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Puerto Rico History - 1861 Felix de Bona

One of the earliest exponents of the formula favoring a mixture of administrative autonomy and political assimilation, was don Felix de Bona. In 1861, pointing out the political maturity of the Antilles, Bona wrote:

"Those who are concerned with the question of liberal reform of the overseas maritime policy are divided between those who favor special legislation and others who favor assimilation **. Nevertheless, let the partisans of special legislation not be surprised that I do not want for Cuba and Puerto Rico that autonomy achieved by the English colonies. I am, I repeat, a Spaniard, who can no more desire separation from the Spanish provinces than a good brother can accept the thought of separation from his brothers."

On another occasion, despite an admission that it was impossible to maintain two separate criteria for political and economic freedom, Bona advocated : "in the political realm, a concession of individual rights as found in title I of the Spanish Constitution of 1869; in the economic, the greatest possible municipal and provincial decentralization."

Don Jose de Escoriaza Cardona, don Manuel Corchado Juarbe, and don Rafael Marla le Labra expressed similar ideas regarding potential harmony between assimilation and autonomy :

"The system of assimilation [Labra wrote] attempts to fuse the political and social elements of the colony and the metropolis, tending at the highest level to extend the concept of nationality, despite physical obstacles, great distances, character differences, and historical opposition. In order to achieve this end, however, individuality becomes the victim and centralization occurs, thus running the risk of becoming a suffocating tyranny.

"Autonomy, having denied colonies the right to reform the general basis of national life, leaves them to themselves and their affairs, and authorizes them to create its legislatures and thus a true political movement, reserving supreme governing power to the Mother Country."

Pointing out that the Canadian solution was not included in his program as yet, Labra went on to define his position as favoring the mixed doctrine of political assimilation and of administrative autonomy. Other well-known insular politicians supported this view, including some who had initially responded to Baldorioty's campaign in La Cronica. The Boletin Mercantil was delighted to indicate the state of disunity which had begun to prevail within the bosom of island liberalism.

"We were quite correct [its editor commented] in judging that these reformists who are not such close friends of don Baldorioty will continue to advocate administrative decentralization within a framework of national unity. It is this concept of autonomy which is espoused by El Triunfo, voice of the Cuban liberals, who are less demanding than the Puerto Ricans led by don Baldorioty."

Thus Perez-Moris summed up the existing differences among the autonomists of the island, the reformers of the South requesting by means of La Cronica politico-administrative autonomy, and those of the North advocating political identity with the peninsula and administrative autonomy.

Nevertheless, conservative concern was not abated. Despite the doctrinaire character of the autonomist publicity, despite the fact that the Liberal Party had not yet undertaken any change in program, and notwithstanding its own declaration with respect to the Cuban formula, El Boletin launched an open attack on all partisans of autonomy, disregarding any differences in approach. The campaign launched by El Boletin challenged the legality of the autonomist doctrine, attacking autonomy as equal to independence, as disloyalty and treason, and as a sure path to the absorption of the Antilles by the United States, topping off the issue by asking that the government prohibit the autonomist campaign for support, and authorize the civil guard to reestablish order.