European enemy. According to the historians
Juan Bautista Muoz (1745-1799) and Fray Iigo Abbad y Lasierra (1745-1813),
after 1511 the Caribs allied with the Tainos for the purpose of attacking Spanish
settlements in the Puerto Rican main island. Then, in 1514, Bautista and Abbad
concurred, the Viequense caciques Cazimes and his brother Jaureyvo led a Carib
expedition into the northeastern town of Loiza. Cazimes was killed during one o
the raids, and without their leader, che Caribs retired. Jaureyvo, nonetheless,
returned a few days later to avenge his brother's death. This time the Caribs
overtook the Spanish settlers, who could not prevent the capture of settlers (Brau
1981: 234-5). The Governor of Puerto Rico Cristbal de Mendoza, having received
news of the attacks, pursued the raiders back to Bieke. In the ensuing battle
Jaureyvo, along with many other Caribs, was killed. The rest were taken prisoners in
order to later be used as laborers among Spanish settlers of the Puerto Rican main
island. Bieke was left for deserted (Abbad 1959: 58-60; Tapia 1945: 118-9).
The accounts of Juan Bautista Muoz and Fray Iigo Abbad y Easierra differ in
various details. Still, their histories coincide in the death of Cazimes and Jaureyvo
and in the massacre and displacement of the Carib community from Bieke. The 1514
events make it difficult for scholars to establish clear historical continuities from
the Carib Bieke to the 19th-century Spanish Vieques. Many Viequenses, however,
consider Cazimes and Jaureyvo's feats as foundational acts marking year one for their
island-community (Rabin; Emeric 2003). Such chronologies pinpoint 1514 as the year
that witnessed the consecration of the earth with Carib blood and the conjuring ot
an island community worth fighting for. Furthermore, their foundational acts, as
narrated by local historian Robert Rabin, have been endowed with an anti-imperialist
[17]

spirit that harmonizes with late 20th- and 21st-century definitions of Viequense
identity (Rabin). The foundational meaning acquired by the I14 Carib-Spanish clash
suggests that for many Viequenses Isla Nena was indeed conceived early on in the
Spanish colonization venture, even if she came to life three centuries later and even if
the conception could only be recognized in retrospect as typical of myths of origins.
Pregnancy

For three centuries after Cristbal de Mendoza's incursion, Vieques remained a

silhouette, however uncomfortable, in the global map of the Spanish Empire.
The Caribs had been massacred but, according to Abbad y Lasierra, "the French,
English and Dutch that succeeded the Caribs in their islands, adopted their ferocity
and savagery; spreading terror and fright in all the Spanish colonies, carrying
everything in blood and fire" (Abbad 1959: 82-3).4 The islands referred to by
Abbad must have included Vieques. By the 1788 publication of his History of Puerto
Rico, France, England, Denmark and Brandenburg had all attempted to establish
communities in Vieques. The island, furthermore, had developed a reputation
for being the lair ofa perfect synthesis of the fringes and enemies of the Spanish
Empire. Not only were other European empires attempting to establish a presence in
Vieques, but also runaway slaves, deserting soldiers, pirates and others were flocking
to the island. Spain simply lacked the resources and manpower to populate or
properly claim Vieques. Puerto Rico, the nearest Spanish colony to Vieques, was in
itself scarcely populated until the late i8th century, when the demographics began to
increase (Vzquez 1987). Thus, imperial policies favored for three centuries random
pohcing acts designed to discourage enemy settlements. These policies also favored
the equally random exploitation of the island's natural resources like lumber.

Not only were other European empires attempting to

establish a presence in Vieques, but also runaway slaves,
deserting soldiers, pirates and others were flocking to
the island.
The redefinition of Vieques into a proper Spanish colony responded to the
impulse of Bourbon reformism (1750-1791), to the Latin American independence
wars (1810-1825) and to cycles of political instabihty in the Iberian metropolis.
Imperial legislations like the Reales Cdulas of 1778 and 1815 helped to
redistribute land for exploitation and to liberalize slave trade, commerce and
immigration. The opening of Spanish economic and immigration policies
attracted to Vieques workers and migrants from neighboring Caribbean islands
with the knowledge and capital to invest in the sugar industry. The demographic
increase, the emerging sugar industry and the fact that Cuba and Puerto Rico
were the only Spanish American colonies left in the Americas after 1825 kindled
Spain's interest in Vieques. In a matter of iy years Vieques evolved into a focal
point of discussion in certain circles of the diminished Spanish Empire. Colonel
George Dawson Flinter, Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Isabel the
Catholic, argued in his 18^4 An Account of the Present State of the Island of Puerto
Rico that the security and prosperity of Spanish Puerto Rico depended on the
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stability of a Spanish Vieques (Flinter 2002). If taken, different bureaucrats

concurred, Vieques could be turned into a pirates' nest, encouraging contraband
and slave desertion and threatening to infect Puerto Rico with revolutionary
doctrines.'' Puerto Rico had since the early i6tb century been described as the
key to the Caribbean.7 Yet the short distance dividing Puerto Rico from Vieques
made impossible the establishment of a clear and hygienic imperial limit. Such an
imperial division would have been desirable, for example, to avoid contagion with
the abolitionist ideas of the British Empire present in nearby islands like 'I'ortola.
Thus, the Spanisb imperial border had to stay east of Vieques. Vieques, in turn,
evolved into an island-boundary separating the last vestiges of Spanish America
from a proliferating array of nation-states and from the colonial possessions of
other European empires.
If Spanish officials hoped to maintain possession of Puerto Rico, the Empire
had to secure its control over Vieques. However, after three centuries of neglect
the island could not be easily won over. The Spanish Empire had never attempted
to colonize or otherwise populate Vieques. On the contrary, it had forcefully
terminated all colonization ventures from the part of England, Denmark, France
and Brandenburg during the years 1685-1693 and then throughout the 1700s
{Documentacin: 322-30). Spanish diplomats based themselves on Christopher
Columbus's 14 November 1493 arrival on the island, where he proclaimed Spain's
rights as "the first inventor and discoverer." Meanwhile, both England and Denmark
credited themselves u^itb more and longer-lasting settlements across the 17th and
i8th centuries {Documentacin: 590). Thus, at the beginning of the 19th century,
three European empires regarded themselves as Vieques's rightful owner.
The Spanish Crown, concerned with the challenges to their claims over Vieques,
approved a discrete colonization plan in 1811 devised by the Governor of Puerto
Rico Salvador Melndez. The plan included a military detachment under Juan
Rosell with orders to establish authority over the unwanted others of the Spanish
Empire and to foster the beginnings of a modest but stable colony.
Tbe task of civilizing Vieques was not easy. On the one hand, Rosell might
have lacked gumption to engage the colonizing enterprise.^ On the other hand,
Spanish officials in Madrid and in San Juan diverged on their commitment to
the colonizing of Vieques. While San Juan officials generally favored an assertive
establishment of Spanisb control in the island, officials in Madrid were more
hesitant. Given the predominance of metropolitan policies, the first 50 years of
the colony's life were spent under ambiguous imperial stances tbat would not
attract either England or Denmark's diplomatic complaints. For example, acting
under the mandates of a 5 May 1831 Royal Order, the Governor of Puerto Rico
Miguel de la Torre instructed Vieques' Military Commander Francisco Rosell
(1828-1832) to refrain from exercising any kind of authority over the English and
Danish citizens in Vieques {Documentacin: 804). The instructions included the
prohibition of taxing these citizens, revenue on which the young colony depended.
Spanish officials in Madrid, not risking an openly hostile confrontation, formulated
only one consistent imperial policy: inconspicuously populating and militarizing
Vieques.9 Meanwhile, imperial bureaucrats engaged rivals in a diplomatic warfare
over what had previously been an island-fringe.
Through the consular and government dialogues exchanged during the i8ios to
the 1860S a new Vieques was imagined. Such geographical imaginings depended
for substance and legitimization on the memory of imperial archives like the
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Real y General Archivo de Simancas e Yndias.'*^ In fact, as soon as the possession

controversy started, Spain armed itself with as many geographical and historical
iacts as the imperial archives could muster. One ofthe most powerful weapons
produced within the metropolis was a chronology of Vieques written in 1829 by
Jos de la Higuera. This imperial instrument was woven through the 1685-1735
foreign attempts to colonize the island and their subsequent expulsion by Spain.
This imperial instrument, furthermore, represents the first Viequense history ever
written {Documentacin: 322-30). Tellingly enough, the first Viequense history was
plotted through an imperial drama. Yet the historical weapon was only as effective
as its users' craft. The new geographical imaginings in general depended on the
wittiness and feistiness ofthe battling interlocutors. Early on in the diplomatic
battle, Lord Castlereagh shifted the imperial boundaries to the west of Vieques.
In ljanuary 1816, tbe English diplomat asserted to the Spanish crown that the
island was indeed one ofthe Virgin Islands. Eleven days later Conde de Fernn
Nez emphatically denied such allegations by claiming Spain's "indisputable
possession of her [Vieques}." The possession, the Spanish diplomat argued, was
evidenced in Spain's repeated dismissals of would-be possessors {Documentacin:
8-9). The ambiguity ofthe virginity debate, leaving open to interpretation whether
Vieques was part ofthe eastern Virgin Islands group or untouched by a masculine
empire, provided the interlocutors with a very ingenious and less confrontational
way of discussing the island's history and status. If Vieques was a virgin, it could
belong to the British Empire. However, if Vieques was not a virgin, it was because
for three centuries it had belonged to Spain. The Governor of Vieques, Teophile
Le Guillou, engaged the debate with the President of Trtola and Governor of the
Virgin Islands, Isaac Hay, more than two decades after the Castlereagh-Nez
exchange. In ajune 26, 1840 letter recounting the episode to the Governor of
Puerto Rico Le Guillou wrote:
The conversation fell on the richness of Vieques' soil, and on the poverty of the Virgin
Islands. Mr. President Hay, only one who spoke French told me that those Virgins were
very decrepit young ladies and full of sicknesses, that Goat Island (Vieques), was the
most beautiful, youngest and richest of the virgins. I told him that Vieques was not a
virgin after her marriage with Spain. iDocumentadbn: 641-2)||

