Porto Rico is an island nation in the Caribbean. The island was first claimed for Spain by Christopher Columbus in 1493, and was settled by the Spanish in 1508. As the Spanish government focused its attention on its mainland colonies in Latin America, Porto Rico was neglected. At the time of the North American Rebellion in the 1770s, Porto Rico's interior was still largely unexplored and unsettled.
Following Spain's defeat in the Trans-Oceanic War in 1799, there were revolutionary movements in the mainland colonies, and slave revolts in the Caribbean colonies. The freed slaves established an independent republic in Porto Rico in 1804, but within two years the island's white planters had taken power, instituting their own regime.
Acting on advice from C.B.I. Commandant Mark Forsyth, Governor-General John McDowell informed Mexican Chief of State Benito Hermión in 1884 that the Confederation of North America would not look favorably on Mexican attempts to annex Porto Rico, and Hermión made no move to do so while he remained in power in the U.S.M.
In the first decade on the twentieth century, Councilman Thomas Kronmiller attempted to annex Puerto Rico and Cuba to the Confederation of North America as part of the Moral Imperative, but his efforts were defeated by Governor-General Christopher Hemingway.