Columbus's landing in 1493 and the name San Juan Bautista

On September 24, 1493, Columbus sailed from Cádiz on his second voyage to the Americas, this time with seventeen ships and some 1,200 to 1,500 soldiers and settlers: a far larger expedition than the one that had made his first crossing the previous year, and a clear sign that Spain was already seeking a permanent settlement, not just exploration.

On November 19, 1493, Columbus landed on the island and named it San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist. It was the first documented European contact with the place, but not, of course, the first human contact. The Taíno cacique Agüeybaná and his people already lived there, under the name they themselves used: Borikén.

The names would eventually reverse. Within a few decades, the settlement and port the Spanish called Puerto Rico, meaning "rich port," grew into the name of the entire island, while the capital city took the name San Juan: the reverse of how the naming began, and a swap that has confused readers of the island's early history ever since.

Columbus's physician on this voyage, Diego Álvarez Chanca, is one of the sources historians point to for the earliest written use of the word "taíno" itself, recorded during a stop the expedition made at Guadeloupe while crossing the Caribbean, before reaching Puerto Rico's shores.

It is worth remembering that Puerto Rico was a stop within a far broader 1493 voyage, not a separate landing. Columbus's expeditions together marked the first documented European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America, and this island's chapter opens as a node within that larger, ongoing story of contact.

Sources: Historia de Puerto Rico; Cristóbal Colón; Taíno (etimología). Freeze 2026-08-22.