The Le Guillou-Hay conversation, similar to the Nez-Castlereagh exchange,

represented a non-threatening and feminized way of imagining Vieques. The
imagining both silenced any previous Carib presence in tbe island and contrasted
with prior narratives of Vieques as a ferocious and savage space. If the post-1514
island had remained unconquerable for the Spanish Empire, as Abbad y Lasierra
suggested in the 1788, a more manageable Vieques was emerging.
Later known as the "founder of Vieques," Teophile Le Guillou remains to date
a very controversial historical figure. On the one hand, British Foreign Office
records identify him as a pirate and deserter ofthe French Navy, On the other
hand, Spanish documentation from the Archivo Histrico Nacional, Seccin de
Ultramar, in Madrid identifies Le Guillou as a French refugee ofthe 1821 Haitian
invasion ofthe Spanish Saint Domingue. Such discrepancies further diverge on
whether Le Guillou hid himself among criminals in Vieques to escape the French
Navy, or simply decided to take advantage ofthe favorable immigration policies
ofthe 1815 Real Cdula and appropriate the taming of Vieques as his own personal
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quest.'^ Whatever the reasons might have led to Le Guillou's establishment in

Vieques, the English and Spanish archives concluded that he gradually "established
a sort of irregular authority over the lawless horde by which he was surrounded"
{Sovereignty 1119: 216). Le Guillou was endowed with official authority when the
Governor of Puerto Rico Miguel de la Torre appointed him as the first political
andmilitary governor of Vieques (1832-1843). During his 11 years as Governor o
Vieques, Le Guillou made decrees against contraband, oversaw the distribution
of land for cultivation, looked out for the security of the island as a Spanish
dependency, and embodied the law when there were still no clear judicial texts or
organized government structures to follow. These measures helped establish the
administrative basis for the future colony of Vieques.
Teophile Le Guillou was not only an administrator but a letrado who produced
prolific written texts in an island described by Spanish bureaucrats as "governed
without written precepts that give the one in charge and the one obeying the
norms of their respective conduct" {Documentacin: 210).' His thoughts, actions
and historical interpretations were written down in trilingual records. These
texts, written in Spanish, English and French and safeguarded in archives across
the Atlantic, have been able to travel through time with more clarity and urgency
than most of the records produced by his predecessors, contemporaries and close
successors. Thus, historians, playing their part in imagining Vieques, are prone
to engage Le Guillou's assessments like the following passage in his Compendio
Topogrfico, estadstico e histrico de la Isla Espaola de Vieques:
Vieques must be considered the key to Puerto Rico, from whom it s inseparable.
From the year 1493 when discovered by the Admiral Columbus to 1828, that island
was inhabited by the Carib Indians, filibusters, pirates, deserters, evildoers, thieves,
corsairs and underground dealers. Sometimes these have played their part together.
This enchanting island has been witness to scenes capable of being exalted by a
great poet, more so if some episodes from the good neighbors of Trtola and Saint
Thomas were included, then it would be a complete drama that would rage in Paris.
Of all these qualities of individuals, the Indians were the less savages; and surely
the Caribs were not the most barbarous. [Then Captain Teophile Le Guillou reached
Vieques on his brigantine Cadeln on May 1,1823.] Order started to be established.
745-52)H

This eariy colonization narrative shared Jos de la Higuera's concern with unwanted
others inhabiting Vieques. The excerpt also harmonized with the virginity debate
discussed above insofar as it juxtaposed an untamable 1493-1828 era to a more civilized
post-1828 Vieques. The chronological break marked 1828 as the foundational conjuncture
when the Spanish colony of Vieques started to take shape. Le Guillou's emphasis
on the year 1828 might have responded to various factors. First, the 1828 Vieques
Population Census identified the existence of an island-community starting to
revolve around agriculture.'^ Second, Francisco Rosell was appointed in 1828
military commander of Vieques. Lastly, a concrete plan for the formal organization
of the colony, titled Memoria del Gobernador de Vieques sobre elfomento de lia. Tsla,

was submitted to Sanjuan on behalf of the Viequense community in December of

1828. The Memoria was the most important document produced in the island until
then. Yet, contrary to what the name might suggest, the document was drafted and
signed on behalf of 'the inhabitants of Vieques' by Le Guillou. Francisco Rosell was
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illiterate and dependant on Le Guillou's literary services. Thus, the emphasis on the
year 1828 has ultimately highlighted for later generations Le Guillou's involvement as a
prominent actor in the colonization drama (documentacin: 3-4, 474, 753). Such narratives
and emphases have fostered foundational narratives detailing how, if the Caribs
had consecrated the Viequense earth in 1514, Teophile Le Guillou during 1828-1843
disciplined the unruly island and established the basis of the future Spanish Vieques.
As fate would have it, however, the colony was formally founded only after his death.
Labor

The Spanish colony of Vieques, dependent on but not integrated with Puerto Rico,
was officially founded in 1844. Still, it represented at the time a project more than
a reality. The small island was a disparate mosaic of languages, religions, races and
cultures."^ The dilemma for imperial officials now stationed in Madrid, San Juan
and Vieques was to subtly harmonize a colony of foreigners dispersed throughout
the island with the aim of achieving a secured Spanish dependency. Following the
Crown's orders, in 1841 the Governor of Puerto Rico Santiago Mndez de Vigo
formed a commission to suggest appropriate measures for developing Vieques
without attracting international attention. Out of the numerous recommendations
came the 1844 establishment of the parish-capital of Isabel II on the northern
coast of Vieques. In accordance with Spanish urban traditions, the town's plaza
was gradually surrounded by the most important religious, governmental and social
structures.Thefoundationof the town and the habilitation of a nearby port led to
the congregation of settlers in the island's capital.
Another measure in the creation of the stable Spanish dependency
actually started as an 1831 solution to Spain's inability to properly claim Vieques.
The 1831 Royal Order proscribing the exercise of authority over or the collection
of taxes from English and Danish citizens set the precedent for subsequent
fiscal policies favoring less governmental intervention and economic impositions
in the island. In turn, the 1841 Commission proposed that for a period of 15
years Vieques would not be charged the territorial and commercial taxes
imposed in Puerto Rico. The entrance of foreign merchandise without the
added 6 percent tax officially gave Vieques the free port status that held de facto
since 1831. Even if originally designed to appease Danish and English complaints,
the free port status and other fiscal privileges allowed local commerce to flourish
and spurred the young colony's economic growth. In 1828 for example, a total
of 124 acres were cultivated in Vieques, out of which 10 were dedicated to
the sugarcane. In 1834 the total had grown to 1,447 acres with 196 employed
on sugar. The number of slaves, consequently, grew from 152 in 1834 to 369
in 1845. The 143 percent increase of slaves in 12 years evidences Vieques's
economic growth {Documentacin: 209, 462-3, 721, 733, 803-4). Slavery, however,
was gradually replaced throughout the 19th century with immigrant labor from
nearby Caribbean islands.
The most assertive step taken by the Spanish empire to colonize Vieques was
the 1845-1855 construction of the Fortn Conde de Mirasol. The fort, named
after the Governor of Puerto Rico Rafael de Aristegui y Vlez, embodied many
things at once. The diplomatic war over Vieques had not ended. Yet the military
building evidenced Spain's pretensions to physically possess the island through
claims to the exclusive right to exercise violence. The Spanish Empire,
aiming for the dominion of its law in the young colony, began to flex its muscle.
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The investment in the fort, the last one constructed by Spain in the Americas,
also evidenced the strategic intentions behind the island's colonization.
These intentions, defended by Colonel Flinter, made clear that Vieques's
identity was truly intended as an outpost to Puerto Rico. Vieques needed to
be secured in order to make Puerto Rico safe. The fort, in turn, formed part
of the defense system of the Puerto Rican archipelago and of the weakened
Spanish Empire in the Americas. Still, the Fortn was never finished. Nor did
its cannons ever fire a single shot to defend Vieques from an enemy attack,
not even when the United States of America laid siege to the island in 1898. The fort
might not have been employed for defense. It did, however, play an important part
in disciplining the heterogeneous local population. The military structure, according
to Robert Rabin, became early on a prison. Its focus, in turn, shifted from foreign
aggressors to the enemies within (Olazagasti and Rabin 1991). The Fortn Conde de
Mirasol, however, did not cease to be a symbol of Spanish control over Vieques to
other empires. The structure's presence and Isabel II's prosperity helped convince
England to formally renounce its claims over Vieques in 1864.'^

