Editing Vieques, Puerto Rico (section)

===United States control===
[[File:Vieques, PR.jpg|thumb|Municipio de Vieques plaque]]
Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the [[Spanish–American War]] under the terms of the [[Treaty of Paris of 1898]] and became a territory of the United States. In 1899, the United States conducted its first census of Puerto Rico finding that the population of Vieques was 6,642 (but this included 704 residents from a nearby island, [[Culebra, Puerto Rico|Culebra]]).<ref name="OfficeSanger1900">{{cite book|author1=Joseph Prentiss Sanger|author2=Henry Gannett|author3=Walter Francis Willcox|title=Informe sobre el censo de Puerto Rico, 1899, United States. War Dept. Porto Rico Census Office|url=https://archive.org/details/informesobreelc00joangoog|year=1900|publisher=Imprenta del gobierno|page=[https://archive.org/details/informesobreelc00joangoog/page/n255 164]|language=es|access-date=May 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121115044918/http://archive.org/details/informesobreelc00joangoog|archive-date=November 15, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the 1920s and 1930s, the [[sugar industry]], on which Vieques was dependent, went into decline due to falling prices and industrial unrest. Many locals were forced to move to mainland Puerto Rico or [[Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands|Saint Croix]] to look for work.

In 1941, while Europe was in the midst of [[World War II]], the [[United States Navy]] purchased or seized almost eighty percent<ref>{{Cite web|title=Vieques Island|url=https://vieques-island.com/|access-date=September 14, 2021|website=Vieques Island|language=en-US}}</ref> of Vieques as an extension to the [[Roosevelt Roads Naval Station]] nearby on the Puerto Rican mainland. It is said that the original purpose of the base (never implemented) was to provide a safe haven for the [[Royal Navy|British fleet]] and the [[British royal family]] should Great Britain fall to [[Nazi Germany]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hulme|first=Peter|date=Winter 1987|title=Islands of Enchantment|journal=[[New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory & Politics]]|volume=3}}</ref> This assertion does not match U.S. Navy documents and the obvious fact that Canada's [[Halifax Harbour|Halifax harbor]] would have been a more likely fallback position for the British fleet, with British King [[George VI]] already reigning as King of Canada. The base was however seen as the Atlantic's counterpart of [[Pearl Harbor]] in the [[Pacific Ocean|Pacific]] due to its strategic location. The Naval Station at Roosevelt Roads was a perfect location to defend the strategic approaches to the [[Panama Canal]].

Much of the land was bought from the owners of large farms and sugar cane plantations, and the expropriations triggered the final demise of the sugar industry. Without consulting the local population who had lived and worked there for centuries and protested the expropriations,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Historia de Vieques|url=http://www.vieques-island.com/navy/rabin.html#PARTEII|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150222091327/http://www.vieques-island.com/navy/rabin.html#PARTEII|archive-date=February 22, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> the decision to turn it into a bombing range was made in Washington. In a similar way as the [[Chagossians|former population]] of the [[Chagos Archipelago|Chagos Islands]], who were displaced to make way for an Air Force Base in the Indian Ocean in the 1960s, many agricultural workers, who had no formal title to the land they occupied, were evicted and forced to migrate.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/ayala/vieques/Papers/06ayalacentro.pdf |title=From Sugar Plantations to Military Bases: the U.S. Navy's Expropriations in Vieques, Puerto Rico, 1940–45 |last=Ayala |first=César |date=Spring 2001 |journal=Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=22–44 |via=Department of Sociology, UCLA |access-date=July 21, 2019 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227114757/http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/ayala/vieques/Papers/06ayalacentro.pdf |archive-date=February 27, 2009}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Vieques tiene historia|url=https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00062883/00003|access-date=September 14, 2021|website=ufdc.ufl.edu|language=en}}</ref>

For over sixty years, the US military used the island (with a population of over 9000 inhabitants in 1950<ref>{{Cite web|title=Rioz Castro: Vieques y la diaspora|url=http://cie.uprrp.edu/cuaderno/download/numero_26/vol26_09_rioz-castro.pdf}}</ref>) as a live munitions target practice. According to internal Navy documents, bombardments occurred on 180 days out of a year on average. The US military used the highest possible contaminant [[depleted uranium]] (DU) munitions since 1972 on the populated (and full of exotic wildlife) island, at a rate of over 80 live bombs daily for decades.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=Contaminación en Vieques|url=http://www.uprh.edu/exegesis/fernandezporto.pdf}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> The health consequences are felt to this day as the cancer rates are ostensibly higher for the population of Vieques, especially children, than for those on the main island.<ref name=":2" />

After the war, the US Navy continued to use the island for military exercises, and as a firing range and testing ground for [[munitions]].