Demographics of Puerto Rico

Immigration to Puerto Rico

The Spanish conquered the island, assuming government in 1508, colonized it, and assumed hegemony over the natives. The Taíno population dwindled due to disease, tribal warfare, and forced labor, so the Spanish began importing large numbers of slaves from Africa. Spanish men arrived on the island disproportionately to Spanish women; African and Taíno women would sometimes marry them, resulting in a mixed tri-racial ethnicity.

In the late 18th century, the number of African slaves began to dwindle on the island. The British ban on slavery resulted in slave raids on Puerto Rico. Many slaves also escaped to neighboring islands.

During the 19th century large numbers of immigrants from Spain, as well as numerous Spaniards living in former Spanish colonies in South America, also arrived in Puerto Rico (See Spanish immigration to Puerto Rico). Large numbers of Canary Islanders (Isleños) also arrived in great numbers to the island; their influence can be seen today in Puerto Rico's culture, cuisine and most notably in the variety of Spanish that is spoken in Puerto Rico.

Although the vast majority of settlers came from Spain, Catholics from France, Ireland, Corsica, Italy, Germany and other European countries were also granted land by Spain as one of the provisions of the Real Cédula de Gracias de 1815 (Royal Decree of Graces of 1815). These immigrants were allowed to settle on the island, with a certain amount of free land and enslaved persons granted to them. In return, they had to profess fealty to the Spanish Crown. During the early 20th century Jews began to settle in Puerto Rico. The first large group of Jews to settle in Puerto Rico were European refugees fleeing German–occupied Europe in the late 1930s. Puerto Rico's economic boom of the 1950s attracted a considerable number of Jewish families from the U.S. mainland, who were joined after 1959 by an influx of Jewish emigres from Fidel Castro's Cuba.[7]

The mass immigration that occurred during the 19th century helped the population grow from 155,000 in 1800 to almost 1,000,000 at the close of the century.

Emigration has been a major part of Puerto Rico's recent history as well. Starting in the post-World War II period waves of Puerto Ricans moved to the continental United States, particularly to New York City; Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Camden, New Jersey; Providence, Rhode Island; Springfield; Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; Boston, Massachusetts; Orlando, Miami and Tampa, Florida; Philadelphia and Reading, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles, California. This continued even as Puerto Rico's economy improved and its birth rate declined.

[12]

Period	Live births	Deaths	Natural increase
January - June 2020	9,142	15,414	-6,272
January - June 2021	8,519	16,349	-7,830
Difference	-623 (-6.81%)	+935 (+6.07%)	-1,558

Structure of the population (01.07.2012) (Estimates) (Data refer to projections based on the 2010 Population Census):[13]

Source: UN World Population Prospects[14]

The first census by the United States in 1899 reported a population of 953,243 inhabitants, 61.8% of them classified as white, 31.9% as mixed, and 6.3% as black. The last census by the United States in 2020 reported 49.8% as mixed, 25.5% as some other race, 17.1% as white, 7.0% as black, and 0.5% as indigenous.

A strong European immigration wave and large importation of slaves from Africa helped increase the population of Puerto Rico sixfold during the 19th century. No major immigration wave occurred during the 20th century.[20]

In the late 1700s, Puerto Rico had laws like the Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar where a person of mixed ancestry could be considered legally white so long as they could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Therefore, people of mixed ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the "one-drop rule" in the United States.[21]

Puerto Ricans, on average, have genetic contributions from Europeans, North Africans, West Africans, and Native Americans.[23] The island has a higher degree of tri-hybrid admixture than most countries in Latin America. A recent study of DNA in a census-based sample of 642 Puerto Rican individuals, demonstrated that almost all modern Puerto Ricans are admixed descendants of the three ancestral populations (Taínos, Europeans, and Africans). The study shows that the average Puerto Rican on the Eastern region is 54.7% European, 31.8% African, and 13.5% Native American, while the average Puerto Rican on the Western Region is 68.5% European, 15.9% African, and 15.6% Native American. The highest indigenous ancestry recorded in the study was nearly 40%.[24]

