Puerto Ricans (, ), commonly referred to using the endonym Boricuas, but also occasionally referred to as Borinqueños, Borincanos, or Puertorros, are an ethnic group based in the Caribbean archipelago and island of Puerto Rico, and a nation identified with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico through ancestry, culture, or history. Puerto Ricans are predominately a tri-racial, Spanish-speaking, Christian society, descending in varying degrees from Indigenous peoples (including the Ciguayos, Macorix, and Taínos), Spanish and other European colonists, and West and Central African slaves, freedmen, and free Blacks. As citizens of a U.S. territory, Puerto Ricans have automatic birthright American citizenship, and are considerably influenced by American culture. The population of Puerto Ricans is between 9 and 10 million worldwide, with the overwhelming majority residing in Puerto Rico and the mainland United States.
Cultural identity and traits Puerto Rican culture is highly characterized by its warmth, vibrant joy, and deep-seated hospitality. This welcoming nature, alongside community resilience, defines the daily social fabric both on the island and across its diaspora. Social interactions heavily emphasize a lifestyle focused on celebration, friendliness, and close interpersonal connections.
Overview
The culture held in common by most Puerto Ricans is referred to as a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Spain, and more specifically Andalusia and the Canary Islands. Puerto Rico has also received immigration from other parts of Spain such as Catalonia, as well as from other European countries such as France, Ireland, Italy and Germany. Puerto Rico has also been influenced by African culture, with many Puerto Ricans partially descended from Africans; Afro-Puerto Ricans of unmixed African descent are a minority. Studies in population genetics have concluded that Puerto Rican gene pool is on average predominantly European, with a significant Sub-Saharan African, North African Guanche, and Indigenous American substrate, the latter two originating partly from the Indigenous people of the Canary Islands as well as Indigenous peoples of the Americas, such as Puerto Rico's pre-Columbian Taíno inhabitants.
The population of Puerto Ricans and descendants is estimated to be between 8 and 10 million worldwide, with most living on the islands of Puerto Rico and in the United States mainland. Within the United States, Puerto Ricans are present in all states, and the states with the largest populations of Puerto Ricans are New York, Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, with large populations also in Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Illinois, and Texas.US Census Bureau: Table QT-P10 Hispanic or Latino by Type: 2010 Retrieved March 25, 2012 - select state from drop-down menu
For 2009, the American Community Survey estimates give a total of 3,859,026 Puerto Ricans classified as "Native" Puerto Ricans. It also gives a total of 3,644,515 (91.9%) of the population being born in Puerto Rico and 201,310 (5.1%) born in the United States. The total population born outside Puerto Rico is 322,773 (8.1%). Of the 108,262 who were foreign born outside the United States (2.7% of Puerto Ricans), 92.9% were born in Latin America, 3.8% in Europe, 2.7% in Asia, 0.2% in Northern America, and 0.1% in Africa and Oceania each.
Number of Puerto Ricans Population (1765–1897) The demographics during Spanish rule of Puerto Rico were: Ethnic composition of Puerto Rico 17651897 1765 Population Percent 1802 Population Percent 1897 Population Percent White 17,572 39.2% White 78,281 48.0% White 573,187 64.3% African 5,037 11.2% African 16,414 10.0% African 75,824 8.6% Other (incl: African, Mulatto, Indigenous) 22,274 49.6% Mulatto 55,164 33.8% Mixed 241,900 27.1% - - - Other African 13,333 8.2% - - - Puerto Rico 44,833 100.0% Puerto Rico 163,192 100.0% Puerto Rico 890,911 100.0% Sources: 1765 (First) Census,A Population History of North America By Michael R. Haines, Richard H. SteckelHistoria de Puerto Rico Page 17. 1802 Census,An Account of the Present State of the Island of Puerto Rico By George D. Flinter (Page: 206) 1897 Census.Report on the census of Porto Rico, 1899 Census of "Porto Rico" (Old Spelling) Page 57. Indigenous: Taíno and Arawak peoples. Slave population.
Current population and ethnic identity (2020)
Ancestry and genetics
The original inhabitants of Puerto Rico were Indigenous peoples, including the Taíno, who called the island Borinquen or Boriquen; however, as in other parts of the Americas, the Native people soon diminished in number after the arrival of Spanish settlers. Besides miscegenation, the negative impact on the numbers of Amerindian people, especially in Puerto Rico, was almost entirely the result of Old World diseases that the Amerindians had no natural/bodily defenses against, including measles, chicken pox, mumps, influenza, and even the common cold. In fact, it was estimated that the majority of all the Amerindian inhabitants of the New World died out due to contact and contamination with those Old World diseases, while those that survived were further reduced through deaths by warfare with Spanish colonizers and settlers.
Thousands of Spanish settlers also immigrated to Puerto Rico from the Canary Islands during the 18th and 19th centuries, so many so that whole Puerto Rican villages and towns were founded by Canarian immigrants, and their descendants would later form a majority of the population on the island.
