Casa Paoli's

1493-1515 

Juan Garrido, son of an African king, was the first free African to set foot on the island; He was a conquistador who was part of Juan Ponce de León's entourage. Twenty-five thousand native Tainos died from brutal treatment due to European slavery, death, and suicide. Most of the surviving natives took refuge in the mountainous regions of Puerto Rico.
 

1517 

The Spanish Crown authorizes the importation of 12 slaves per subject, the beginning of the journey of our African ancestors from West Africa to Puerto Rico. he Triangular Slave Trade sent 12 million Africans to the Caribbean, South and North America. The United States received only 5% of enslaved Africans. In 1523, the first sugarcane processing plant is built in Puerto Rico, followed by dozens of 'haciendas', including the American plantations that the United States instituted when it invaded the archipelago in 1898.
 

1700 

As sugar plantations increase, significantly, theft and purchase by Africans meant that our ancestors were shipped as cargo, packed like sardines, branded across the forehead, and scattered throughout Loiza, Ponce, Mayagüez, Guayama, and other coastal communities. The trafficking of human souls generated the immediate loss of extended family, name, language, religion, cultural rituals, ancestral ties and all human dignity.
 

1840s 

Fearing Haiti's successful independence along with freedom fighters in nearby colonies, the Spanish Crown offers freedom to enslaved blacks from the Caribbean who swear allegiance to the Spanish monarchy and the Catholic Church. Soon after, white Europeans caught up in the Great Famine and widespread cholera at the time, are offered free land grants in exchange for loyalty to the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church. Land grants to white foreigners from France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, and many other European groups produced generations of privileged white citizens in Puerto Rico.
 

1849 

The owners of the sugar plantations enact the 1849 Day Laborers Regulations, forcing criollos to work alongside 50,000 enslaved blacks on the sprawling plantations. Creoles, 16 years of age and older, who did not own land, were required to carry notebooks that identified their name, physical description, character, moral conduct, and place of work. Landlords recorded their daily hours and conduct, a control journal that would not be banned until slavery was ended by abolitionists.
 

1873 

Puerto Rico recognizes the abolition of slavery but does not emancipate the enslaved black population that is forced to work another three years and must buy their freedom at the price set by the master. As our African ancestors struggle to start a free life, the Spanish Crown compensates slave owners 35 million pesetas per slave (or $250,573 in modern money) ensuring the establishment of privileges for generations of white Puerto Ricans.

     The beaches, fields and roads of much of this island are covered with the sweat and blood of our African ancestors, whose immeasurable contributions to island culture include the introduction to the Americas of many cereals, rice, millet, black-eyed beans, fruits, nuts. , coffees and vegetables and of course a rich culture of music, dance, spirit and joy. On this sacred date, we honor the unimaginable sacrifices and contributions of the ancestors who produced the wealth that created the modern economies of Europe, Latin America, the United States, and the Caribbean.

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