Yet the military building evidenced Spain's

pretensions to physically possess the island through
claims to the exclusive right to exercise violence.
The year 1864 was a crucial one for Vieques. With Denmark relinquishing
claims over Vieques and with England's formal renunciation of Crab Island,
the Spanish colony of Vieques was officially incorporated as the 8th Military
Department in Puerto Rico. As suggested by the Carib name "Small Island,"
Vieques's identity had for centuries been conceived as relational to Puerto
Rico. In fact, many Spanish officials in Sanjuan throughout the 19th century
considered it only a matter of time before the smaller island was integrated to
the neighboring colony. In the 1850s Vieques's population was reaching the
2,000 mark. The total was subject to a migratory influx of itinerant workers from
neighboring colonies. In addition, the island's annual exportation of commodities
like sugar exceeded the o,ooo pesos. Due to the population and commercial
growth officials expressed that the progress of Vieques was such that it should
be assimilated within Puerto Rico politically and economically as it already was
judicially {Documentacin: 209). The inhabitants of Vieques must have had the
same expectations. Yet they were not consulted in the incorporation process
undertaken after 184. As would be typical of colonial relationships, the process
was dictated from Madrid and Sanjuan. Such an incorporation did not sit well
with members of the Viequense ruling sector, who considered adverse the new
responsibilities and stipulations imposed on Vieques.
Vieques' fiscal privileges and free port status had caused heated controversy and the
passionate taking of sides since their very inception. Opinions diverged on whether
Puerto Rico's defense should be ensured by allowing exceptions to thefiscalpolicies.
At the heart of the debate was whether Vieques, as a separate island, should bear the
fiscal burden imposed on the rest of the Puerto Rican municipalities. The divergence
is exemplified in the 1840s clash between the Governors of Puerto Rico and the
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Intendente de Hacienda Manuel Jos Cerero over the restriction versus the fostering
of Vieques' commerce.'** Aguadilla's Customs Administrator Antonio Caldern
argued to the central government in 25 July 1846, that, "the wanting to encourage
Vieques at such great expenses to Puerto Rico and the Nation is the wanting to kill a
mother in the midst of delivery to save the life of a fetus that stilJ has not been seen"
{Documentacin: 704)."' The problem, as identified by people like Caldern, was that the
fiscal exception made for Vieques burdened the main island with the younger colony's
administrative costs. The exceptions, furthermore, facilitated both contraband and
competition to local and Spanish produces by allowing the introduction of tax-exempt
foreign commodities through Vieques. Yet Antonio Caldern's words are more than
simply representative of those opposed to Vieques' privileges, for his quote might
actually be the first metaphorical construction of the Puerto Rico-Vieques relationship
as that of mother and child. Still, the child, as acknowledged by both Caldern and
the Crown that endorsed the fiscal privileges, was not fully born in 1846. What
Vieques would become was yet to be seen, but the delivery, according to some in
Puerto Rico, was already taking a heavy toll on the mother.
Birth

Twenty-four years after the foundation of the Spanish colony of Vieques, and with
at least nine sugar haciendas and two cattle estancias established in the island, the
Crown's opinions shifted. Spain declared through the 13 May 1868 Royal Decree that
the child was alive and kicking. The decree ordered Vieques' residents to start paying
subsidiary contributions to the Royal Treasury. These amounted to the percent of
the island's registered wealth, or to 3,701 escudos in 1868-69 {Documentos: 6 June 22,
1868). As an 14 October 1873 Hacienda report argued, the tributary exceptions had
become an unjustified privilege favoring a portion of Puerto Rican inhabitants in
detriment of the others {Documentacin: 847). The report detailed the characteristic
posture o Hacienda since the T840S supporting a no-privilege policy. The stance,
however, had more ample support in San Juan by the 1870s, so that by 1873 the
Diputacin Provincial, acting under the 1870 Ley de Ayuntamientos, incorporated
Vieques within Puerto Rico as another municipality. The island's last privilege,
its free port status, was taken away seven years later.^" By 1880 Vieques had been
integrated to the colony of Puerto Rico.
Vieques's wealthiest residents, mostly merchants and hacendados with permanent
representation as "major contributors" in the Municipal Board, were in dismay at the
prospect of such a dire predicament.^' The island had been dependent on Puerto
Rico throughout the 19th century. Yet the imposed integration process commenced
after 1864 made very clear the residents' subordinated bargaining position with respect
to Madrid and San Juan. Sensing that a new language was needed to appeal to their
two metropolises, the Governor of Vieques Toms Font and a group of merchants,
hacendados and other landowners signed a collective petition in 21 July 1871 stating that:
To save itself Vieques needs a paternal and economic government that instead of
imposing new burdens, sets it free if possible of the ones that today oppress it; it
needs its port to remain frankly open to foreigners, because from abroad, it receives
the elements of its sustenance...Puerto Rico is a virile nation that counts with
centuries of existence, Vieques, Sir, that hardly counts with some years, cannot be
compared with Puerto Rico in the political or in the administrative. No country in the
world, Sir, has been able to produce benefits to its Metropolitan Government at its

28th year of being settled. Vieques is a fragile child from who cannot be expected the
work of an adult; its strength would be exhausted and it would die of consumption.
(Documentacin:

The petitioners argued in 1871 against Vieques' further incorporation to Puerto Rico.
They argued instead for derogating the recently established subsidy contributions
and for maintaining the free port status. Their argument employed the child-parent
metaphor previously articulated by Antonio Caldern. Yet in 1871 the metaphor
was designed to appeal to the sense of paternal responsibility over a frail offspring.
If Puerto Rico had indeed procreated Vieques, it could not leave the fragile infant
to die. On the contrary, the virile father had to make sacrifices for the newborn if it
ever hoped to reap the rewards of successful child rearing in the future. The irony
was that to save the child the parent had to intrude in the child's life as little as
possible. The parent, furthermore, had to assent to foreign intervention. Apparently,
the parent could not provide all the nourishing its newborn needed. One thing is
evident though: by the 1870s the child had definitely been born.
Baptism

After England's formal renunciation, the argument that Vieques, as a young islandcommunity, was an exceptional case in need of special attention fell on the deaf ears
of colonial officials. Subsequently, for many Viequenses the years 1864-1880 evolved
into a historical turning point for the worst. If by the mid-i9th century Vieques had
been a prospering sugar colony, the post-1868 policies imposed from Madrid and San
Juan bred an air of pessimism among the Viequense society. The island's upper sectors
faced the mounting municipal deficit, the heavier tax burden and the more expensive
imports. Meanwhile the lower strata faced unemployment and, if non-Spanish citizens,
deportation and the forfeiture of work contracts.^' In the words ot the Municipal
Board member Jos Garca Marn, "It is also said that Vieques heads to its ruin, that
it is decaying especially since it was assimilated to the other towns of this Province
[Puerto Rico], imposing the payment ofthe subsidy that had not satisfied before"
{Documentacin: 838),^4 For Garcia Marn, as for many of his colleagues, the May 1868
Royal Decree had been collapsed with the 1873 incorporation of Vieques to Puerto
Rico. The collapse made both equally suspicious and detrimental to the welfare of
Vieques. The belief led to support ofthe separation from Puerto Rico in order to
continue under a more direct Spanish colonial regime. The late 19th-century separatist
sentiment in Vieques must be contextualized. The island's Municipal Board, composed
of hacendados, merchants and appointed officials from Puerto Rico, was hardly
representative of Vieques's population. The local population, in fact, was quite diverse
in terms of ethnicity, language and religion. The diversity combined with the limited
communication venues with Puerto Rico did not provide fertile ground in Vieques for
the sense of Puerto Rican-ness developing across parts ofthe main island.^^^ Thus, the
incorporation to the colony of Puerto Rico was hardly a celebrated event in Vieques.
The debate about the Puerto Rico Vieques relationship, however, was about to be
redefined by a new historical conjuncture that drastically altered the colonial scenario.
On 10 September 1898, the flag of the United States of America was raised for the
first time in Vieques. The 10 December 1898 Treaty of Paris that officially ended
the Hispanic-Cuban-American war transferred the Puerto Rican archipelago to
the United States. As had previously been the case with Spain, the United States
coveted the islands mainly for military strategic reasons. Although Empires
[175]