In 1791, the slaves in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) revolted against their French masters. Many of the French escaped to Puerto Rico via what is now the Dominican Republic and settled in the west coast of the island, especially in Mayagüez. Some Puerto Ricans are of British heritage, most notably Scottish people and English people who came to reside there in the 17th and 18th centuries.
When Spain revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 with the intention of attracting non-Spanish Europeans to settle in the island, thousands of Corsicans (though the island was French since 1768 the population spoke an Italian dialect similar to Tuscan Italian) during the 19th century immigrated to Puerto Rico, along with German immigrants as well as Irish immigrants who were affected by the Great Famine of the 1840s, immigrated to Puerto Rico. They were followed by smaller waves from other European countries and China.
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 1930s and 1940s. The second influx of Jews to the island came in the 1950s, when thousands of Cuban Jews fled Cuba after Fidel Castro came to power.
Ethnogenesis The Native Taíno population began to dwindle, with the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, through disease and intermarriage.Documenting the Myth of Taino Extinction. Dr. Lynne Guitar. KACIKE: Journal of Caribbean Amerindian History and Anthropology. Retrieved May 23, 2010. Many Spaniard men took Taíno and West African wives and in the first centuries of the Spanish colonial period the island was overwhelmingly racially mixed. "By 1530 there were 14 Native women married to Spaniards, not to mention Spaniards with concubines." Under Spanish rule, mass immigration shifted the ethnic make-up of the island, as a result of the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. Puerto Rico went from being two-thirds black and mulatto in the beginning of the 19th century, to being nearly 80% white by the middle of the 20th century. This was compounded by more flexible attitudes to race under Spanish rule, as epitomized by the Regla del Sacar.CIA World Factbook Retrieved June 8, 2009.2010.census.gov Puerto Rico's Historical Demographics Retrieved November 10, 2011. Under Spanish rule, Puerto Rico had laws such as Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar, which allowed persons of mixed ancestry to pay a fee to be classified as white, which was the opposite of the one-drop rule in US society after the American Civil War.Falcón in Falcón, Haslip-Viera and Matos-Rodríguez 2004: Ch. 6
Studies have shown that the racial ancestry mixture of the average Puerto Rican (regardless of racial self-identity) is about 64% European, 21% African, and 15% Indigenous, with European ancestry strongest on the west side of the island and West African ancestry strongest on the east side, and the levels of Indigenous ancestry (which, according to some research, ranges from about 5%-35%) generally highest in the southwest of the island.
A study of a sample of 96 healthy self-identified White Puerto Ricans and self-identified Black Puerto Ricans in the U.S. showed that, although all carried a contribution from all 3 ancestral populations (European, African, and Amerindian), the proportions showed significant variation. Depending on individuals, although often correlating with their self-identified race, African ancestry ranged from less than 10% to over 50%, while European ancestry ranged from under 20% to over 80%. Amerindian ancestry showed less fluctuation, generally hovering between 5% and 20% irrespective of self-identified race.
The majority of the European ancestry in Puerto Ricans comes from southern Spain, more specifically the Canary Islands; this is also true for many Dominicans and Cubans. Canarians are of partial Guanche ancestry, a North African Berber ethnic group who were the original inhabitants before Spanish conquest. This means that by extension, many Puerto Ricans have minuscule amounts of North African blood through the Indigenous Guanches of the Canary Islands.
Race and ethnicity White
In the 1899 census, taken the year Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States following its invasion and annexation in the Spanish–American War, 61.8% of the people were identified as White. In the 2020 United States census the total of Puerto Ricans that self-identified as White was 17.1% or 560,592 out of the 3,285,874 people living in Puerto Rico, down from 75.8% in the 2010 Census, reflecting a change in perceptions of race in Puerto Rico.2010 Census Interactive Population Search For every United States census until 2010, most Puerto Ricans self identified as "white".2010.census.gov
The European ancestry of Puerto Ricans comes primarily from one source: Spaniards (including Canarians, Catalans, Castilians, Galicians, Asturians, Andalusians, and Basques). The Canarian cultural influence in Puerto Rico is one of the most important components in which many villages were founded from these immigrants, which started from 1493 to 1890 and beyond. Many Spaniards, especially Canarians, chose Puerto Rico because of its Hispanic ties and relative proximity in comparison with other former Spanish colonies. They searched for security and stability in an environment similar to that of the Canary Islands and Puerto Rico was the most suitable. This began as a temporary exile which became a permanent relocation and the last significant wave of Spanish or European migration to Puerto Rico.
Other sources of European populations are Corsicans, French, Italians, Portuguese (especially Azoreans), Greeks, Germans, Irish, Scots, Maltese, Dutch, English, and Danes.
Black
In the 2020 census, 7.0% of people self-identified as Black. Africans were brought by Spanish Conquistadors. The vast majority of the Africans who were brought to Puerto Rico did so as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, which took people from many groups in the African continent. The slave trade particularly took West Africans including the Yoruba and Igbo peoples, and Central Africans like the Kongo people.
Indigenous