The first enslaved West Africans had arrived in Puerto Rico in 1518, seven years after the Spaniards introduced sugarcane to the island.

Juan Ponce de León had founded the original Spanish settlement in Puerto Rico at Caparra (named after the province of Cáceres, Spain, the birthplace of then-governor of Spain's Caribbean territories Nicolás de Ovando), which today is known as the Pueblo Viejo sector of Guaynabo, just to the west of the present San Juan metropolitan area.

However, the air is not salubrious and the mendicant friar have insisted on moving the settlement closer to the bay and to the sea, complaining that the infants are dying.

Their predilection is the Islet of Puerto Rico ("rich port" or "good port"), because of its similar geographical features to the island of Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands.

It is not until the end of Ponce de León's tenure as governor that they have their wish.

By 1521, the move is complete and it is known as "Villa de Puerto Rico."

With time the name of the island, San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico, trades places with what is now the capital of Puerto Rico: John the Baptist.