changed, Puerto Rico remained the key to the Cahbbeati. Only tbis time the
island of Culebra, located just north of Vieques, was considered to be the key to
Puerto Rico. As Culebra with its coal station appeared in the foregroutid of U.S.
strategic considerations, Vieques temporarily slipped into the backgroutid of the
new imperial drama.
Throughout the first three decades of the 20th century, Vieques kept an
agricultural economy based on a prospering sugar industry. The prosperity earned
the island the nickname of Tacita de Oro. The main changes resided in the improved
technologies, the replacement of an immigrant for a Viequense-Puerto Rican labor
force, the hacendados' displacement by companies like the United Puerto Rico
Sugar Company, and the opening of the U.S. market.^f" Tbese changes resulted in
the consolidation of four major sugar mills; Arcadia, Santa Maria, Puerto Real and
Playa Grande. Tbese four mills tbat came to occupy a significant portion of Vieques'
landscape, especially in the western half of tbe island, reached their zenith during
the early ig2os. Tbe last tbree mills, for example, produced a total of 17,276 tons of
sugar in 1920 and a total of 15,531 tons in 1922. Playa Grande, however, reacbed its
maximum production of 13,088 tons of sugar in 1928 (Bonnet 1976: 125-9). Sometime
in the midst of this sugar world Luis Llorns Torres (1876-1944), tbe Puerto Rican
from the mountainous municipality ofjayuya, dreamt of Vieques. Tbe dream took
the shape of a poem he titled "La Isla Nena."
Vieques: don Pepe Benitez,
Cayita, (caa y cancin),
vegas del sol y de azcar,
playas de coco y de sol!...
La isla madre, la isla encinta,
rompi en el mar su dolor;
la isla madre abri su entraa
y la isla nena naci:
Vieques, Isabel Segunda,
Cayita, caa y cancin.
La caa canta en el llano,
y en el monte el ruiseor...
La isla madre abri su entraa
y la isla nena naci:
del herldico cordero
se fue a la mar un velln;
polluelo que de debajo
de las alas se sali;
becerrito, becerrito,
becerrito corredor,
que la leche toda espuma
de la mar desgarit...
La isla nena es de la madre
que la pari con dolor;
de la madre que al parirla
se sali del corazn.
(Llorns 1967: 488-9).

Vieques: Don Pepe Benitez,

Cayita, (cane and song);
lowlands of sun and sugar
beaches of coconuts and of sun!...
The mother island, the pregnant island,
broke into the sea her pain,
the mother island opened her entrails,
and the daughter island was born;
Vieques, Isabel Segunda,
Cayita, cane and song.
The cane sings in the plain,
and in the mountain the mockingbird...
The mother island opened her entrails,
and the daughter island was born:
of the heraldic lamb
escaped to the sea a tuft of wool:
chick that from beneath
the wings escaped;
little caif, little calf,
little running calf,
that the milk all foam
of the sea lost...
The daughter island belongs to the mother
that painfully gave birth to her;
to the mother that in giving her birth
lost her heart.
(author's translation)

[176]

Through a swift stroke of the pen Luis Llorns Torres baptized the Puerto Rican child
conceived in the i6th century and born in 1868. She was a girl, and her name u'ould be
Isla Nena. The name, roughly translatable to Girl, Child and/or Daughter Island,
wotild be a constant reminder of the familial bond shared between daughter and mother.
Yet Isla Nena, according to Llorns Torres, by the early 20th century was no longer the
fragile child of 1871 whose future was uncertain. Her identity was better defined.
She was sunshine, coconuts and songs, but above all she was sugar. Not only were her
lowlands and plains inscribed with sugarcane, but her name cotild be collapsed with that
of Pepe Benitez, the hacendado who consolidated under his control the Resolucin,
Santa Helena and Playa Grande sugar mills in the western half of Vieques.^7
The sugar baptism Luis Llorns Torres gave to Vieques could not conjure a sweet
future for the island. The Santa Maria sugar mill had its last harvest in 1922, and
Puerto Real followed in 1927. Playa Grande, outlasting all the other sugar mills in
Vieques, had its last grinding in 1942 before being expropriated by the U.S. Navy.
Arcadia's closure must have preceded these three. The plantations of Puerto Real
and Playa Grande were handled from 1946 to 1967 by the Compaa Agrcola de
Puerto Rico. The Compaa shipped the sugarcanes to mills in Humacao and
after 1950 in Fajardo. This government agency could not revive Vieques's sugar
economy, which had rapidly decelerated after the mid-i92os when sugar prices
globally plummeted (Bonnet 1976). The deceleration created an economic vacuum
for the 1930s in an island with resources already unequally distributed. Isla Nena's
misfortunes, however, would not end any time soon. If anything, during the 1940s
they got worse.
Innocence lost

The United States' 1903 establishment in the Fortn Conde de Mirasol of the first
Caribbean Magnetic and Seismologic Observatory represented a prelude of things
to come (Olazagasti and Rabin 1991). Vieques, under the new imperial hands,
became a militarized colonial laboratory part of the Roosevelt Roads base centered
in the eastern Puerto Rican municipality of Ceiba.^'^ Through two massive waves
during the years 1941-1942 and 1947-1948, the United States Congress, with the
approval of the Puerto Rican legislature, expropriated two-thirds of Vieques.
The Naval Ammunition Facility (NAF), covering some 8,000 acres, was situated
in the western third, and the Inner Range of the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training
Facility (AFWTA), covering some 11,900 acres, occupied the eastern third.
The AFWTA, in turn, was divided into the 11,000-acre Eastern Maneuver Area
and the 900-acre Live Impact Area. As their names suggest, NAF was designed to
store ammunition and AFWTA to practice with it (IJ.S. Special Panel 1999)In other words, the western and eastern thirds of the island evolved into a colonial
landscape reserved for military practices and experimentations. The change in land
usage left the remaining middle third of the island populated by approximately 10,000
Viequenses-Puerto Ricans-U.S. citizens trapped between weapons and bombardments."'
Since early colonial times Viequenses had been accustomed to Uve dispersed
throughout the island. The foundation of Isabel II attracted people to the urban
center, and the gradual concentration of sugar mills in the western half of the island
favored the creation of sugar-centered communities.' Still, many Viequenses
scattered their dwellings and plots of land dedicated to subsistence agriculture
throughout the Viequense landscape (Soto 2001). Such dispersal came to an abrupt
end as Viequenses were squeezed into a civilian area one third the size of the island

during the 1940s. Many, having witnessed the razing and burning of their former
communities, relocated their zinc and cardboard houses to slums bearing tragically
wistful names like Monte Santo, a barrio without mountains or evident blessings
in the 1940s. Many other Viequenses simply dwelled under the sky, for neither the
planned Isabel II nor the slums that quickly enveloped the town could sustain the
population influx (Villegas 2001: 9-12). Those who the island's middle stretch could
not sustain were free to emigrate. The preferred destinations were Puerto Rico's
main island, St. Croix and the United States. Exiled communities, nonetheless, kept
in touch with the island through civic organizations like Puerto Rico's Asociacin de
Hijos de Vieques and New York's Club Viequense.?' Through these organizations
exiled Viequenses nostalgically re-imagined Vieques.
Emigration, as evidenced in the 1940s and again in the 1960s, was encotiraged by
the Puerto Rican government and the U.S. Navy. The Puerto Rican government's
endorsement of emigration to the United States as a solution to the archipelago's
unemployment coupled with the Navy's attempts to expropriate the complete island
of Vieques. During 1958-1964 the Department of Defense (DOD) and the White
House secretly pushed forth plans to expropriate the complete islands of Vieques and
Culebra. The negotiations of Project V-C were confidentially conducted between
a Washington-based group headed by the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
and a San Juan-based committee led by the Governor Luis Muoz Marn. In these
negotiations the Puerto Rican Governor, trapped between defending the needs of
Viequenses and appearing pro-American, skillfijlly argued against the expropriations.
In a 28 December 1961 letter to President John F. Kennedy, Governor Muoz Marn
wrote that among the many adverse political, social and human repercussions of
expropriating Vieques was the fact that:
There are about 8,000 people in Vieques. They and their ancestors have lived there
for many generations. Their roots have grown around family, neighbors, schools,
churches, houses, land and jobs. The project involves forcible uprooting of these
peopleeven removal of the bodies from the cemeteries because, we are told, the
people of Vieques will not be allowed to return to visit the graves. (Vlez 2002:194)

The Governor's letter had the purpose of recapitulating his concerns about Project
V-C expressed to the President in a December i6th conversation. In these occasions
Muoz Marn emphasized to President Kennedy that Viequenses had inhabited the
island for many generations. These people, Muoz added, were very serious about
paying tribute to their dead, especially in All Saints' Day. If removed from the island,
Viequenses would have to be allowed back at least once every year, or their dead
would have to be unearthed and expropriated with them. The Governor's arguments
had not deterred the DOD's expropriation plans. On the contrary, the DOD,
as noted by Muoz in the letter, was willing to unearth the dead. This was the reason
why the Sanjuan committee mockingly renamed the project the Dracula Plan.i=
Muoz's arguments, however, did convince President Kennedy. The President,
weighing in the negative international publicity that such an expropriation would
entail, decided to stay ciear of the dead. Yet the DOD tried to secretly revive
the project when President Kennedy died and continued to formulate unfriendly
measures designed to strangle the Viequense population (Melendez 1982; McCaffrey
2002; Vlez 2002).33 As Spain had previously erased the Carib presence, the U.S.
Navy hoped in the 20th century to vacate Vieques of unwanted settlers.
[178]

