The citizenship provision for Puerto Rico and the other Spanish ultramarine territories annexed
under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 departed from established precedents of United States
territorial expansionism. Whereas all prior treaties of U.S. territorial annexation contained provisions
providing for the collective naturalization (or promised to do so at a later time) of the inhabitants of
annexed territories, the Treaty of Paris ascribed a local non-citizenship nationality on Puerto Ricans.
In 1909, persons born in the Puerto Rican islands acquired a Puerto Rican citizenship at birth. The
first question of the 1909 Survey of Puerto Rican Elites inquired whether U.S. citizenship should be
extended to Puerto Ricans.

The U.S. Constitution contains two sources of citizenship. The Naturalization Clause (U.S.
Const., Art. 1, §8, cl. 4) authorizes Congress to enact naturalization laws for persons born outside of
the United States. In contrast, the Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (U.S. Const.,
14 th Amend., cl. 1) conferrs jus soli or birthright citizenship on most persons born in the United
States. This clause also authorizes Congress to write naturalization legislation for eligible aliens born
outside of the United States but seeking to naturalize in a state, district or territory. Throughout the
Nineteenth-Century interpretations of both clauses treated territories as a constitutional part of the
United States for citizenship purposes.

In 1898, the Fourteenth Amendment applied in a U.S. territory in two ways. Historically,
Congress enacted legislation extending birthright citizenship by legislation. Initially, Congress enacted
the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which extended birthright citizenship to territories and subsequently
became the Fourteenth Amendment. Following the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment,
Congress extended the Citizenship Clause and the Constitution more generally to the territories by
way of statutes like §1891 and §1995 of the Revised Statutes (1873-1874). In addition, some legal
scholars and political actors alike believed that the by 1898 the Fourteenth Amendment applied to
the territories’ ex propio vigore or on its own force. Central to this interpretation was the belief that
territories were a constitutional part of the United States and birth in a territory was tantamount to
birth in the United States. However, between 1898 and 1901, the federal government invented a new
constitutional interpretation to govern the application of the citizenship clauses to the Spanish
territories annexed during the War of 1898.

The Treaty of Paris of 1898 contained two citizenship provisions that departed from all prior
United States treaties of territorial annexation. At the time, Puerto Ricans were Spanish citizens.
Prior U.S. treaties of territorial annexation contained clauses that either provided for the collective
naturalization of the racially eligible inhabitants of annexed territories or promised to do so at a
future date. In contrast, Article Nine of the Treaty of Paris contained two clauses that barred most
Puerto Rican or insular born Spanish citizens residing in Puerto Rico from acquiring U.S.
citizenship. Article Nine’s firs clause established that:
Spanish subjects, natives of the Peninsula, residing in the territory over which Spain by the
present treaty relinquishes or cedes her sovereignty, may remain in such territory or may
remove therefrom, retaining in either event all their rights of property, including the right to
sell or dispose of such property or of its proceeds; and they shall also have the right to carry
on, their industry, commerce and professions, being subject in respect thereof to such laws
as are applicable to other foreigners. In case they remain in the territory they may preserve
their allegiance to the Crown of Spain by making, before a court of record, within a year
from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty, a declaration of their decision to
preserve such allegiance; in default of which declaration they shall be held to have renounced
it and to have adopted the nationality of the territory in which they may reside (30 Stat. 1754,
1759).

This clause effectively invented a local or Puerto Rican non-citizen nationality to govern the
residents of Puerto Rico.
Article Nine also delegated to Congress the power to make any future determinations on the
citizenship status of the residents of Puerto Rico. The language of the Article Nine’s second clause
stated:
The civil rights and political status of the native inhabitants of the territories hereby ceded to
the United States shall be determined by the Congress (30 Stat. 1754, 1759).
The record of the proceedings suggests that President McKinley did not want to create a precedent
that could be used or invoked to grant citizenship to Filipinos. The Treaty of Paris affirmed Congress’
power to extend one of the two citizenship clauses in the U.S. Constitution to the Puerto Rican
islands via legislation or statute.
The Foraker Act of 1900’s citizenship provision invented a Puerto Rican citizenship to govern
the island-born inhabitants of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican citizenship normalized or legislated to
the non-citizen nationality invented in Article Nine of the Treaty of Paris. Section Seven of the Foraker
Act established:

