Currencies of Puerto Rico - Birth of The Puerto Rican Peso

Birth of The Puerto Rican Peso

In the 19th century, the issuing of situado concluded, with two last deliveries of 500,000 and 100,000 between 1809 and 1810. This brought forth a critical economical crisis to Puerto Rico. At the moment, Salvador Meléndez Bruna, the colonial governor in office, ordered the production of provincial paper money. The decree was officially enacted on August 31, 1812. These banknotes used the peso being used as equivalent to Spanish reales. Produced by hand, these banknotes featured quantities in the thousands, with 1 peso being worth 8 reales. Mechanical printing had arrived to Puerto Rico years earlier, but up until 1813, part of the issued notes were being produced by hand and stamped. Between 1812 and 1813, the tradition of collecting paper money continued, which reduced the amount of surviving banknotes drastically. The other notes printed between 1813 and 1814, featured a combination of printed types and stamps, the printing was done by Puerto Rico's National Printing Office and featured patterns to prevent the production of counterfeits. Those featuring denominations in reales, were adorned by Spain's Royal Seal, with the color varying depending on the date of issue, the 1813 8-real banknotes featured a lamb on the obverse. However, these security measures were ineffective against counterfeiting, eventually copies of several denominations were circulating in a widespread manner, forcing cities outside of San Juan, Arecibo and Loiza to discontinue their use. Meléndez Bruna decided that the only way to prevent forgery was by asking Spain to produce sealed paper for the printing of the banknotes. The first issue bore the signatures of treasurers or accountants, but this was dropped the subsequent year.