Estudio de los proyectos autonomistas en Puerto Rico durante la regencia de María Cristina de Austria

Abstract

Political turmoil at this time demonstrated the Spanish inability to manage the needs of the overseas territories. Since 1837, Spain had promised Puerto Rico a government with special laws that were never passed, and which led to a request for political and economic reforms from asymilism, which with the creation of Puerto Rican political parties would slowly lead to a desire for political and administrative decentralization based on autonomism. Several governmental circumstances coupled with external diplomatic pressure, led to the drafting of Maura’s regional project, the Ley de Bases of Abárzuza and the attempt to develop through the Decretos of Castellano, with the subsequent reform of Cánovas, which led to the granting of an autonomous legal-political regime manifested in the Carta Autonómica in 1897 as a desperate attempt to preserve Spanish sovereignty on the island.