The expulsion of the Puerto Rican poor as “excess population” to the United States did not, however, address the military’s dream of an empty island, which obeyed a different logic. Since 1901, the military had been displacing residents in the island municipality of Culebra to conduct exercises in violation of the 1898 Treaty of Paris (negotiated with Spain), in which the two countries agreed that prior land titles would be respected. Starting in 1941, the military conducted expropriations in the larger island municipality of Vieques to make room for munitions depot and a firing range. Ultimately the military expropriated two thirds of Vieques, including most of the land used for sugar cane production, one of the island’s main industries. In the next few years, after land was seized and construction jobs ended, 3,000 viequenses migrated to the St. Croix and other islands in the region (Baruffi 2002; McCaffrey 2002).