Faced with the Nav/s claims over Vieques, a section of the island's inhabitants
began to openly denounce its practices as contrary to the island's progress. In 1964
Viequenses mobilized against the DOD's revival of Project V-C stipulating the
expropriation of the civilians' southern stretch of the island. Nine years later
Viequenses, with the felt presence of the poltica! left, forced the Navy to withdraw
frotn the municipality's patron saint festival and, subsequently, from the island's
cultural arena. Then in 1977 a cross-partisan mobilization headed by the prostatehood Mayor Radams Tirado (1976-1980) fought to prevent the approval by
the Puerto Rican government of a Navy aviation easement over Vieques's southern
coast (Tirado 2003; Guadalupe 2001). The sector of Viequense society denouncing
Navy practices, although marked by the left, defied allegiances to political parties.
Through such mobilizations, in addition, Viequenses began to appropriate LIorns
Torres's "Isla Nena" with an Albizu-Soto twist.-W For Pedro Albizu Campos the
U.S. Navy's activities in Vieques were a vivisection of the Puerto Rican nation.
The vivisection, as Pedro Juan Soto acknowledged through his phrase "colony of a
colony," was carried out vi^ith the assent of the Puerto Rican government. Post-i96os
interpretations, in turn, embraced Vieques as an island child, an island daughter.
Yet the daughter had been abandoned by its mother, who handed the child to a
foreigner. The foreigner raped her. As the late Viequense poet Angel Rigau wrote:
Con su mar circunscrito, dem sus campos;
alambrados sus ptimos terrenos
por el "U.S.A Property" y el
"No Trespassing"
Vieques para el nativo es suelo adverso
y hasta en sus propios lares, relegado,
ya con su isla y su mar, ni el parentesco,
y abocado a no hallar un da cualquiera
ni un terrn sepulcral para sus muertos
pues la tierra, en su mxima existencia
es de la Base Naval y de su imperio
(Rigau 1984: 33).

With its sea circumscribed, as her land;

fenced her best lands
by the "U.S.A. Property" and the
"No Trespassing"
Vieques for the native is enemy soil
and even her own pastures relegated,
with her island and sea, no more kinship,
and driven to not finding any given day
sepulchral earth for her dead
since the land, in its maximum existence
belongs to the Naval Base and her empire.
(author's translation)

Vieques, following Rigau, was no longer the sugar paradise LIorns Torres
envisioned. The island, prostituted and scarred with barbwire, now read "U.S.A.
Property" and "No Trespassing." Isla Nena had become so estranged tbat neither
the living nor the dead could find solace in her soil. This reading of the orphaned
and raped Isla Nena was as much a denunciation as it was a wake up call.
Loved

In a culture where honor and manhood were based on the worth and protection of
women, the Navy's abuse of Isla Nena was symbolically emasculating the Viequense
population. The affront that had over the years been grown with street violence
and sexual assaults was further fed with each bomb explosion in the island's eastern
shores.15 Then, on 6 February 1978, Viequense men decided to respond to Isla
Nena's pleas. Viequense fishermen, professing their right to perform their vocation
and make an honest living, decided to tell the Navy and its NATO allies that there
was indeed going to be a fight. Facing a three-week-long fishing prohibition due to
NATO exercises in the island, the fishermen took to the sea vnth shngshots literally

in hand. For hours their small boats outmaneuvered the NATO ships and
interposed themselves as human barriers between the military vessels and Isla
Nena. Their grassroots and very desperate act of civil disobedience was successil
in stopping, if only momentarily, the live ammunition practice (Vieques Libre;
McCaffrey 2002: 74-7). For a couple of hours Isla Nena breathed more easily.
The fishermen and Viequenses in general, united under the Cruzada Pro Rescate
de Vieques, continued challenging the military practices in Vieques. Their feats, as
ingenious as they were rebellious, attracted the attention ofthe Puerto Rican media
and audience in a way that previous Viequense mobilizations against Navy practices
had not. The charisma of their spokesperson Carlos Zenn and the theatricality of
the fishermen's efforts, so well recorded by mediums like documentary photography,
drew the Puerto Rican public, whether approving or disapproving of the events, into
the drama ofa small island many had never visited J"^ This public, in turn, took an
active part in the re-imagining of Isla Nena. The Puerto Rican left appeared at the
forefront ofthe initiative. This sector encompassed different groups like the proindependence (PIP) and the socialists (PSP) that had come together during the early
1970s to protest the Navy's presence in Culebra. Through mobilizations and cultural
productions these groups infused the historical conjuncture with an anti-imperialist
motif not provided by the fishermen. It was, furthermore, as if these groups were
trying to prove Isla Nena had never been orphaned. In the words ofthe Vega Altaborn activist Nilda Medina, former PIP and PSP partisan, Vieques "was an island
that like Culebra was totally ignored by us the Puerto Ricans From the Isla Grande"
(Medina 2003).37 This was a situation she sought to personally address as she moved
to Vieques in 1981 with the clear idea of joining the struggle against the Navy.
Out of this context arose Haciendo Punto en Otro Son's 1978 song "Isla Nena":
Hay una Isla Nena en lontananza,
que es como la Isla Grande en carne viva.
Hay cantos de pitirre en la Esperanza
y hay deseos de amar y dar la vida.
Quietud interrumpida a cada instante,
nios despiertos en la madrugada,
el sol va despuntando por el este
y en la tibia maana se oye una nana.
Hay miles de pedazos de esta tierra,
con miles de ocasiones de injusticia.
Hay una isla chica en que la guerra,
roba tiempo al amor y a la caricia.
Un da que mi cancin se hizo oleaje,
un da, que repos en la blanca arena,
le di mi corazn y mi coraje,
al pueblo y al sentir de la Isla Nena.
Hay una Isla Nena en lontananza
(Haciendo Punto en Otro Son 1978).

There is an Isla Nena in the horizon,

that is like the Isla Grande in flesh.
There are bird songs in Esperanza
and desires to love and give life.
Tranquility interrupted at every instant,
children woken up at dawn,
the sun is surfacing in the east
and in the warm morning there's a lullaby.
There are a thousand pieces of this earth
with a thousand occasions of injustices
there is a little island in which war
steals time from love and for a caress.
One day my song made itself into waves
one day that I rested on its white sands
I gave my heart and my courage
to the people and the feeling of Isla Nena.
There is an Isla Nena in the horizon,
(author's translation)

Written by the Guaynabo-born Silverio Prez, "Isla Nena" evidences the

uncomfortable apprehension ofthe distance separating Puerto Rico from Vieques
and main islanders from Viequenses. Prez, as the main island viewer, acknowledges
that he looks at Isla Nena from a distance. Yet, his gaze brings the island closer
[180I

to him and provides him with the realization that the militarized Isla Nena is one
of the "thousand pieces of this earth." If Vieques was indeed an integral part of
Puerto Rico, then Prez, as a fellow Puerto Rican, could not but become one with
the Viequenses. Still, the song ends with Isla Nena again being watched from a
distance. To the extent that Prez vindicates the Isla Nena-Isla Grande relationship,
Viequenses remain trapped between the categories of "us" and "others."
The relationship, in turn, distances as well as subordinates Vieques to Puerto Rico.
The separation expressed between the narrator and Isla Nena, however, did not
deter Viequenses from appropriating the song as their municipal hymn.
Viequenses were internally divided as to what the fishermen's actions meant.
For many Viequenses caught in the midst of the Cold War, the U.S. military was
the ultimate embodiment of democracy and freedom. Thus, even though the
fishermen's movement was headed and endorsed by pro-statehood sympathizers
like Zenon and Mayor Tirado, their critiques of the Navy were seen by some as
suspiciously anti-American. Puerto Rico's late 1970s and eariy 1980s political
climate in general was polarized. The government's repression of leftist and proindependence stances encouraged the atmosphere of intolerance toward critiques
of U.S. policy. A significant portion of Puerto Rican society, in turn, considered the
fishermen's protest anti-American and regarded the events unfolding in Vieques
with disapproving eyes. Yet neither the internal division of Viequenses nor the
disapproval of a considerable sector of Puerto Rican society provoked the grassroots
movement's demise. The movement finally receded in 1983 with the signing of the
Memorandum of Mutual Understanding between the pro-atatehood Governor of
Puerto Rico, Carlos Romero Barcel, and the U.S. Navy. The accord, ending the
legal battle between the signing parties, basically stipulated that the Navy would
cooperate with the civilian population and help protect the local environment if
allowed to continue their military practices in Vieques. The Navy, however, did not
do what it had committed to do, and the Puerto Rican government did not oversee
or enforce the agreement (Garcia 2001:102). The Memorandum thus resulted in the
perpetuation of the status quo. The expectation surrounding the conciliatory pact
undercut the impulse of the fishermen's movement.
Moribound

