Was Puerto Rico ever a European colony?

Question

If so, what country?

Answer 1

Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in existance today.

It was discovered by Columbus in 1493, since then it became a Spanish (Spain) colony.

Until 1898, the Spanish-American war changed the ownership of the island to the USA.

Today the US Congress has full authority over the island, with some very limited local government.  The status-quo party in power call it "commonwealth".  A beautiful name for colony.

Answer 2

yes, when christopher columbus discovered the island of puerto rico in 1493 which he named san juan bautista, it became a european colony, belonging to spain. when columbus first arrived at puerto rico, the native indians were the tainos and then when the tainos suffered severe health problems from the diseases brought from spain,excessive labor work and war against each other(tainos with poor weapons)  they all started decreasing in population and the spaniards went to africa and brought slaves to replace the tainos. thats why we have a mixture in our race of spaniards, native tainos and african, when different races started falling in love, getting married against their will or even getting raped and having bi-racial children. after the spanish-american war (the island independence day in july 25, 1898 ;the americans named the island  puerto rico.

Answer 3

Yes it was controlled by Spain until the Spanish-American war. Then it became a US territory in 1898.

Answer 4

Puerto Rico was *invaded* by Spain in 1493, and was a Spain colony until 1898.  During those 405 years, Spain committed genocide, killing the Taino indigenous that were living in the island; stole everything they could and imposed on the inhabitants the Spanish language, culture, and religion.

Answer 5

All of the Americas were at one time a colony of either

Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Denmark,Sweden, Latvia, Spain, Portugal, etc. etc....