Irish immigration to Puerto Rico
[1] During the French Revolutionary Wars, all Irish people were temporarily expelled from Puerto Rico as a result of a decree issued by Governor Ramón de Castro y Gutiérres.
In 1815, the government of Spain issued the Royal Decree of Graces, which aimed to encourage Europeans to settle in Puerto Rico and thereby blunt movements for independence in the colony.
[2] Over the course of the 1580s, English army officer Sir William Stanley recruited hundreds of Irish rebels as mercenaries who were sent to fight in the Low Countries as part of the Eighty Years' War.
These Irishmen began serving in the Spanish army and some eventually made their way to Spain's colonies in the Americas, including Puerto Rico.
[3] In 1765, the King of Spain, Carlos III, sent Field Marshal Alejandro O'Reilly to the Captaincy General of Puerto Rico to assess the state of the defenses of that colony.
O'Reilly took a very complete census of the island and recommended numerous reforms, including the instilling of strict military discipline in the local troops.
He also insisted that the men serving in the defense of the realm receive their pay regularly and directly rather than indirectly from their commanding officers, a long-standing practice that had led to abuses.
[7] O'Daly, following the example of other Irishmen in Puerto Rico, married a local woman of social standing, María Gertrudis de la Puente, herself of Spanish background, and had three children, Isabel, Manuel, and Demetrio.
[8] Jaime O'Daly was named director of the Real Fábrica de Tabaco (Royal Tobacco Factory) in Puerto Rico by the Spanish Crown in 1787.
His nephews, Julio and Arturo O'Neill, moved to Puerto Rico in 1783 with their slaves and plantation equipment and were later followed by Thomas Armstrong, another Irishman and planter in 1791.
O'Daly's connections with the non-Hispanic Caribbean and European nations helped him economically but hindered his nomination to a post on the prestigious San Juan City Council.
[11] Miguel Conway, Patricio Fitzpatrick, Felipe Doran, Jaime Kiernan, and Antonio Skerret were other Irishmen involved in commercial farming around northern Puerto Rico.
[8] Undoubtedly, Irish immigrants played an instrumental role in the development and further expansion of Puerto Rico's economy and trade with Europe and other European colonies on the North and South American continents.
[13] On February 17, 1797, the governor of Puerto Rico, Brigadier General Ramón de Castro, received the news that Britain had captured the island of Trinidad.
Believing that Puerto Rico would be the next British target of invasion, he decided to put the local militia on alert and to prepare the island's forts against any military action.
[15] The people in Puerto Rico, among them Treasury official Felipe Antonio Mejía, were so outraged by de Castro's actions that they sent special envoys to Spain on behalf of the Irish immigrant and merchant community on the island.
They made their views known to the Spanish Crown to whom they condemned the governor's measures as legally unjustified and economically counter-productive, promoting their strongly held conviction to the Crown that the Irish immigrants had already proven their allegiance to the Spanish colonial government and were invaluable economic and trade partners that expanded Puerto Rico's trade horizons with Spain and the Western Hemisphere colonies.
Eventually, the temporarily-banned Irish and their families returned to the island, including the O'Dalys, Dorans, Kiernans, Quinlans, O'Ferran, Butler, Killeleigh and Skerrets, among many others.
In 1823, Robert and Josiah Archibald, Irish brothers, imported and introduced to Puerto Rico the island's first steam-operated mill which they successfully used in their already profitable Ponce sugar plantation.
Furthermore, free land was offered to those who wanted to immigrate to the two islands on the condition that they swear loyalty to the Spanish Crown and allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church.
On August 8, 1828, O'Neill O'Keffe, a Knight of the Royal Order of King Carlos the 3rd of Spain and 2nd Marqués del Norte, served as a lieutenant colonel in the Spanish garrison of the City of Bayamón.
Those who stayed behind and tended to their farmlands suffered the consequences of the widespread crop failures brought about as a result of long periods of drought and diseases such as the cholera epidemic and the potato fungus which caused the Great Irish Famine of 1840.
After Pedro Albizu Campos was honorably discharged from the United States Army, he attended Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Albizu Campos was invited by Éamon de Valera to assist as a consultant in the drafting of the Irish Free State constitution.
