Puerto Rico

1516-1521. In 1516, Fernando dies, and Cardinal Cisneros takes interim charge of the island until powers were transferred in 1519 to Francisco de Barrionuevo, a man who had been holding the island’s reigns since 1513. Barrionuevo took over the island in 1520 to spearhead efforts towards Christian indoctrination of the native population, conservation and industrialization, and defraying tithes to the Church and the King over production.

1514. The Spanish king allows colonizers to marry female natives.

1513. The coming of slaves begins and native workforce is substituted by African Negroes.

1511The Spaniards founded several villages and hamlets, but rebellions conducted by native people from 1511 on, delayed colonization.

1508-1521. Although the Borinquen Island was discovered in 1493, for fifteen years the Spaniards didn’t settle down on it. In 1508, Juan Ponce de Leon, the island’s first governor, founded the village of Caparra on the northern coast and across from the today’s capital, San Juan. In 1511, Pope Julius II named San Juan Baptist the new city’s saint patron. But the burg turned out unhealthy and eventually transferred to an islet.
In 1521, it took its second and final name and Caparra, the name of a Spanish city, was soon forgotten. There were only 80 houses in the new city, some of them made out of quarry stones and tiled gables. Most of them, though, were wooden and thatch-roofed houses.