“The emphasis of the activists on the ground,” Rolando López said, “is that the governor resigning is not the last step. This really is about a more general critique of the economy of Puerto Rico.”

The bishops said in a statement on July 19: “You, Mr. Governor, bribed and attacked people and groups that participate in our democratic coexistence and therefore cannot continue to exercise your role.”

For more than three decades, Juscelina Silva Batista's life has followed the rise and fall of the Amazon River.

"People used to live there," said Joana Gomes da Silva, pointing to the cluster of skeletal trunks and branches. "It was a very pretty house. It's underwater now."

Although slavery as an institution no longer exists, forms of forced labor persist in the country.

With the miners came violence and diseases like malaria, to which the relatively isolated Indians had no resistance. In one village, no one survived. In others, as many as one-third of the villagers succumbed, some to disease and others to malnutrition.