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Population.—The population increased from 583,308 in 1860 to 798,565 in 1887, and to 953,243, or 277.5 per sq. m., in 1899. Of the total population in 1899, 589,426, or 61.8% were whites, 304,352 were of mixed blood, 59,390 were negroes and 75 were Chinese. In 1910 the census returned the population as 1,118,012. The proportion of whites is greater at the west end than at the east end, greater on the north side than on the south side, and greater in the interior than along the coast. Only 13,872, or about 1.5% of the total population of 1899, were foreign-born, and of these more than one-half were born in Spain. The married portion of the population was only 16.6% in 1899. The principal towns, with the population of each in 1910, are: San Juan, 48,716; Ponce, 35,027; Mayaguez, 16,591; Arecibo, 9612. The Roman Catholic is the predominant church and the bishopric of Porto Rico (1512) is one of the oldest in the New World.

Government.—The constitution of Porto Rico is contained in an act of the Congress of the United States (the Foraker Act) which came into operation in May 1900. The governor is appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the Senate for a term of four years, and associated with the governor is an executive council consisting of the secretary, treasurer, auditor, attorney-general, commissioner of the interior, commissioner of education, and five other members, all appointed in the same manner and for the same term as the governor. The constitution requires that at least five of the eleven members of the Executive Council shall be native inhabitants of Porto Rico; in practice the six members who are also heads of the administrative departments have been Americans while the other five have been Porto Ricans. The insular government, however, has created a seventh administrative department—that of health, charities and corrections—and requires that the head of this shall be chosen by the governor from among the five members of the Executive Council who are not heads of the other departments.

History.—On his second voyage Columbus sighted the island, to which he gave the name San Juan Bautista, and remained in its vicinity from the 17th to the 22nd of November 1493. In 1508 Nicolás de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola (Haiti) rewarded the services of Juan Ponce de Leon, one of Columbus's companions in 1493, by permitting him to explore the island, then called by the natives “Borinquen,” and search for its reputed deposits of gold. Ponce's hospitable reception by the native chief, Aquebana or Guaybaná, and his fairly profitable search for the precious metal led King Ferdinand in 1509 to give him an appointment as temporary governor of the island, where his companions had already established the settlement of Caparra (Pueblo Viejo, near the present San Juan). In 1510 the king through Ovando's influence made this commission permanent. Meanwhile Ferdinand had also restored to Diego Columbus, son of the discoverer, the privileges of his father, including the control of the islands of Haiti and Porto Rico. The new admiral removed Ponce and appointed Juan Cerón to administer the affairs of Porto Rico. The quarrels between these two leaders disturbed the affairs of the island for the next