People in United States
...y and freedom to Puerto Rican immigrants. The fact that the U.S. was a republic where the people held regular elections to place political officials in power was appealing to many people in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico only gave the right to vote to an elite minority of the population. Suffrage in the United States was not given to everyone in the nation either. Only white people were allowed to vote. The possibility of voting was quite appealing to many Puerto Rican people. Large numbers of Puerto Rican people left their homeland because there was a high population in their country. Although, there was a higher Puerto Rican population, there was less jobs for these people because many jobs that had previously performed by humans were now being performed by machines. A great deal of the country was covered with mountains and forests and could not be farmed, and what little land was available for that occupation was extremely expensive. Because of this many people sought out new jobs and available farm land in the United States. For those individuals who were not farmers, the potential wages available in the United States were far more attractive than those in Puerto Rico. For example, a sailor on an American ship could earn three to four times the wage of a sailor on a Puerto Rican ship. Also jobs in the growing American cities offered work and ...