In a study done on Puerto Rican women (of all races) born on the island but living in New York by Carolina Bonilla, Mark D. Shriver and Esteban Parra in 2004, the ancestry proportions corresponding to the three parental populations were found to be 53.3±2.8% European, 29.1±2.3% West African, and 17.6±2.4% Native American based on autosomal ancestry informative markers. Although autosomal markers tests seem to draw a more broad picture than that of single, gender-based mtDNA and Y-Chromosome tests, the problem with autosomal DNA is in the archaic categories used: "European", "Sub-Saharan African", "East Asian" & "Native American". "Asian" (South, North or East) & "North African" are not included. These generalized categories may not take into account the complexity of migratory patterns across the Old World. The study also found that, from the women sampled, 98% had European ancestry markers, 87% had African ancestry markers, 84% had Native American ancestry markers, 5% showed only African and European markers, 4% showed mostly Native American and European markers, 2% showed only African markers, and 2% showed mostly European markers.[25]

A recent report providing a full breakdown as to specific religions is not available; the most recent was for 2006.

The Christian Denominational Breakdown was as follows in 2006:[27]

The Roman Catholic Church has been historically the most dominant religion of the majority of Puerto Ricans, with Puerto Rico having the first dioceses in the Americas.[28] This religion was brought by Spanish colonists. The first dioceses in the Americas, including that of Puerto Rico, were authorized by Pope Julius II in 1511.[29] One Pope, John Paul II, visited Puerto Rico in October 1984. All municipalities in Puerto Rico have at least one Catholic Church, most of which are located at the town center or "plaza".

An Associated Press article in March 2014 stated that "more than 70 percent of whom identify themselves as Catholic" but provided no source for this information. (It may have been using the 2010 Pew Research Center data.)[30]

The CIA World Factbook however, reports that 85% of the population of Puerto Rico identifies as Roman Catholic, while 15% identify as Protestant and Other. Neither a date or a source for that information is provided and may not be recent.[31]

In November 2014, a Pew Research report, with the sub-title Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region, indicated that only 56% of Puerto Ricans were Catholic and that 33% were Protestant. This survey was completed between October 2013 and February 2014.

Protestantism was suppressed under the Spanish Catholic regime. For example, the Holy Trinity Anglican church in Ponce, was prevented from ringing its bell until 1898, when American troops landed there.[32] Protestantism increased under American sovereignty, making contemporary Puerto Rico more interconfessional than in previous centuries, although Catholicism continues to be the dominant religion. The first Protestant church, Iglesia de la Santísima Trinidad, was established in Ponce by the Anglican Diocese of Antigua in 1872.[33] It was the first non-Roman Catholic Church in the entire Spanish Empire in the Americas.[34][35]

In 2007, there were over 5,000 Muslims in Puerto Rico, representing about 0.13% of the population.[36][37] There are eight Islamic mosques spread throughout the island, with most Muslims living in Río Piedras.[38][39] Puerto Rican converts to Islam continue to occur.[40] "Ties between Latinos and Islam are more than just spiritual, but date back to Spanish history. Many people do not realize that Muslims conquered Spain".[41] And at times not just individuals, but whole families convert. However, lack of Muslim education in the Island forces some Puerto Rican Muslims to migrate to the States.[41] Islam was brought into Puerto Rico mainly via the Palestinian migration of the 1950s and '60s.[42] Thus, today there is a strong Palestinian presence among Muslims in Puerto Rico. "They are economically strong and are thus able to pay for a full-time Imaam".[43]

Puerto Rico is also home to the largest Jewish community in the Caribbean with 3,000 Jewish inhabitants.[44] Some Puerto Ricans have converted, not only as individuals but as entire families. Puerto Rico is the only Caribbean island in which the Conservative, Reform and Orthodox Jewish movements are represented.[7][45]

Taíno religious practices have been rediscovered/reinvented by a handful of advocates. Starting in about 1840, there have been attempts to create a quasi-indigenous Taíno identity in rural areas of Puerto Rico.[46] This trend accelerated among the Puerto Rican community in the mainland United States in the 1960s.[47] In the 2010 U.S. census, 9,399 people are identified as "Taíno."[48]

Various African religious practices have been present since the arrival of enslaved Africans. In particular, the Yoruba beliefs of Santería and/or Ifá, and the Kongo-derived Palo Mayombe (sometimes called an African belief system, but rather a way of Bantu lifestyle of Congo origin) find adherence among the few individuals who practice some form of African traditional religion.