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I know her work and again it is a synopsis .....as was my little diatribe. The pre-columbian history of Puerto Rico and theislands immediately around it is known to every 5th grade student on the Island. Of course there were people thereprior to the Tainos. Latest data ventures to describe two prior cultures before that of the Taino. The facts are ....the taino civilization of the lesser antilles were practically killed off or assimilated by the Caribe. The "war front was that of the Culebra, Vieques and the cayos around it to the eastern coast of the main island Boriken (Puerto Rico). These cultures have been theorized to migrated up from the S.A. mainland as did the Tainos and the Caribes. Yes there were settlements on Vieques as the Caribe warfare was a small war-party thing not mass invasion (it took decades to come up from the mainland S.A..The caciques on vieques, if they were or men who assumed leadership, were independent of the big caciques on PR but still subservient to some extent.The population on Vieques was tiny in comparison because of the marauding Caribes. The few that were there got welcome relief of the se by the spaniard incursion...yes short lived as the spaniards quickly proved. Glad you are reading !! Since when is cannabalism romantic ? ....and the life of the captives was far from idyllic...that was part of that culture.Are you confused about the Taino (agrarian) and the Caribe (warlike-predatory) cultures ? The conquistadors had little to do with settling Vieques...they moved on but the spaniard settlers did all that you said and worse. Actually the black slave trade was very small coming from the Brit islands and later...1600's and up. The larger scale traders were the slave merchants from the west african shores. The plantation economy on Vieques was no different than any other island in the carribean and the southern US, slaves or no slaves.The top of the socioeconomic ladder was always the pennisulares or their "unblemished" blood descendants....same in every town in Puerto Rico. Vieques was ceded to PR in the 1850s before that an independant COLONY much like other plantation supporting islands. 10 - 20, 000 is about the size of the average smaller country municipalities in Puerto Rico at the time of the S-A War.
As far as Marxism...I'm probably more of a capitalist than you are....since you presume to know my political and socioeconomic philosophies. If you bother to check out the bibliography I listed you would find textbooks, documentary type papers,theses, US State Department and Interior Department documents and non-Puerto Rican (academic) midstream American authors. A far as the referendum goes....it should be paid for by tax dollars9as opposed to some of the ridiculus things our tax dollars are used for....including supporting foreign economies and the PLO terrorists.The money made by the federal government in tax base and the money of big private business (the vast majority of which comes back to the states) in PR more than compensates that pittens.In fact just the lives of the PR soldiers that died for their sovereign nation in WW i and WW II compensates. The % turn out for voting in PR is higher than most states. I never said the voters were any more intelligent than ours and they are just as easily malleable.There are too many lazy people on the island and the original concepts of political identity have blurred with economic privelege (or perceived privelege). Nature meant PR to be coffee , sugar cane, lesser veggies and precious wood based in economy with a smattering of light industry and responsible heavy industry. Overpopulation and too much heavy industry coupled with the average persons acceptance of the status quo will ruin it for them, family, visitors ...etc..>
My contention is that the issue of the right to acquiring that land on Vieques, for the common defense, is secondary to the issue of why PR wasn't treated like Cuba after 1898 and the Phillipines after the bloody Phillipine-American Expeditionary Conflict of the first decades of 1900s.

Plus.......the referendums are purely a poll...and a very scripted one at that. The real deal in congress....would they even consider giving up a territory without if it came to that...can they agree on anything that has to do with the well being of a people they clearly consider beneath them. How bad will it hurt their pockets and the pockets of their business constituency. The lessons in capitalism, economics and resource utilization is not lost on the few PRs who have sat up to take notice.

I will leave the last word to you (as O'Reilly says) and hopefully it won't be derogatory.

Fell free to communicate with me if it is worth your while .. Lefrep@aol.com

"I know her (Wanda Bermudez) work and again it's a synopsis ... as was my little diatribe."

The point is her synopsis is correct and yours isn't.

"Are you confused about the Taino (agrarian) and the Caribe (war-like predatory) cultures?"

