Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island found in the United States. Originally the island was inhabited by the Arawak Indians who were about sixty thousand in number.
At the time the island was known by the locals as Borinquen or Boriken which when translated to English means, the great land of the valiant and noble god or the land of the great lords. They are also known as Taino Indians.
History has it that Christopher Columbus was the person who discovered Puerto Rico on the second trip he made to the Caribbean, which was in the year 1943.
The Tainos who were generally very friendly welcomed Colombus and offered him gold nuggets and asked him to take whatever he wanted. Apparently this was a bad mistake they made because it got him interested in the gold found on the island. He then claimed the land for Spain by planting the Spain flag and used the Tainos as slaves to make them mine for gold which was in abundance in Puerto Rico. In 1508 Juan Ponce de León what had joined Columbus on his earlier explorations arrived in the island as the first governor. Initially the island was called Sa Juan Bautista but later on had it changed to Puerto Rico meaning rich port since it had a lot of potential.
