C H A P T E R X X IV
PUERTO RICO IN SPANISH HANDS
WH EN Columbus sailed from the northern side
of Hispaniola for Spain, after his first vo y age
of discovery, he probably did not observe the
verdant heights of the beautiful island to the south,
for he left no record of it; but on his return in November,
1493» h*“ came up from the Caribbees past
the Virgins and skirted along its southern shore.
A s he went up its western coast on his way to the
forlorn colony which he had left at L a Navidad,
he made a landing in a broad bay where he found
generous springs of water for his ships. He called
the place Aguadilla, admired the waving palm-trees
on the sandy shore and the green background of
wooded hills, and went his way. The natives called
their land Borinquen, but with his fondness for
labelling his discoveries with the names of saints
Columbus called it San Juan Bautista, or St. John
the Baptist.
For fifteen years the island was left undisturbed
under the cacique Agueynaba, whose people were
said to be numerous, and were, so far as we know,
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happy and harmless. Before Diego Colon came
from Spain to exercise his inherited prerogatives
and send Esquivel to Jamaica and Velasquez to
Cuba, a Spanish commander in the east of Hispaniola,
Juan Ponce de Leon by name, made a prospecting
trip across the channel, lured by reports of
great wealth in the unexplored island of San Juan
Bautista. He was received with imprudent hospitality
by Agueynaba, who with childish delight showed
him glittering grains of gold from the river beds.
Confirmed in his anticipations of wealth, Ponce de
Leon returned to Santo Domingo, and two years
later, in 1510, went with an armed expedition to
take possession of Agueynaba’s realm. He e x plored
the northern coast until he came to a deep
inlet opening into a spacious bay, and near this he
founded the town of Caparra; but finding that he
had chosen the wrong side of the bay for defensive
purposes, he started again a year later on the island
that guarded the entrance on the east, and built a
city which he called San Juan Bautista de Puerto
Rico. This became the capital of the new colony,
and remained so while Spain held her sovereignty in
the western world. Unwittingly Ponce de Leon
gave a new name to the whole island, for though
Puerto Rico meant simply a “ splendid p o r t,” it
was incongruously applied to a land of large extent
and many ports, and the English, with their propensity
for assimilating foreign words to the sound
of their own language, came to call it Porto Rico,
as if it were Portuguese instead of Spanish.
Ponce de Leon had hardly started his new colony