Hawaiian's and America overall were more on guard and scared for any attacks. Any thing could happen seeing as there was no invisible shield. It started to get into paranoia.
John Wolfe introduced the staple crop, tobacco.
Helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris
cotton , tea , rice , soybeans , crude oil , iron ore
In general, yes it is true that many Americans questioned this, but it was necessarily that it was because they thought that Puerto Rico did not serve a strategic importance, but because it was very expensive to maintain at the time.
