Puerto Rico was first settled by Ortoiroid, Saladoid, and Arawak peoples, with Taíno culture becoming dominant before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1493. Spanish colonization began in 1508, bringing settlement, Catholic institutions, African slavery, forced labor, disease, and warfare that devastated the Indigenous population. Puerto Rico became a strategic Spanish fortress and endured repeated attacks by European powers. Nineteenth-century reforms, immigration, agriculture, slave emancipation, and independence movements transformed society. After the Spanish–American War, the United States took control in 1898. U.S. citizenship, industrialization, migration, and political repression followed. The Commonwealth was established in 1952, but statehood, independence, and territorial status remain contested.