During the 1980s and 1990s civil resistance to the Navy's presence and practices
in Vieques resurfaced. While the resistance was not as widely followed inside and
outside the island as with the fishermen, the protests against the installation of the
Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar (ROTHR) in the Naval Ammunition Facility
marked a shift in the way Isla Nena was imagined. Environmentalist sensibilities
arose as community activists denounced the ROTHR as toxic to human beings
and the Viequense environment in general. Isla Nena, dissected, enclosed and
bombarded, was rapidly becoming unrecognizable to Viequenses, and not only
because they were unable to roam two-thirds of the island as Angel Rigau had
complained during the early 1980s. What had been a highly sexualized island
constructed through a feminized discourse of bright lushness and fertility continued
to be so only in tourist brochures. Over the later half of the 20th century Isla Nena's
springs had dried up, and her fruit trees were slowly replaced by the thorny bayahonda
tree. The environmental changes were accompanied by a sharp growth, especially
noticeable by the mid-1980s, of cancer and heart and cerebral vascular diseases
among Viequenses. These were diseases that people like Rafael A. Rivera Castao,
181]

M.D., and Rafael Cruz Prez, environmental engineer, had been linking to
the polluting practices of the Navy in the island (Rivera 2001; Cruz 1988).^
The Isla Nena that had been sunshine, sugar cane and coconuts was evolving at the
close of the 20th century into a barren and polluted landscape, into one big graveyard
unable to reproduce anything that was not death. Isla Nena, orphaned and moribund,
agonized as the cancer-stricken bodies multiplied.
ancer, however devastating an illness, represents a silent and gradual process
of loss endured by individuals and families who usually confme their suffering
to domestic spaces. The confinement can render invisible the sickness and
its effects. In Vieques, the deadly invisibility of cancer did not provide the stimulus
needed for the community to collectively engage in Isla Nena's revival process.
The engagement followed the 19 April 1999 death of David Sanes. The erroneous
bombing of the Viequense's watch post inside Camp Garcia (AFWTA) ignited four
years of civil disobedience against the Navy's activities in Vieques. The unprecedented
union of Viequenses and Puerto Ricans cemented a strong network of civil
disobedience groups, with ample international support, that established camps in
Navy restricted territory. If the Viequense fishermen had been human barriers in the
sea, the civil disobedience camps were community barriers in the shores.

The civil disobedience groups were not centrally organized. Yet they collectively
accomplished one very important feat: the inscription with Viequense-Puerto Rican
meaning of the two-thirds of Vieques that had been voided of such geographical
imaginings. The ceremonial placing of a white wooden cross where David Sanes died
and the subsequent re-baptizing of the site as Mount David began the ingenious
appropriation of a space that had been sealed for more than 60 years. The symbolic
white crosses proliferated along the island, claiming places like Mount David and
the entrance of Camp Garcia. But the crosses were not the sole landscape markers
with a religious motif Deep in restricted territory the civil disobedients built a rustic
chapel further consecrating Navy land, a strategy previously employed in Culebra.
The chapel provided witnesses with an unfolding drama that contrasted land usage:
the Navy destroyed while Viequenses communed. Civil disobedients made the
contrast a central part oftheir anti-Navy campaign. They published in the Internet
documentary videos and photographs of a polluted landscape of missile craters,
rusted airplanes and dead wildlife. These visual texts portrayed a clear intention to
expose affected landscape and wildlife that the Navy had agreed to protect in the
1983 Memorandum and whose conditions contemporary environmental sensibilities
rendered unacceptable. Civil disobedients further appropriated Navy sites through
subversions. Disobedients, for example, hung a hammock from the cannon of an
abandoned tank they further decorated by inserting through its barrel the Puerto
Rican flag (Vieques Libre). The transformation added a sense of tense domesticity
and Puerto Rican-ness to the site. These publicized subversions, photographs
and videos published, for example, in the webpage of Vieques Libre helped a
wider community physically absent claim the landscape through particular visual
representations of what the Navy had tried so hard to conceal: a craterous landscape
filled with military junk.
If Isla Nena had indeed evolved into a big graveyard, no site conveyed the idea
better than the cemetery symbolically established at the entrance of Camp Garcia.
Although dedicated in 24 February 2001, "To the memory of the Viequenses that
have been victims of the military accidents and the environmental pollution," Camp
Garcia's cemetery was made in honor of the Viequense child Milivy. An illustration

of her bald and cancer-stricken face looking forward with the printed words
"Peace and Health for Vieques" loomed near the numerous crosses, as ii asking
the transient viewer to make sure she did not literally make the journey into death.
Milivy's centrality in the consecration of the military base's entrance was not random.
She embodied the unrecognizable Isla Nena. She was the young daughter who had
not had the chance to fully live, but was already agonizing. In fact, Milivy and isla
Nena were united by the sickness they shared. The same pollutants that lodged in
Isla Nena's mango trees, not readily visible but imagined in all their pervasiveness,
circulated through Milivy's veins. Thus, Milivy's pleas could not but appeal to
Viequenses in general, especially to parents. Sadly, the five-year-old died on 17
November 2002. Meanwhile Vieques, some say, convalesces.
Conclusion: The making of a virgin

Throughout the last six centuries the inhabitants of Vieques have engaged in a
long and violent process to forge a stable island community. From the times of the
Caribs to those of the U.S. Navy, with the possible exception of the late 19th and
early 20th century, different empires have opposed such plans for very different
reasons. The two recurring themes in this colonial history have been the strategic
importance assigned to Vieques with respect to European maritime voyages to the
Caribbean, and the deilnition of Vieques's identity as subordinated to the Puerto
Rican main island. In this sense, the attempts to colonize Vieques have been
exceedingly militaristic and the welfare of its inhabitants has come in second place
to the needs of distant and not so distant metropolises. To meet such challenges and
survive, would-be Viequenses have had to define and redefme themselves and their
community in close dialogue with definitions from outside the island. In the midst
of the ingenious maneuvering Isla Nena was conceived and born, evolved and several
times almost died. Such a capacity to be born, to react and adapt to the environment
and to possibly perish, presents Isla Nena as a living being. The life endowed to such
a representation, by Viequenses and non-Viequenses, has established an organic
relationship between the island and the community Isla Nena embodies. Viequenses
and Isla Nena are thought to have lived together as one throughout the last three
to six centuries in the northeastern Caribbean. The temporal and spatial character
of Isla Nena, an island-community imagined through an infantile and feminine
metaphor, has legitimated the islanders' claims on Vieques's history and landscape.
To the extent that isla Nena occupies and is the island as it has evolved over the past
centuries, so Viequenses have too come to inhabit that space and time. These claims
to inhabiting Isla Nena have translated into concrete political projects designed to
face challenges like those posed by the U.S. Navy, coercive arm of the U.S. global
empire, at the closing of the 20th century.
At the opening of the 21st century, the Navy has formally left Vieques.
After the 1999 death of David Sanes the political lobbying, social mobilization and
civil disobedience carried out in Vieques, Puerto Rico and the United States forced
President Clinton to order in 1999 the future shutdown of the naval facilities in
Vieques. The ammunition depot closed during the summer of 2001, and the live fire
range followed on May 2003. The struggle to inhabit Isla Nena, as has been noted
by community activists and other scholars, is far from over because the effects of
60 years of military presence are widely felt today. Most of the former Navy lands,
for example, are currently too contaminated for human use, and the cancer rate in
Vieques remains the highest in Puerto Rico.
[183}

While the Navy is undertaking the long process of decontamination, Viequenses

still have no control over most of the island. The U.S. Congress transferred a
significant portion of the ex-Navy land to the federal agency U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
The rest of the land is either sealed off until the decontamination process is
completed or under study by the municipal government so as to decide its best usage.
The Navy, in addition, maintained ownership of the ROTHR. In the meantime,
the civilian middle third of the island has become the object of an unrestrained land
grab by North American capitalists looking to exploit the "undiscovered Spanish
Virgin Island" (Connelly 2003). Their search proves that the virginity debate engaged
by Lord Castlereagh and Conde de Fernn Nez in 1816, even after 200 years of
imperial rule and six decades of continuous bombardments, is far from settled. In the
midst of the renewed debate and the cosmetic surgeries, Vieques is being subjected
to in order to appear virgin, Viequenses are witnessing the rapid gentrification of
the mostly untitled land ofthat same civilian one-third they have now occupied for
generations (Berman 2006; McCaffrey 200). If they were uncomfortably squeezed
for the last 60 years between two military bases, they are now being squeezed out of
the civilian one-third they can hardly afford to inhabit.

