Brief report on the establishment of the escudo as a monetary unit in Puerto Rico (1865)

Abstract

This research aims to document and partially reconstruct a fragment of Puerto Rico's monetary history under the Spanish Empire. The primary sources available in the National Historical Archive of Madrid and the Library of Congress of the United States have been used to understand this process more deeply. This author has resorted to positivist historiography to reconstruct the monetary legislation applied to Puerto Rico in 1865, and the Spanish authorities converted the es-cudo into the new monetary unit of Puerto Rico. Numismatic historiography in Puerto Rico needs to pay more attention to this line in the history of Spanish monetary legislation in Puerto Rico. Very little has been documented regarding this monetary legislation applied to Puerto Rico. However, the au-thor believes that further research needs to be done to reconstruct the numismatic history of Puerto Rico.