That all inhabitants continuing to reside therein who were Spanish subjects on the eleventh
day of April, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and then resided in Porto Rico, and their
children born subsequent thereto, shall be deemed and held to be citizens of Porto Rico, and
as such entitled to the protection of the United States, except such as shall have elected to
preserve their allegiance to the Crown of Spain on or before the eleventh day of April,
nineteen hundred, in accordance with the provisions of the treaty of peace between the
United States and Spain entered into on the eleventh day of April, eighteen hundred and
ninety-nine; and they, together with such citizens of the United States as may reside in Porto
Rico, shall constitute a body politic under the name of The People of Porto Rico, with
governmental powers as hereinafter conferred, and with power to sue and be sued as such
(31 Stat. 77, 79).

It is important to note that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a non-citizen nationality status,
much less a Puerto Rican citizenship. This citizenship ascribed Puerto Ricans a anomalous legal and
political status.

Like the Article Nine, Section Seven recognized a difference between peninsular (born in
Spain) and insular (born in Puerto Rico) Spanish citizens. Peninsular born were allowed to retain
their Spanish citizenship, acquire a Puerto Rican citizenship or acquire a U.S. citizenship via
naturalization. In contrast, insular born or Puerto Rican citizens were barred from retaining their
Spanish citizenship or acquiring a U.S. citizenship. To be sure, prevailing U.S. immigration and
naturalization laws required petitioners to renounce their allegiance to a sovereign in order to begin
the naturalization process. For Puerto Rican citizens, this meant having to renounce their allegiance
to the United States in order to comply with the naturalization process.
The Puerto Rican citizenship also created a number of administrative problems for the
federal government, the islands’ government and its bearers. Federal agencies did not understand
whether the Puerto Rican citizenship was a form of alienage of citizenship. At least initially, Puerto
Ricans were barred from acquiring a U.S. passport because thise travel documents could only be
issued to U.S. a citizen. Likewise, because Puerto Ricans were not U.S. citizens, it was not clear what
civil rights protected Puerto Rican citizens. Congress began to address each issue with corrective
amendments that integrated Puerto Rican citizens to the nation without incorporating them into the
polity.
Notwithstanding, between 1898 and 1909 some Puerto Ricans were able to acquire a U.S
citizenship in at least two ways. Prevailing U.S. law established that marriage was governed by the
doctrine of Coverture. The doctrine of Coverture treated marriage as a form of individual
naturalization. It followed that Puerto Rican women who married U.S. citizens acquired the
citizenship status of their spouses as a direct result of their marriage. That is, between 1898 and
1934, Puerto Rican women who married U.S. citizens were automatically naturalized as a condition
of their marriage.

In addition, and in direct response to the problems created by the Puerto Rican citizenship’s
anomalous status, in 1906 Congress enacted legislation that enabled Puerto Rican citizens to acquire
a U.S. citizenship via individual naturalization. The Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization Act
(BINA) of 1906 permitted individuals born in Puerto Rico and the other insular territories to
undergo the prevailing naturalization process and acquire a U.S. citizenship. Section Thirty
established:

That all the applicable provisions of the naturalization laws of the United States shall apply
to and be held to authorize admission to citizenship of all persons not citizens who owe
permanent allegiance to the United States, and who may become residents of any State or
organized Territory of the United States, with the following modifications: The applicant shall
not be required to renounce allegiance to any foreign sovereignty; he shall make his declaration of intention to
become a citizen of the United States at least two years prior to his admission; and residence within the
jurisdiction of the United States, owing such permanent allegiance, shall be regarded as residence within the
United States within the meaning of the five years' residence clause of the existing law (34 Stat. 596, 606-
607).
In other words, Puerto Rican citizens were no longer required to renounce an allegiance to a
sovereign in order to comply with the naturalization requirements. In addition, unlike aliens residing
in Puerto Rico who could naturalize in the U.S. District Court for Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican citizens
were required to travel to a state or and incorporated territory to undergo the naturalization process
in a federal district court. For the purposes of the BINA of 1906 Puerto Ricans were treated as white
aliens, eligible to naturalize under special circumstances. As public naturalization records available in
the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) show, between 1898 and 1909 many
Puerto Ricans residing throughout the United States took advantage of this law.