[184I

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank her parents for being such compassionate storytellers, and
Lenny Urea, Juan Hernndez, Rebecca Scott and the anonymous reviewers of this essay
for their comments and suggestions.
NOTES

'
Geographical imaginings, as formulated by Pat Jess and Doreen Massey, refer to
interpretations ofthe past and present and character ofa place that can guide or justify
the future ofthe same place.
2 Michel de Certeau argues that "users," those who lack a place for empowerment,
engage in tactics like walking and other everyday practices to creatively weave spaces
they are otherwise disempowered to claim. The tactics ofthe disempowered, in turn, are
characterized by a sense of spontaneous mobility that creatively disrupts and redefines
spaces users are nonetheless unable to possess.
'
For studies of pre-Columbian indigenous cultures in Vieques see, for example, the
works of Luis Chanlatte Baik, Ivonne Nargannes Storde, Alfredo Figueroa, Miguel
Rodriguez and Diana Lpez.
4 "Los franceses, ingleses y holandeses que sucedieron a los caribes en sus islas,
adoptaron su ferocidad y barbarie; esparcieron el terror y espanto por todas las colonias
espaolas, llevndolo todo a sangre y fuego." [The present and following quotes have been
translated from Spanish to English by the author ot the article.]
5 In Puerto Rico the 1778 Real Cdula helped liberalize slave trade, gave land titles to
those already occupied or cultivated under the condition of its continued exploitation and
stated that unoccupied lands would be given to those without lands. The document also
created the towns of Arecibo, Aguada and Coamo to accompany the established Sanjuan
and San Germn, and authorized the importation of knowledgeable Catholic workers
from neighboring, mostly French, colonies along with sugar machinery and utensils. The
1815 Real Cdula de Gracias opened for 15 years all the Puerto Rican ports to commerce
with friendly nations willing to pay the high taxes imposed on the commercial exchange.
The Cdula also abolished the alcabala tax imposed on merchandise and ecclesiastical
diezmos and substituted it for a subsidio of equal or superior quantity than the alcabala.
Finally, the text permitted the immigration of Catholic foreigners from friendly nations,
promised unoccupied land to wealthy immigrants, allowed the importation of slaves
from neighboring foreign colonies, and admitted the free importation of machinery and
utensils for agriculture (Scarano 1993: 321-4, 383-6).
^ After the Haitian Revolution much ot Spanish America feared the potential power
and violence of revolted slaves. Considering that England abolished slavery in 1833, the
Puerto Rican government and settlers feared that an English Vieques would be converted
into a haven for runaway slaves and freed blacks. The haven would encourage the
massive desertion ofthe black field hands moving most ofthe 19th-century Puerto Rican
economy {Documentacin: 35).

7 Puerto Rico was tirst described as "the key to the Indies" by Baltazar dc Castro
and others in a 1529 letter to Charles V seeking, among other things, that the Emperor
would endorse the fortification of the island. The description was picked up so that, for
example, in 147 Diego de Torres Vargas described "la isla de Puerto Rico como primera
e laspoblaaas Y pvincipai custodia y llave de todas" (i.e., "the island of Puerto Rico as
the first of those settled and principal custodian and key to all") in referral to the 1643
Reales Cdulas identifying Puerto Rico as "Siendo frente y vanguardia de todas mis Indias
Occidentales y respecto de sus consecuencias la ms importante de ellas y codiciada de
los enemigos" (i.e., "Being the front and vanguard of all my West Indies and in regards to
its consequences the tnost important of them and coveted by the enemies") (Tapia 1945:
[185]

3OO; Caro 1991: 322-3). I thankjos Cruz for sharing his insights on such strategic titles
assigned to Puerto Rico.
^ Rumors circulated that Vieques's first military commander, Juan Rosell, was not
very successful in facing Spain's unwanted others. In fact, it was apparently common
knowledge in the island that whenever pirates or smugglers appeared, Rosell would hide
in the forests for as long as the visit lasted. The settlers, however, might not have had high
expectations of the military commander since he reached Vieques at the age of 45 and
was already considered an old man at the time {Documentacin: 749; Rivera 1963).
> According to Jos Bonnet Benitez the population of Vieques totaled 120 residents
in 1838,1,036 in 1845, 5,938 in 1899, 6,642 in 1900,10,425 in 1910,11,651 in 1920, 10,582 in
1930,10,362 in 1940, 9,228 in 1950, 7,210 in i960 and 7,762 in 1970 (Bonnet 1976: 118).
'" The now called Archivo General de Simancas holds documents dating from the
late 15th century to 1800. According to the Spanish Subdireccin General de Archivos
Estatales, this archive, initiated by Charles V and created by Philip II, was the first one
ever constructed as well as the first one with an archival guide. The Archivo General de
Indias located in Seville was not founded until 1785. The Archivos Generales de Indias,
Simancas y de la Corona de Aragn Home Page. 2000. Subdireccin General de Archivos
Estatales. 28 June 2005. <http://www.mcu.es/archivos/visitas/index.html>.
" "recay la conversacin sobre las riquezas de los terrenos de Vieques, y sobre la
pobreza de las Islas Vrgenes. El Sr. Presidente Hay, nico que habl francs me dijo que
esas Vrgenes eran seoritas muy decrpitas y llenas de enfermedades, que la Isla de Cabra
(Vieques), era la ms bella, ms joven y ms rica de las vrgenes. Yo le cont que Vieques
no era virgen despus de su matrimonio con la Espaa." The name "Isla de Cabra" (i.e., Goat
Island) could be a confusion with "Crab Island" which was England's name for Vieques.
Spanish officials during the early r9th century, however, stated that some foreigners
employed "Isla de Cahra" to refer to Vieques {Documentacin: 747).
'^ According to records of the Archivo Histrico Nacional in Madrid, Captain Teophile
Le Guillou reached Vieques on his brigantine Cadeln on i May 1823. While his original
purpose had been to buy wood, a conversation with Juan Rosell about the hardships
encountered in the island convinced Le Guillou to stay and undertake the colonization of
Vieques \iTns\ {Documentacin: 751-2).
'3 "governed without written precepts that give the one in charge and the one obeying
the norms of their respective conduct." As proposed by ngel Rama, the letrados in Latin
America were originally those that mastered written communication. During the colonial
period the letrados wielded the almost sacred power that writing had acquired to perform
and legitimize themselves in their roles as bureaucrats and ideologues of the Spanish
Empire (Rama 1996: 17-28).
'4 "Vieques debe ser considerado como la llave de Puerto Rico, de quien es inseparable.
Desde el ao 1493 que fue descubierta por el Almirante Coln hasta 1828, aquella Isla ftje
habitada por los Indios Caribes, filibusteros, piratas, desertores, malhechores, ladrones,
corsarios y contrabandistas. Estos han representado su papel algunas veces juntos. Esta
encantadora Isla ha sido testigo de escenas capaces de exaltar un gran poeta, sobre todo si
se aadiesen algunos episodios de los Buenos vecinos de Trtola y San Toms, entonces
sera una obra completa que hara furor en Parts. De todas estas calidades de individuos,
los indios eran los menos salvajes, y seguramente no eran los Caribes los ms brbaros.
[Entonces el Capitn Teophile Le Guillou arrib a Vieques en su Bergantn Cadeln el
iero de mayo de 1823.] El orden principiaba a establecerse."
' According to the 14 September 1828 census conducted in Vieques, there were a total
of 25 tleads of Households, 27 Women, 32 Sons, 73 Farm Hands/Laborers and 38 Slaves
for a total population of 195 {Documentacin: 462-3).
^ According to the August 4,1845 population census conducted in Vieques, of the 1,036
[186]

