The Scientific Survey of Puerto Rico as Agent for Insular Development and Cultural Nationalism

The American imperial economic and political expansion into Puerto Rico, subsequent to annexing its new Caribbean colony from Spain in 1898, relied on science and technology to help assure local control. The newly established medical institutions, agricultural research stations, and university facilities provided a network to help support the ambitious NYAS “Scientific Survey of Porto Rico.” Despite the Survey initially justifying itself according to the “civilizing mission,” over the decades its leadership moved the program beyond a mere imperial demonstration project. New York Botanical Garden founder Nathaniel L. Britton—succeeded in the 1930s by Smith College geology professor Howard A. Meyerhoff—adroitly established close linkages with local elite power in Puerto Rico, dedicating themselves to insular development. The young, brilliant Cornell-trained Puerto Rican agricultural commissioner, Carlos Chardón, emerged as Britton’s protégé, authoring the Survey mycology volume and later assuming chancellorship of the University of Puerto Rico. I argue association with the well-respected Survey helped place Chardón in a position to be tapped by FDR in 1935 to head his New Deal agency, the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration. Beyond the economic development impacts, I further argue that Survey leadership by Columbia University’s eminent Franz Boas and especially Yale University’s archaeologist Irving Rouse helped catalyze the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture, directed by anthropologist Ricardo Alegría. The Institute, founded by Governor Luis Muñoz Marín in 1955, set the course for today’s Puerto Rican cultural nationalism.