San Juan, Puerto Rico: History
=== Pre-Columbian era ===
The Taíno people were the original inhabitants of the area before the arrival of the Europeans to the island of Puerto Rico in 1493. Remains of a small indigenous fishing village have been found in Puerta de Tierra where the Puerto Rico National Guard Museum stands today, however most archaeological sites in the region have been destroyed and lost throughout the colonial history. The area of San Juan used to be the boundary between the tribal regions (yucayeques) of Guaynabo and Haimanio, led by the chiefs (caciques) Mabo and Yuisa (also known as Loaíza), respectively, at the time of the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.
In 1508, Juan Ponce de León founded the original settlement which he called Caparra. It was named after a former Roman city in the province of Cáceres in Spain, the birthplace of Nicolás de Ovando, then the Governor of Spain's Caribbean territories. Today, it is part of the Pueblo Viejo district of Guaynabo, directly to the west of the modern municipality of San Juan. A year later, the settlement was moved to a site then called Puerto Rico, Spanish for "rich port" or "good port".
The local Catholic diocese, the second oldest in the Americas and the oldest in the United States, was founded in the newly built settlement on August 8 of 1511. In 1521, the newer settlement was given its formal name: Ciudad de Puerto Rico de San Juan Bautista. Many of the oldest European-founded institutions in the Western Hemisphere, such as the Santo Tomás de Aquino Convent and the Nuestra Señora de la Concepción Hospital, were established during this time in San Juan.
The ambiguous use of San Juan Bautista and Puerto Rico for both the city and the island in time led to a reversal in practical use by most inhabitants: by 1746 the name for the city (Puerto Rico) had become that of the entire island, leading to the city being identified as Puerto Rico de Puerto Rico on maps of the era.
San Juan, as a settlement of the Spanish Empire, was used by merchant and military ships traveling from Spain as the first stopover in the Americas. Because of its prominence in the Caribbean, a network of fortifications was built to protect the transports of gold and silver from the New World to Europe. Because of the rich cargoes, San Juan became a target of the foreign powers of the time. …