persons surveyed, 617 were from Puerto Rico and Vieques, 3 from Spain, 361 from France,
18 from England, 18 from Denmark, i from the Philippines and T8 from other different
nations. Of the 1,036 total population, 249 inhabitants were recorded as White, 411 as Free
Mulattos, 8 as Blacks, and 39 as Slaves. It should be noted that these numbers identifying
races exceed by 101 the census's 1,036 total population figure {Documentacin: 733).
'7 The British Empire formally renounced its claim over Vieques after prolonged
discussions, especially during the years 1862-1862, about the intelligence gathered by
British Virgin Island colonial officials revealing the growth of the Spanish colony and
the establishment of the garrison fort, and after ineffective diplomatic negotiations with
Spanish officials (Soverei^ty).
'^ The Intendencia, established in much of Hispanic America during the 1780s, was
an administrative organ in charge of the orderly functioning of fiscal institutions and
fostering of the colonial economies. In Puerto Rico, the Intendencia was officially created
in 1803 but came to be occupied, as an independent administrative entity trom that of
the Governor, in 1811-1812 (Pic 1988:130-1). During the 1840s the Intendente Cerero
opposed the expenditure plans, proposed by the Governors of Puerto Rico from Santiago
Mndez de Vigo to Juan Prim y Prats, designed to foster and defend Vieques (Bonnet
1976).
^9 "el querer que se fomente Vieques a tan grandes expensas de Puerto Rico y la Nacin
es querer matar a una madre que se halla de parto por salvar la vida de un feto que an no
se ha visto".
^ Antonio Rivera Martnez argued in As empez Vieques that Vieques lost its free port
status in 188. The date is unlikely given the 21 July 1871 petition signed by the Governor
of Vieques Toms Font and other Vieques residents in defense of the continuation, as
opposed to reinstallation, of the tree port status. For this reason, J. Pastor Ruiz's proposal
of 1880 as the year when Vieques lost its free port status is more feasible (Ruiz 1987;
Rivera 193).
" The Junta Municipal or Municipal Board was not a democratic organ. Instead,
it was presided by a Governor or, after 1873, ^ Mayor appointed by the Governor of
Puerto Rico. The rest of the board was composed of members of Vieques' ''mayores
contribuyentes," or main contributors, which included mostly merchants and hacendados.
^^ "Vieques necesita para salvarse un gobierno paternal y econmico que en vez de
imponerle nuevas cargas, lo libre si es posible de las que hoy le oprimen; necesita que
su puerto contine francamente abierto al extranjero, porque del extranjero, recibe
los elementos que lo sostienen...Puerto Rico es un pueblo viril que cuenta siglos de
existencia, Vieques, Seor, que apenas cuenta algunos aos, no puede ser comparado con
Puerto Rico ni en lo poltico ni en lo administrativo. Ningn pas en el mundo. Seor, ha
podido producir beneficios al Gobierno de su Metrpolis a los 28 aos de ser poblado.
Vieques es un dbil nio del que no puede exigirse el trabajo de un adulto; sus fuerzas se
agotaran y morira por consuncin".
^3 Slavery, first recorded as existing in the Vieques during the 1685-1693 non-Hispanic
colonization ventures, was abolished in Puerto Rico on March 22,1873. Although Robert
Rabin argues that Vieques was a haven for both fugitive slaves from the British colonies
and slave traffickers heading to the Puerto Rican main island, the abolition of slavery had
little impact in Vieques because the island's economy depended more on an immigrant
labor force than on the work of slaves totaling 33 in 1873. '^^^^ immigrant labor torce
was contacted in and subsequently attracted from the neighboring non-Spanish colonies
through the offering of generous work contracts. Although the contract stipulations were
not always followed, during the mid-i9th century workers in Vieques enjoyed comparatively
higher wages than in islands like Trtola (Rabin 1987; Documentos i 6-A 26 May 1873).
^4 "Dicese tambin que Vieques camina a su ruina, que va decayendo sobre todo desde

[187]

que se le asimil a los dems pueblos de esta Provincia {Puerto Ricol, imponindole el
pago del subsidio que antes no satisfaca."
^^ In the Puerto Rican main island there were large sectors of the population, especially
Caribbean migrants settled in the south and blacks in the northeast, who did not identify
with the cultural nationalist discourses being fashioned by San Juan-based intellectuals in
the late 19th century. For the influence of Caribbean immigrants in Vieques see the work
of Robert Rabin "Vieques: La conexin antillana" (Rabin).
^^ The 1900 Foraker Act established a quota of Puerto Rican sugar that could be
introduced to the United States. The sugar, increasingly backed by capitalists from
eastern states like New York and Massachusetts, had an added 15 percent tax creditable
to the Puerto Rican treasury (Pic 1988: 233-6). For a study of the evolution from sugar
haciendas to centralized mills in the production of sugar in Puerto Rico see, for example,
the work of Andrs Ramos Mattei La hacienda azucarera (1986).
^7 On 18 March 2006, the Museum and Archive Fortn Conde de Mirasol opened
Bonnie Donohue and Csar Ayala's exhibition, titled Vieques: A Long Way Home. The
exhibition contained photographs of Vieques's western third taken by Donohue after
2001. These photographs of dense woods and military bunkers contrasted with the 18
March 1941 aerial photographs taken by Pfc. Bradt portraying the same western third
of the island compartmentalized by sugar plantations and the Playa Grande sugar mill
working at full capacity. These 1941 photographs were part of the documentation
gathered by the U.S. Navy for its acquisition of approximately 10,130 acres fromjuan
Angel Ti, owner since 1939 of the Playa Grande sugar mill and plantation. To see some
of the photographs visit the Vieques, A Long Way Home Internet Home Page at <http://
www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/ayala/vieques/bdonohue/>.
^^ The U.S. military interests in Vieques and Puerto Rico have been studied byjuan
Giusti Cordero,Jorge Rodriguez Beruffand Humberto Garca Muiz and others. Scholars
iike Csar Ayala and Jos Bolivar have studied the expropriation waves in Vieques.
^'* It could be argued that Viequenses were made "Puerto Ricans" in 1873. In turn,
Puerto Ricans were made U.S. citizens through the Jones' Act of 1917. Thus, following
Jos Bonnet Benitez's population figures, there were 10,362 Viequenses-Puerto RicansU.S. citizens in Vieques by the 1940s (Bonnet 1976: 118).
30 The sugar mills must have congregated in the western half of Vieques due to the
proximity of the Punta Arenas port, located in the island's northwestern tip, to the
Puerto Rican main island. This western area, in turn, possessed right until 1941 a more
developed infrastructure in terms of roads, schools, cemeteries and other organized
administrative organs than its eastern counterpart. The infrastructure fostered the
hybridization of Viequense culture. The communities that grew around the sugar mills
had a strong non-Hispanic Caribbean influence to the extent that their inhabitants
were mostly itinerant workers from neighboring Caribbean colonies like Trtola and
Martinique. As the communities evolved, the area's once foreign names and character
were gradually appropriated as Viequense.
3' The emigration of Viequenses had begun, as Clarence Senior argued and Jos
Bonnet Benitez's population figures demonstrate, since the 1920s, when the island's
sugar economy decelerated. Senior further argued that Viequenses emigrated specifically
to St. Croix since the late 1920s, reaching an estimated figure in 1946 of 3,108 in an
island with a 12,200 total population, because sugarcane continued to be the main crop
demanding seasonal workers in St. Croix. While the Danes had employed free labor from
neighboring British colonies after their 1848 abolition of slavery, once the U.S. bought the
Danish Virgin Islands in 1917 the immigration laws enforced after 1927 made sugarcane
growers seek U.S. citizen workers. In turn, Viequenses came to fill in the void (Senior
1947; Bonnet 1976:118).
[188]

3 The archipelago of Diego Garcia provides an example through which to compare the
United States policies towards Vieques. The local population of this Indian Ocean atoU,
known as Hois, was completely expropriated in 197-1971 by the British Government,
which owns the archipelago but leased part of it to the U.S. until the year 2016. It should
be noted that cementeries in Diego Garcia were not unearthed as locals were allowed to
return in 2006 to tend their family graves (BBC News April 14, 2006).
3 Among the unfriendly measures formulated by the U.S. Navy for Vieques was the
secret accord it forced during the mid-1960s on the Puerto Rican government to not
develop the island as a tourist destination in exchange for the Navy's renunciation of
future expropriation plans. In accordance with the no tourist-no further development
plans, the Navy proceeded to consistently deny petitions to improve the island's only
civilian airport located in Navy-owned land. The documents regarding the confidential
negotiations between the Puerto Rican government under Luis Muoz Marn and the
Department of Defense can be found in the archive of the Fundacin Luis Muoz Marn
in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico.
34 Pedro Albizu Campos visited Vieques sometime between T947 and 1948 and
denounced the U.S. Navy's actions in Vieques as the vivisection of the Puerto Rican
nation. I le also accused the Puerto Rican and Viequense governments of being the
accomplices to colonialism. He further emphasized the danger he perceived in the
growing militarization of the island, and pointed out to his audience that what was
happening to Vieques could happen to any other Puerto Rican municipality (Albizu
1948: 50-7). Approximately ten years after Albizu's visit to Vieques Pedro Juan Soto
wrote Vsmail. In the novel he tells the story of the illicit son of a black Viequense
woman and a white American named Usmail, who despite being abandoned and
orphaned, must grow up and eventually leave the U.S. Navy-occupied Vieques of the
1950s (Soto 1973).
y> In the civilian sector of Vieques violent encounters between Viequenses and sailors
were fairly common during the early years of Navy presence. The violence usually took
the forms of street fights and rapes (Guadalupe 2001). The tense situation is portrayed in
Pedro Juan Soto's Usmail {ii)-^).
'f* Many of the documentary photographs taken of the Viequense fishermen in
action, like Roso Juan Sabaloncs' 1979 photograph of "Fisherman fires slingshot at U.S.
Navy vessel off Vieques," can be found published in the Internet. To see some of the
photographs visit the Vieques Libre Home Page at <http://www.viequeslibre.org>.
These photographs have been in circulation since the late 1970s and are widely known to
Viequenses. I have nonetheless taken the photographer's name and title from Katherine
McCaffrey's Military Power and Popular Protest (2002).
37 "fue una isla que c o m o Culebra fue totalmente ignorada por nosotros los
puertorriqueos de la Isla Grande."
38 For the death rates related t o cancer and heart and cerebral vascular diseases in
Vieques and for a comparison with t h e rest of Puerto Rico, see for example the 1987
Indicadores econmicos y sociales por municipios {VK}ux\VAt Planificacin 1988: 3, 453), For

an overview of socioeconomic and general health problems in Vieques also see Guias
para elDesarollo Sustentadle de Vieques (Grupo de Apoyo Tcnico y Profesional para el
Desarrollo Sustentable de Vieques 2002).
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