José F. BThe launching in 1938 and the implementation over the next twodecades of the reform program of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) resulted ina radical transformation of the economy and a massive realignment of socialforces in Puerto Rico. That process was officially known as the 'Puerto RicanMiracle' and, at the height of the Cold War, it was promoted by the USA as a'peaceful revolution' in contraposition to the armed insurrection commanded byFidel Castro in Cuba. This article describes a process less transparent anddemocratic that, conforming to Latin American populist traditions, unfoldedwithin a continuum where internal debate inside the PPD and opposition forces inthe public sphere, were systematically supressed as Luis Muñoz Marin rose tobecome the uncontested leader of the movement. The experiment was also afailed exercise in decolonization that brought dire consequences to large sectorsof Puerto Rican society.
The object of this study is to analyze the use and adaptation of racialist ideology in the Afro-Hispanic Antilles following the start of the Revolution of Saint-Domingue in 1791, as it evolved to justify and reinforce plantation slavery and served to reinstitute and police the color line that was the central ideological premise supporting the economy of exchange and exploitation in the world of Atlantic coloniality. The renewed stigmatization of the racialized types in Creole population aimed to limit the echoes of the revolution against the plantation and it was an attempt to dismiss its political significance as a movement of self-emancipation and decolonization. The fear promoted by the colonial authorities, the planter class and Creole intellectuals, liberal and otherwise, aimed to establish a delicate balance between terror and profits wanting to justify the continuation of plantation slavery through the purposeful resemantization of the ideological tandem civilization/barbarity based on a racialized reading of history that championed European immigration and the systematic reduction of the population of Afro-descendants. ; El objetivo de este estudio es analizar el uso y adaptación de la ideología racialista en las Antillas afrohispanas tras el estallido de la Revolución de Saint-Domingue en 1791 a medida que ésta fue evolucionando con el fin de justificar y afianzar la plantación esclavista. La continua estigmatización de los tipos racializados en la población criolla contribuyó a enmudecer los ecos de la revolución de los esclavos, especialmente la gran relevancia que en términos políticos tuvo el movimiento de auto-emancipación y descolonización. El miedo impulsado por las autoridades coloniales, los hacendados esclavistas y los intelectuales (liberales o no) procuró mantener un balance delicado entre el terror y las ganancias con el objetivo de intentar justificar la continuidad de la esclavitud mediante la resemantización deliberada del tándem ideológico civilización/barbarie. Dicha resemantización estaba basada en una interpretación racializada de la historia que buscó promover la inmigración de europeos y la reducción sistemática de la población de afrodescendientes.
