The Relations Between the United States and Porto Rico

In discussing the relations between the United States and Porto Rico it would seem proper to state at the outset that prior to the Spanish-American War, which may be regarded as the starting point in these relations, they were, so to speak, non-existent, at least in a juridical sense. Before the war, Porto Rico was a Spanish province and as such had no political personality of its own outside of the Spanish dominion and, therefore, it could not as a political entity be regarded as standing in any other relation in respect to the United States than as an inseparable part of Spain, between which country and the United States there existed the relation of one sovereign country in respect to another sovereign country.