Picó's text was originally published in Spanish in 1987, as one of several works written in the late-1990s marking the centennial of the Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898 and its consequences for Puerto Rico. When the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico in 1898, the country was seriously divided by social conflicts; the invasion gave rise to violent expression of those preexisting conflicts. Picó examines the armed groups that terrorized the Puerto Rican countryside in 1898 and 1899, attacking first the farms and rural stores of Spaniards, and later those of native-born Puerto Ricans of European descent.