Puerto Rico · Nineteenth century Colonial and transition issues

In 1766 Puerto Rico became the first Spanish overseas province to print 8-real papeletas. For centuries the Mexican situado propped up the island treasury; when Spanish American independence cut that subsidy, Governor Salvador Meléndez Bruna authorized provincial paper on 31 August 1812. By 1813 the papeleta issue reached 500,000 pesos. Intendant Alejandro Ramírez, who arrived on 11 February 1813, amortized it by 1816.

The disgrace of that paper stopped new issues for decades. Paper returned with the Ten Years’ War. From New York, the Central Republican Board of Cuba and Puerto Rico — chaired by José Morales Lemus, with Puerto Rican secretary Dr. José Francisco Basora — served as a government-in-exile support body: fundraising, managing the Republic of Cuba in Arms’ external finances, and linking Cuban and Puerto Rican anti-colonial politics among donors, printers, and exile communities. On 1 June 1869 the Republic authorized a twenty-million-peso loan; weeks later Morales Lemus and Basora were arrested under U.S. neutrality laws.

At century’s end the island still lacked its own coin: worn macuquinas, Mexican pesos, Morgan dollars, and other foreign silver — much of it fleur-de-lis countermarked from 1884 — flooded commerce. The royal decree of 17 August 1895 created the 1-peso exchange note (Pick 7): a short-lived instrument, equivalent to 25 g of .900 silver, to gather that silver and strike provincial coin in Madrid. Three years after the decree, the Treaty of Paris closed the Spanish colonial chapter.