Burgos' article came about in a period when there was considerable debate in Puerto Rico on whether the public school system was being used by then pro-statehood governor Pedro Rosselló as a political indoctrination tool or not. When historians disputed Burgos' claim (which was favorably viewed by Eleuterio) as a distortion of historical fact, Burgos was publicly ridiculed by some. Eleuterio went to the point of "editing" a newspaper article (first published in Puerto Rico's premiere daily, "El Nuevo Día") in which he claimed that Puerto Rican history before 1898 and the Spanish–American War was almost non-existent, and that the Taíno natives of Puerto Rico were its first drug traffickers. He meant the article to be used as a reference in Puerto Rican schools.