By Michael Hernández
Today, the Island of Enchantment is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna: coquí frogs, hibiscus flowers, boas, flamboyant trees, Amazon parrots, and small Indian mongooses. Yes, mongooses. A lesser-known chapter of our history reveals that Puerto Ricans have long dealt with two major pests in the Caribbean: rats and mongooses. But how? How do these two species connect to the story I’m now telling? It might sound strange—perhaps even far-fetched. To understand it, we need to go back in time—not too far—only to the mid-1870s.
Puerto Rico at that time was one of the most important contributors to the export and import industry. Fresh coffee, the finest tobacco, and sweetest of sugars were produced here. These were our main agricultural products. The products that drove our livelihood and the island’s economy forward. And to move forward meant one thing: progress. And progress brought with it a high demand for our agricultural products, and with such an immense need to produce sugar, it also led to an abundance of sugarcane plantations—the plant that was taken to the great mills and crushed to obtain this coveted and important product.
With sugar plantations spreading everywhere, the pockets of these sugar barons swelled like never before. They had more money than they could spend. But not everything was prosperous for our contented magnates. The obligatory labor of the Black slave was conceiving an epilogue. By the 1870s, many of these slaves had already been emancipated, and for the plantation owners, that meant losing a labor force that had once been abundant—and valuable. They had no choice but to shift from forced labor to free labor. Although slavery had been abolished, freed slaves were forced to continue working under restrictive labor contracts between 1873 and 1876. These contracts required them to live on the plantation and get permission whenever they wanted to leave the area. On top of that, population growth and the sparing availability of land for farming left the freed people with few options. They had to stay in the sugar industry as workers—no longer as slaves, but not truly free either. They lived alongside agregados—tenant farmers who worked in exchange for land—often in small hacienda shacks, slowly moving closer to joining the free labor market. Still, the so-called family-style hacienda wasn’t all that different from the slave plantations that came before. It relied on cheap labor and was entirely focused on squeezing profit out of sugar—not on growing food to survive, but on feeding an industry.
To rub even more salt into the landowners’ wounds, rats had been known to infest the crops since colonial times—especially sugarcane, fruits, and stored grains. The rats gnawed through the stalks, reduced yields, and caused significant losses for the barons—which goes without saying was counterproductive in an economy where sugarcane was booming. And by the mid-1870s, this problem clashed with the expansion of sugarcane plantations across the island, coupled with the looming reality that they might soon lose their slave labor.
Rats arrived in Puerto Rico with the first European ships—particularly those of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish vessels that followed—around the 16th century. It’s believed these rodents traveled aboard European ships, sneaking in as stowaways or hidden among provisions. The introduction of these invasive species had a significant impact on the island’s native ecosystem, potentially contributing to the decline of native rodent species like the Puerto Rican hutia. Back in the time of European colonization, at least one species of native rat existed in Puerto Rico. But today, there are no native rodents left alive on the island.
Faced with a rat problem that big, what do you think these businessmen decided to do? Simple. We know that sugarcane attracts rats, which leads to crop losses. And what eats rats? Mongooses! Therefore, around the year 1872, mongooses were introduced to Jamaica to control the rats infesting sugarcane plantations over there. With that in mind, the magnates had the very same idea that probably came to your head right about now. They thought: “Let’s take our money, order a whole bunch of these mongooses from the Malay Peninsula, and wipe out the rat population on the island to save ourselves from these losses.” And that’s exactly what they did.
Inspired by earlier introductions of mongooses in other Caribbean islands like Jamaica, plantation owners and colonial administrators believed that mongooses would control rat populations and, in doing so, protect the sugar industry. The small Indian mongoose was first brought to Puerto Rico from the Malay Peninsula in 1877. At first, this idea turned out to be incredibly successful and improved crop yields. The mongooses quickly adapted to all ecological zones of Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra—even El Yunque Rainforest. These wealthy individuals had managed to solve a problem that once seemed unsolvable. Sugar was once again mass-producible.
However, this brilliant plan had one small flaw in its logic. It just so happens that rats are nocturnal mammals, when mongooses only come out to feed during the day. And while the mongooses did reduce rat populations in some areas, the plan eventually failed. Mongooses are diurnal, whereas rats are mostly nocturnal, so their schedules didn’t exactly line up. Worse yet, the mongooses began preying on native species such as ground-nesting birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Today, they are responsible for destroying harmless birds and mammals and have contributed to the extinction or endangerment of many desirable wildlife species. And if that sounds bad for the environment, read this: The small Indian mongoose has become the primary carrier of rabies in Puerto Rico in recent years. And for these obviously logical reasons, the importation of most mongoose species into the United States has been banned, indefinitely.
It’s curious to think how, among many supposedly intelligent and sharp-witted businessmen, not a single one thought to ask whether the animals they were about to bring to the island even shared the same activity hours as the rats.
Invasive rats still roam, spreading disease—the very same creatures responsible for outbreaks of the Black Plague during the 1910s—and mongooses still carry rabies, accounting for at least 70% of rabies cases in Puerto Rico.
The moral of this tragicomic story? Two lefts never make a right, and always make sure your conclusions are mongoose-proof.
About the Author:
Michael Saldaña Hernández is a writer based in Puerto Rico. Growing up in the municipality of Luquillo, near El Yunque Rainforest, he was deeply drawn to the stories of his ancestors, which have profoundly shaped his literary voice. His stories explore the genres of mystery, horror, and literary fiction. He is currently working on building a short story collection. When not writing, he enjoys studying history and learning about creative writing techniques.