America got Puerto Rico as a result of the Spanish–American War in 1898, when Spain ceded the island to the United States in the Treaty of Paris.

Quick Scoop

1. The setup: Spain’s colony for 400 years

  • Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony from the late 1400s until the end of the 1800s, part of Spain’s shrinking empire in the Caribbean.
  • By the 1890s, Spain was under pressure in its remaining colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines), facing revolts and international scrutiny.

2. Spanish–American War: why Puerto Rico was targeted

  • In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain, mainly over Cuba, but U.S. leaders also eyed Puerto Rico as strategically valuable in the Caribbean.
  • U.S. planners saw Puerto Rico as useful to cut Spanish supply lines to Cuba and to strengthen U.S. bargaining power in peace talks.

3. The invasion of Puerto Rico

  • On July 25, 1898, U.S. troops led by General Nelson A. Miles landed at Guánica on Puerto Rico’s southern coast and began a rapid campaign across the island.
  • Fighting was relatively limited compared with Cuba; Spanish and local forces retreated, and U.S. forces quickly occupied key towns like Ponce and Guayama.

4. The Treaty of Paris: the legal handover

  • The Spanish–American War ended with peace negotiations in late 1898 and the Treaty of Paris, signed in December 1898 and ratified in 1899.
  • Under that treaty, Spain ceded Puerto Rico (along with Guam and the Philippines) to the United States as war spoils, ending four centuries of Spanish rule.

5. What status did Puerto Rico get afterward?

  • After the war, the U.S. set up a military government on the island for several years, with U.S. generals acting as governors.
  • Civil government came with the Foraker Act (1900), and U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans followed later with the Jones Act in 1917, firmly tying the island into the U.S. system as a territory rather than a state.

6. Why this is a trending topic now

  • Puerto Rico’s political status (territory vs. statehood vs. independence) remains an active political and cultural debate more than a century later, often resurfacing in U.S. elections, referendums on the island, and discussions of representation and rights.
  • Modern coverage and explainers, including videos, frame Puerto Rico as a place “stuck in constitutional limbo,” highlighting how it is part of the U.S. but lacks full voting representation at the federal level.

In forum-style terms, when people ask “how did America get Puerto Rico,” the short, history-nerd answer is: through invasion during the Spanish–American War and the 1898 Treaty of Paris that forced Spain to hand it over.

TL;DR: The U.S. invaded Puerto Rico during the Spanish–American War in 1898, then Spain formally ceded the island to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris, turning it into a U.S. territory that still isn’t a state today.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.