French immigration to Puerto Rico
French immigration to Puerto Rico came about as a result of the economic and political situations which occurred in various places such as Louisiana (United States), Saint-Domingue (Haiti) and in Europe.
Other important factors which encouraged French immigration to the island was the revival of the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 in the later 19th century.
They were instrumental in the development of Puerto Rico's tobacco, cotton and sugar industries and distinguished themselves as business people, merchants, tradesmen, politicians and writers.
[1] Upon the conclusion of the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War (1754–1763), between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its North American colonies against France and Spain, many French settlers living in area now under British control (as a result of the Treaty of Paris) fled to the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Puerto Rico to re-establish their commercial, trading and agricultural enterprises.
These islands were part of the Spanish and New World Catholic Empire, which accepted French settlers due to their shared religion and opposition to Great Britain.
[2] When the British attempted to invade Puerto Rico in 1797 under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby, many of the newly arrived French immigrants offered their services to the Spanish colonial government in Puerto Rico in defense of the Island that had taken them in when they fled from the Louisiana "Territory" of the United States.
Daubón offered his services and the use of his vessel and men to the Spanish Colonial Governor of Puerto Rico and together with the French Consul on the island, M. Paris, gathered a group of French immigrants in Puerto Rico and sent these troops to successfully protect the entrance of San Juan at Fort San Gerónimo.
The French settlers dedicated themselves to the cultivation of the sugar cane and owned plantations, which required a huge amount of manpower.
In 1791, the enslaved African people were organized into an army led by General Toussaint L'Ouverture who rebelled against the French in what is known as the Haitian Revolution.
Francois Joseph Beauchamp Menier, from St. Nazaire, France, was a member of the French Army stationed in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) with his family during the Haitian revolution.
Among the notable members of this family are Eduvigis Beauchamp Sterling, named Treasurer of the revolution against Spanish colonial rule known as El Grito de Lares by Ramón Emeterio Betances.
One of the changes occurred with the advent of the Second Industrial Revolution, which led to the massive migration of farmworkers to larger cities in search of a better way of life and better-paying jobs.
Starvation spread throughout Europe as farms began to fail due to long periods of drought and crop diseases.
[14] In 1815, the Spanish Crown had issued a Royal Decree of Graces (Real Cédula de Gracias) with the intention of encouraging more commercial trade between Puerto Rico and other countries who were friendly towards Spain.
The decree also offered free land to any Spaniard who would be willing to settle on the island and establish commercial and agricultural enterprises, i.e. plantations, farms and business that reached-out to other colonies.
The newly revised decree now allowed all European immigrants of non-Spanish origin to settle the island of Puerto Rico.
The decree was printed in three languages, Spanish, English and French and circulated throughout all of Europe, where there were already immigrant communities bound for the New World colonies.
Those who immigrated to Puerto Rico were given free land and a "Letter of Domicile" with the condition that they swore loyalty to the Spanish Crown and allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church.
[16] The Corsicans (who had Italian surnames) settled the mountainous region in and around the towns of Adjuntas, Lares, Utuado, Guayanilla, Ponce and Yauco, where they became successful coffee plantation owners.
[19] He established five sugar plantations in the island named Esperanza, Resolucion, Destino, Mon Repos and Mi Reposo.
Attracted by the offer of free land as one of the concessions stipulated in the revised Spanish Royal Decree of 1815, dozens of French familles, among them the Mouraille's, Martineau's and Le Brun's, immigrated to Vieques and with the use of slave manpower established sugar plantations.
This prolonged immigration flow from mainland France and its Mediterranean territories (especially Corsica) to Puerto Rico was the largest in number, second only to that of the steady flow of Peninsular Spanish immigrants from mainland Spain and its own Mediterranean and Atlantic Maritime provinces of Mallorca and the Canary Islands.
Among the poets of French descent who have contributed to the literature of Puerto Rico are Evaristo Ribera Chevremont, whose verses are liberated from folkloric subject matter and excel in universal lyricism,[24] José Gautier Benítez, considered by the people of Puerto Rico to be the best poet of the Romantic Era,[25] the novelist and journalist Enrique Laguerre, a nominee for a Nobel Prize in literature,[26] and writer and playwright René Marqués, whose play La Carreta (The Oxcart) helped secure his reputation as a leading literary figure in Puerto Rico.
The drama traces a rural Puerto Rican family as it moved to the slums of San Juan and then to New York in search of a better life, only to be disillusioned and to long for their island.
[29] The following is an official (but not complete) list of the surnames of the first French families who immigrated from mainland France to Puerto Rico in the 19th century.
