Puerto Rico 1898

The book is essentially the story of partidas sediciosas, armed groups that terrorized the Puerto Rican countryside in 1898 and 1899. Chiefly active during and after the invasion (July to October 1898), the partidas focused their anger on peninsular Spanish merchants and landowners. The bandits battered or killed their victims, and almost invariably destroyed property... Pico's thoughtful typology of the partidas sheds light on the tensions that undercut Puerto Rican society at the end of the nineteenth century. The author reconstructs, with the help of U.S. military records, previously unexplored aspects of the invasion. - American Historical Review; ""In this as in his earlier works, Pico, following the method of the Annales school, has reconstructed a period of Puerto Rico's history in splendid fashion. It should be of interest to social historians and students of Puerto Rican, Latin American, and U.S. History."" - Hispanic American Historical Review