That has No Bearing on this discussion.

The Point is the inhabitants of Vieques, when the conquistadors arrived, were MERCILESSLY SLAUGHTERED by the Spaniards and the survivors reduced to SLAVERY.

"Actually the black slave trade was very small coming from British Islands."

So, you say that most of the slaves in Puerto Rico came from Africa. So what?

The point is the Spaniards were slavers.

The "TRUE, Historical Facts" are when the U.S. Navy expropriated 26,000 acres on Vieques and paid for them with U.S. Taxpayer's, hard earned dollars, they bought these acres from 4 wealthy, Spanish families.

The rest of your "the people", that inhabited Vieques, were still little more than slaves, didn't own any of the land the Navy bought, never had any RIGHT TO A SAY IN THE PURCHASE and still don't have a RIGHT TO SAY WHAT HAPPENS TO U.S. TAXPAYER, OWNED PROPERTY, unless you're some kind of MARXIST.

"The money made by the Federal Government in tax base (???) and the money of big private business (the vast majority of which comes to the States) in PR more than compensates that pittens."

You're either being deliberately deceptive, on this point, or you really don't know what you're talking about.

Have you ever heard of Section 936 and all of it's prior incarnations?

The U.S. Taxpayers and the Federal Government lose on Puerto Rico, BIG TIME!

Those are the terms of Section 936 and the proposed Section 956. American companies must invest their profits, in Puerto Rico, that would have been brought back to the United States or paid in federal taxes, in order to receive a 90% tax break when, what's left of, their profits are repatriated to the United States.

For example, Pepsi Cola, Coke and all those pharmaceutical companies are in Puerto Rico, specifically, because they AVOID!!! $350 thousand dollars in Federal taxes for every employee they have in Puerto Rico, EACH YEAR!

Read the articles I've posted, on the proposed SECTION 956 TAX WINDFALL SCHEME, on FR.

If those jobs would have stayed in the United States, those workers would have paid U.S. INCOME TAXES and spent their income in a State!

Puerto Rico gets all of that money!

The American Taxpayers send $16.5 billion dollars, IN CASH, billions more in FREE Federal Goverment services to Puerto Rico, each year, and receive NOTHING of value in return.

The U.S. Taxpayers are getting the shaft in this deal with Puerto Rico!

Our pandering politicians, in both parties, are buying Stateside Puerto Rican votes with our tax dollars. It's just that simple!

Why don't you sign up for a Free Republic screen name of your own, if you want to continue these discussions?

"Plus.....the referendums are purely a poll...very scripted at that. The real deal in Congress...give up a territory...agree on anything that has to do with the well being of a people they consider beneath them?

That's just simply ridiculous.

No more than 3% !!! of the residents of Puerto Rico have ever voted for independence in the referendums held in Puerto Rico.

How can you sit there and seriously discuss what the Congress HAS NEVER AND WILL NEVER !!! be asked to do by the residents of Puerto Rico?????

The residents of Puerto Rico will never vote to give up $10s of billions of U.S. Taxpayer's dollars that they get FOR FREE!!!

If what you say is true and Congress doesn't care for the well being of the residents of Puerto Rico and considers them BENEATH them, WHAT DO THEY CONSIDER THE RESIDENTS OF THE 26 REAL STATES THAT THEY GIVE LESS MONEY to, THAN THE $16.5 BILLION U.S. TAXPAYER'S DOLLARS THEY GIVE PUERTO RICO EACH YEAR, AND FORCE TO PAY FOR THEIR GOVERNMENT SERVICES IN FEDERAL TAXES???? How can you say anything so crazy, untrue and ungrateful?

"... the lessons in capitalism, economics and resource utilization is not lost on the few PRs who have sat up to take notice."

I don't know what to make of this last bit of Marxist/Independentista, race-baiting drivel, but the pandering PR politicians sure have learned lessons in extortion, vote-buying, race-baiting and obfuscating the truth.