CHAPTER III

PONCE AND CERON

1500-1511

Friar Iñigo Abbad, in his History of the Island San Juan Bautista de
Puerto Rico, gives the story of the discovery in a very short chapter,
and terminates it with the words: "Columbus sailed for Santo Domingo
November 22, 1493, and thought no more of the island, which remained
forgotten till Juan Ponce returned to explore it in 1508."

This is not correct. The island was not forgotten, for Don José Julian
de Acosta, in his annotations to the Benedictine monk's history (pp.
21 and 23), quotes a royal decree of March 24, 1505, appointing
Vicente Yañez Pinzón Captain and "corregidor" of the island San Juan
Bautista and governor of the fort that he was to construct therein.
Pinzón transferred his rights and titles in the appointment to Martin
Garcia de Salazar, in company with whom he stocked the island with
cattle; but it seems that Boriquén did not offer sufficient scope for
the gallant pilot's ambition, for we find him between the years 1506
and 1508 engaged in seeking new conquests on the continent.

As far as Columbus himself is concerned, the island was certainly
forgotten amid the troubles that beset him on all sides almost from
the day of his second landing in "la Española." From 1493 to 1500 a
series of insurrections broke out, headed successively by Diaz,
Margarit, Aguado, Roldán, and others, supported by the convict rabble
that, on the Admiral's own proposals to the authorities in Spain, had
been liberated from galleys and prisons on condition that they should