San Juan Bay

Spanish conquest and settlement

The Spanish conquistadors of the New World thought in terms of urban landscapes and municipal organization. They did not launch their colonization of the Americas from ocean-going caravels or itinerant campsites. The Spanish needed solid dwellings, preferably surrounded by rock walls, as they had in Europe. Juan Ponce de León spent days searching for the best place to build a settlement, the blueprint for a colonial city. Santo Domingo governor Nicolás de Ovando had appointed him to pacify and evangelize the nearby island, which Christopher Columbus had named San Juan Bautista after John the Baptist during his second voyage to the Americas. A frontier with dreaded, cannibalistic natives known as the Caribs on its coast, it was an opportunity to demonstrate machismo and glorify God and country. Following de Ovando's recommendation, Ferdinand II of Aragon made Ponce de León an adelantado and authorized him to conquer the main island of Puerto Rico, which was inhabited by the indigenous Taíno people. Boriquén, the native name of the island, would be the second Caribbean island to become part of the Spanish Empire.^[17]

In 1508, Ponce de León sailed into the Bay of Guanica, on the southwestern corner of the island, where local cacique Agüeybaná I welcomed his men as allies against the Caribs. However, the Spanish did not find a suitable place to settle there.^[18] The adelantado and his small team of hidalgos traversed the unexplored northern coast of the island until they saw a spacious, almost-landlocked bay on the northeastern shore. No indigenous peoples seemed to claim the area, since it was subject to Carib raids. Ponce de León reportedly named the body of water the Bay of the Rich Port (Spanish: Bahía de Puerto Rico).^[19][20]

Ponce de León pushed inland and founded the first Spanish settlement on the island, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the bay in the area that today occupies the Villa Caparra suburbs in the Pueblo Viejo barrio of the Guaynabo municipality. Following de Ovando's suggestion, he named the settlement Caparra after the ancient Roman city of Cáparra in Cáceres, the Spanish province where Ovando was born. However, King Ferdinand II of Aragon referred to the village as Ciudad de Puerto Rico (City of Rich Port). The explorer chose the site because of its proximity to the sea and "to the gold mines and farms of the Toa Valley".^[21]

Caparra proved to be an inauspicious venture. Mendicant friars appealed to Governor Ponce de León to move the settlement closer to the bay (and its sea breezes), saying that its present location was lethal to children. The governor was adamantly opposed, since he had had a house built in Caparra. In 1511, the Spanish Crown appointed a new governor, Juan Cerón, who received royal permission to relocate the village.

The villagers resettled on a 3-mile (4.8 km) blustery, wooded islet, today San Juan Islet in the capital municipality of San Juan, at the entrance to the bay.^[22] In 1521, the residents completed the resettlement and named the new settlement San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico (Saint John Baptist of Rich Port), but was often commonly referred to Ciudad de Puerto Rico (City of Rich Port).^{[23][24][25][26]} Colonial engineers fortified the islet with masonry walls, today the Walls of Old San Juan, and fortresses, like the El Morro and San Cristóbal castles, connecting it to mainland Puerto Rico with a fort and bridge known named San Antonio, today Puente Guillermo Esteves. The city came to be known as "the walled city".^[27][28]

Sixteenth-century Spanish historian and indigenous activist Bartolomé de las Casas described the bay and its surrounding area names different from those presently used:^[29][30] La isla que llamamos de San Juan, que por vocablo de la lengua de los indios, vecinos naturales della, se nombraba Boriquén ... tiene algunos puertos no buenos, si no es el que llaman Puerto-Rico ("That island we call San Juan, which according to the native Indian language was called Boriquén, has but a few inferior harbors, except the one called Puerto-Rico").^[31][32] According to de las Casas, the Indians called their island "Boriquén"; the Spanish called it "San Juan", and its harbor "Puerto Rico". Over time, the island became Puerto Rico and its harbor (and bay) San Juan; the Indian name changed to Borinquen, with no diacritic and an extra n.^[33]

Colonial period

Although the Atlantic winds may have provided a healthier climate on San Juan Islet, moving the settlement from inland to the entrance of San Juan Bay did not protect the settlers further from Carib attacks. The Caribs, understanding the impact of European colonization on their survival, stormed the new settlement fiercely.^[34]

By the eighteenth century, the population of the islet had expanded into the modern City of San Juan, largely due to the proximity of the bay and its port. The city and the bay's entrances were fortified; the bay and its walls isolated the Spanish inhabitants from the rest of the main island's population, encouraging a casta.^[35]

For the last 500 years, the bay's most important function has been to link Puerto Rico and the outside world,^[36] and detachments of the Spanish treasure fleet connected the island colony to the Spanish colonial network. With its strategic location, it was a target for pirate attacks and a site for imperial great powers to demonstrate military might. On the east side of the bay's mouth, the Castillo San Felipe del Morro still guards its narrow entrance.^[37]

Present day

The Port of San Juan is among the busiest Caribbean ports.^[38][39][40] Thousands of fishermen ply the brackish waters where fresh water meets the sea. San Juan Bay's beauty and ecological diversity attracts tourism and a variety of recreational activities.

A result of exploitation, however, has been the degradation of a significant portion of the bay's natural resources; the area is also susceptible to seismic activity.^[41][42] A restoration project has returned the bay's water to "safe at contact" status and has integrated the city's renovated coastal infrastructure into the bay's shoreline.^[43]