page_title: Puerto Ricans
section_title: Ethnogenesis
hierarchical_section_title: Puerto Ricans / Ancestry / Ethnogenesis
caption_attribution_description: English: Waiting by the side of the road in Puerto Rico
context_page_description: Puerto Ricans are the people of Puerto Rico, the inhabitants, and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and their descendants. Puerto Rico is home to people of many different national origins as well.
context_section_description: The native Taino population began to dwindle, with the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, through disease and miscegenation. Many Spaniard men took Taino and West African wives and in the first centuries of the Spanish colonial period the island was overwhelmingly racially mixed. "By 1530 there were 14 native women married to Spaniards, not to mention Spaniards with concubines." Under Spanish rule, mass immigration shifted the ethnic make-up of the island, as a result of the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. Puerto Rico went from being two-thirds black and mulatto in the beginning of the 19th century, to being nearly 80% white by the middle of the 20th century. This was compounded by more flexible attitudes to race under Spanish rule, as epitomized by the Regla del Sacar. Under Spanish rule, Puerto Rico had laws such as Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar, which made persons of mixed African-European ancestry to be classified as white, which was the opposite of "one-drop rule" in US society after the American Civil War.
  Studies have shown that the racial ancestry mixture of the average Puerto Rican (regardless of racial self-identity) is about 56% European/North African (Canary Islander Guanche), 28% Sub-Saharan African, and 16% Native Taino, with European ancestry strongest on the west side of the island and West African ancestry strongest on the east side, and consistent levels of Taino ancestry throughout the island. Even though over 75% of the population of Puerto Rico self identifies as white, only about 25% are purely (or close to pure) of European/North African ancestry. About 45-50% of Puerto Ricans have high amounts of black West African ancestry, but majority are mixed race and self identify as white, the opposite of the US One drop rule, a legacy the Regla de Sacar law in colonial Puerto Rico.
  A study of a sample of 96 healthy self-identified White Puerto Ricans and self-identified Black Puerto Ricans in the U.S. showed that, although all carried a contribution from all 3 ancestral populations (European, African, and Amerindian), the proportions showed significant variation. Depending on individuals, although often correlating with their self-identified race, African ancestry ranged from less than 10% to over 50%, while European ancestry ranged from under 20% to over 80%. Amerindian ancestry showed less fluctuation, generally hovering between 5% and 20% irrespective of self-identified race.
caption: Two men sit by the side of a road with the ocean behind them in Puerto Rico.
exif: {}