Historically, Puerto Rico, which is now an unincorporated territory of the U.S., has been dominated by a settler society of religiously and ethnically diverse Europeans, primarily of Spanish descent, and Sub-Saharan Africans.
[1] Before the first major influx of West Africans into Puerto Rico in the 16th century, Spanish colonizers forced the Taíno natives "into slavery, exploiting their labor in the gold mines and on plantations.
Those demographics, though, changed during the 19th century when the Spanish Crown issued the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 which also resulted in "whitening" Puerto Rico's population from its offering of land, agricultural, and labor incentives to non-Hispanic white Europeans.
[5] "The Royal census of Puerto Rico in 1834 established that the island's population as 42,000 enslaved Africans, 25,000 colored freemen, 189,000 people who identified themselves as whites and 101,000 who were described as being of mixed ethnicity.
[7] The white upper class made deals with U.S. industrialists and supported U.S. policies in Puerto Rico at the expense of Afro-Puerto Rican civil rights.
"[10] Williams noted that despite the notable decline in segregation in Puerto Rico following the enactment of the 1943 civil rights law, "colored people in Puerto Rico are very reluctant to visit certain hotels or night clubs," noting how segregation persisted in "first class nightclubs" and that these nightclubs were paying only light $25 fines which were "locally considered a joke.
"[10] He also noted how in recent time, even opponents of Muñoz Marín "agree that he and his party have given Negroes a square deal and opened positions to them, especially in the teaching profession and the higher ranks of the police force, from which they were conventionally debarred.
"[10] Revolutionary leaders, including Pedro Albizu Campos in the 1950s, fought to eliminate the "racial" discrimination heightened by U.S. imperialism and to place Afro–Puerto Ricans in political positions of power.
In 2019, José Pichy Torres Zamora, a Puerto Rican politician was taken to task for making a racist comment regarding the African-descended people of Loíza.