The Sugar Industry in Vieques

Vieques became totally dependent on sugar. There was no other industry. Five large sugar centrales, Arcadia, Esperanza, Playa Grande, Santa Elena and Santa María owned almost all the farmable lands.

Labor for the first sugar plantations on Vieques was provided by enslaved workers. By the latter part of the century, however, most European nations had abolished slavery. In Puerto Rico, slavery ended in 1873. On Vieques, planters reacted to this turn of events by utilizing local laborers known as agregados and imported laborers called jornaleros.

The agregados were given small plots of land on the plantation. They did not have title to the land and lived there at the whim of the owners; a situation that encouraged exploitation.

On the other hand, at least the agregados would have the opportunity to provide for themselves to make up for sporadic employment and low wages. They could plant subsistence crops in their conucos, or little gardens. They would have access to plantation lands on the coast where they could fish, gather coconuts, pick caracoles (whelks) or dive for conch and lobster. In the lagunas, they could hunt jueyes (land crabs) and in the forests, they could collect wood for charcoal.

The majority of sugar cane laborers on Vieques, however, were jornaleros. These workers lived in barracks and moved from hacienda to hacienda when and if jobs were available.

Workers from the English colonies, many of whom were ex slaves, arrived from Nevis, St. Kitts, Anguilla, Antigua, Tortola, Virgin Gorda and Jost Van Dyke, and from the Danish colonies of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix. There were so many workers who had come from Tortola that Tortoleno was often used as a generic term to describe a black worker.

While the Spanish still remained in power, there were two major incidents in which workers rebelled against the unfair system under which they toiled.

In 1864, workers from the English colonies at the Hacienda Resolución staged a protest demanding that one of their fellow workers who was arrested and jailed by the sugar plantation owner be released. The Spanish military intervened and several protestors were incarcerated at the fort.

Although these workers were legally free, the labor situation in Vieques was tantamount to slavery. In 1871, the Government of Vieques passed the Reglamento Especial Para el Peonaje Extranjero, or the Special Regulation Concerning Foreign Workers. Among other things, this law obliged foreign workers to live on the haciendas on which they worked and demanded complete obedience to the plantation owner and governmental authorities.

In 1874, hundreds of black workers at the Playa Grande Sugar Central rebelled against their mistreatment by the plantation owners and the government. The Spanish Civil Guard intervened, killing one worker and wounding several others. The protest lasted several weeks. Men, women and children attacked the soldiers with sticks and stones and burned the sugar fields. Dozens were arrested and incarcerated at the fort.

Sugar cane work was low paid and sporadic. The harvest called the zafra lasted from March until June. This consisted of cutting cane and then loading it onto bull carts or railway cars, which would take the cane to the central for processing or to be put on boats bound for the main island of Puerto Rico.

July and August were dedicated to fertilizing, planting, weeding and cleaning drainage ditches.

September to February, while the cane was growing, was called the invernazo, or dead time. There was little to no work and even less money. The agregados survived as best they could by subsistence activities such as fishing, gardening and charcoal burning. The jornaleros, who lacked these opportunities, often were reduced to desperate straits.

In his book, Vieques Antiguo y Moderno, written in 1947, J. Pastor Ruiz describes the daily life of a sugar cane worker.

The workday was from sunrise to sunset, at times 12-14 hours a day … the wages paid were 50 cents a day, whether for planting, digging, irrigation or weeding. The same for cutting the cane and carting it away in bull carts. All were paid the same.

In Vieques there was a special circumstance, which was the abundance of English workers. These English, of color, were very strong workers. They lived in barracks on the haciendas. These laborers were called negradas. Their specialty was gathering cane and making bundles of 40-50 cane stalks, which they tied together with a loose rope. Using a cloth over their heads, they would bend down, gather up the bundle and carry it to the carts that brought the cane to the mill. Sometimes they would work from 2:00 in the morning until 8:00 at night.

Justice for Workers
Don Gustavo Murray, the owner of the Esperanza Sugar Central “…ran a court where he himself presided, passed sentence and collected fines. It was a disciplinarian system in the style of the French colonies, but not of the French Republic which professed to respect human rights.

“He would fine workers, suspend them from work and sometimes confiscate their wages. Sometimes he confiscated one real (twelve cents) other times he would confiscate a whole week’s pay. Sometimes he would suspend a man from work for a half a day or for one day, but other times the suspension could be for as much as six months, a year, two years or even ten years.

“For these decisions, there was no appeal. The Monsieur said so, and that was that. His memory was exceptional. Once, he suspended someone for two months and the man returned after 55 days, believing that Murray had forgotten. As soon as the Monsieur saw the man arrive to work he said, “You still have five days more. Leave. Come back when you have served them.” (Ruiz)

In 1898, Puerto Rico, along with Vieques and Culebra, were taken over by the United States. Many thought that under the new rulers the deplorable economic situation would change for the better. The North Americans, however, were primarily interested in the islands for strategic reasons and gave little to no consideration to the existing problems.

Although the sugar industry boomed in the first decade of the 20th century and the population of the island increased, the plight of the average worker went from bad to worse.

Under United States rule, in 1915, workers organized a strike against the sugar barons demanding a raise in salary from 50 cents a day to $1.00 a day and a reduction of the workday from 14 hours a day to eight hours a day. The plantation owners called in the police, who killed several strikers and wounded many others. Dozens were arrested and incarcerated at the fort.

The Demise of the Sugar Industry in Vieques
Poverty and unemployment were even more rampant on Vieques than in Puerto Rico. It was so bad that when the US Virgin Islands opened up immigration to citizens of Puerto Rico, thousands of Viequenses left for St. Croix, whose sugar industry was failing, but at least still existed.

A 1939 El Mundo headline read: “The Island of Vieques is being deserted: families migrate by the hundreds to St. Croix hoping to escape the horrible situation of misery there.”

Tomas Jesus de Castro, in, La Agonía Industrial de Vieques, Puerto Rico Ilustrado, 1937, recounts part of a report made by an agricultural team sent to Vieques by the Puerto Rican Government:

“The tragedy of Vieques is analogous to that of Puerto Rico, only much more serious. Thirty three thousand acres of land are hoarded, for the most part by two large sugar corporations. Eleven thousand residents are living on what little remains of the land. A very rich island, with every kind of fruit, fish and livestock is impeded from developing its full agricultural and industrial potential. The per capita income scarcely reaches the ridiculous level of $22 per year”

The sugar industry on Vieques gasped its last breath in the 1940s with the expropriation of the lands formerly owned by the Playa Grande Central. Today, one has to know where to look in order to see a sugar cane plant on Vieques.