From 1865 to 1872 was the era of greatest prosperity ever experienced in Puerto Rico under Spanish rule.  The land was not yet exhausted, harvests were abundant, labor cheap, the quality of the sugar produced was excellent, prices were high, contributions and taxes were moderate.  There were no export duties, and although, during this period, the growing manufacture of beet-root sugar was lowering the price of “mascabado” all over the world, no effect was felt in Puerto Rico, because it was the nearest market to the United States, where the civil war had put an end to the annual product by the Southern States of half a million bocoyes,[71] or about 675,000,000 gallons; and the abolition of all import duties on sugar in England also favored the maintenance of high prices for a number of years.

However, the production of beet-root sugar and the increase of cane cultivation in the East[72] caused the fall in prices which, in combination with the numberless oppressive restrictions imposed by the Spanish Government, brought Puerto Rico to the verge of ruin.

“The misfortunes that afflict us,” says Mr. James McCormick to the Provincial Deputation in his official report on the condition of the sugar industry in this island in 1880, “come under different forms from different directions, and every inhabitant knows what causes have contributed to reduce this island, once prosperous and happy, to its actual condition of prostration and anguish.”

That condition he paints in the following words:  “Mechanical arts and industries languish because there is no demand or profitable market for its products; commerce is paralyzed by the obstacles placed in its way; the country never has had sufficient capital and what there is hides itself or is withdrawn from circulation; foreign capital has been frightened away; Puerto Rican landowners are looked upon with special disfavor and credit is denied them, unfortunately with good reason, seeing the lamentable condition of our agriculture.  The production of sugar scarcely amounts to half of what it was in former years.  From the year 1873 a great proportion of the existing sugar estates have fallen to ruin; in 8 districts their number has been reduced from 104 to 38, and of these the majority are in an agonizing condition.  In other parts of the island many estates, in which large capitals in machinery, drainage, etc., have been invested, have been abandoned and the land is returning to its primitive condition of jungle and swamp.  Ten years ago the island exported 100,000 tons of sugar annually, the product of 553 mills; during the last three years (1878-1880) the average export has been 60,000 tons, the product of 325 mills that have been able to continue working.  Everywhere in this province the evidences of the ruin which has overtaken the planters meet the eye, and nothing is heard but the lamentations of proprietors reduced to misery and desperation.”

This state of things continued notwithstanding the representations made before the “high spheres of Government” by the leading men in commerce and agriculture, by the press of all political colors, and by Congress.  The Minister of Ultramar in Madrid recognized the gravity of the situation, and it is said that the lamentations of the people of Puerto Rico found an echo even at the foot of the throne.