The People and Culture from Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico was discovered on November 19, 1493 by Columbus and a fleet of men. Columbus had brought with him a fleet of fifteen vessels and fifteen hundred men was well as horses, cattle and vines to start colonizing in the West Indies. No one knows for sure where he landed in Puerto Rico and it is still up for debate, though there are two towns on the northwest coast Aguada and Aguadilla, who have the best claim on his landing, and still argue about it today. Columbus's officer Juan Ponce de Leon had the greattest influence in developing Puerto Rico, when he returned to the island 15 years later after its discovery. .
Priir to their discovery the island was inhabited by Indians. They were known as Arawak Indians and their was about thirty thousand of them who lived on the island. The Arawak people were known to be very peace loving individuals who were governed by a cacique or a chief or king. The men had roughly six or seven wives who worked in the field while they hunted. Together the Spaniards and the Arawak Indians colonized the island and helped each other out. However in 1513 Ponce lost his job as governor and migrated to the states. After his departure the Spaniards conquered the Indians both physically and morally, forcing them to pan the rivers for gold and farm the lands, they also took their women as concubines and occasionally as wives. .
In the following years the expanding nations of the sixteenth century, England, France, Denmark, Holland all fought for a strong hold in this knew developing country. Though it was the British who constantly fought with Spain who desired the country the most. Though the island held its grounds in many of the British's attempts to try and capture it. The Puerto Ricans also helped the colonies gain their independence by contributing to the Revolutionary war, the sovereignty of the United Sates was first recognized by the people of Puerto Rico.