16 ^BULLETIN 354^ U. S. DEPARTMEISTT OF AGEICULTTJEE. 



A decidedly favorable feature of the present taxation system of 

 the island is its centralized organization. The insular government 

 assumes the responsibility for the assessment and collection of all 

 taxes, general and municipal, thus reducing the chances of inequali- 

 ties being introduced between urban and rural properties, and be- 

 tween similar classes of property in different municipalitieSo Until, 

 however, there can be effected a complete cadastral survey of the 

 island, making possible the enforcement of compulsory title regis- 

 tration and the assessment of land values based thereon, any system 

 of taxation, no matter how adequate, must, as now, be a dead letter 

 in its real property provisions; and the present practice of "distrain- 

 ing personal property for all taxes due and only proceeding on real 

 property when no personal property exists" must continue. 



POPULATION. 



Porto Rico has had a steady increase in population since Columbus 

 found 30,000 native Indians ^ on the island, except in the early years 

 of settlement, when through conflict, disease, emigration, and slavery, 

 the native population was rapidly reduced to a state approaching 

 extinction. Although it was reported in 1543 that but 60 Indians 

 remained on the island, it is probable that relatively pure Indian 

 stock persisted in the mountainous sections up to comparatively 

 recent times.^ Here, too, the aboriginal type of feature is readily 

 discernible to-day and the primitive method of "conuco" cultivation 

 is most commonly encountered. 



Because of extensive slave importations almost from the beginning 

 of settlement and the correspondingly slow colonization up to the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, as late as 1820 the negro popu- 

 lation outnumbered the white by 5 to 4. At present, however, the 

 white race dominates all others by more than 7 to 4. Except for 

 Cuba, there is no other island in the West Indies where this condition 

 is even closely approximated, all but two showing 10 per cent or less 

 of white people. Porto Rico has also a smaller proportion of negro 

 population than most of the southern seaboard States. 



The density of population in Porto Rico is phenomenal, particularly 

 as there is a great preponderance of rural inhabitants. It is exceeded 

 in but few of the other West Indies, is 1 per cent more than in China, 

 and slightly more than in Japan. Porto Rico, with 325.5. persons per 

 square mile (79.9 per cent rural), ranks fourth among the political 

 subdivisions of the American territory,^ after Rhode Island with 

 508, Massachusetts with 418.8, and New Jersey with 337.7. On the 



1 Fewkes, Jesse Walter, "The Aborigines of Porto Rico," 25th Annual Report, Bui'eau of Ethnology, 

 1907. 



2 Flinter (see bibliography) remarks that there were in 1832 Indian families living in the mountainous 

 interior. 



"8 Thirteenth Decennial Census (1910). 



