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The People and Culture from Puerto Rico Brief History 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 departu