Ponce      with    356   men. 
Aguada     with    564    "
Manati       "     357    "
Anasco       "     460    "
Yauco        "     164    "
Coamo        "     342    "
La Tuna      "     104    "
Arecibo      "     647    "
Utuado       "     126    "
Loiza        "     179    "
Toa-Alta     "     188    "
Toa-Baja     "     294    "
Piedras      "     104    "
Bayamon      "     256    "
Caguas       "     100    "
Guayama      "     211    "
Rio Piedras with    46    "
Cangrejos   with   120    "

The oldest of these settlements is

La Aguada.—­The name signifies “place at which water is taken,” and Aguadilla, which is to the north of the former and the head of the province, is merely the diminutive of Aguada.  The first possesses abundant springs of excellent water, one of them distant only five minutes from the landing-place.  In Aguadilla a famous spring rises in the middle of the town and runs through it in a permanent stream.

In 1511 the king directed his officers in Seville to make all ships, leaving that port for the Indies, call at the island of San Juan in order to make the Caribs believe that the Spanish population was much larger than it really was, and thus prevent or diminish their attacks.  The excellence of the water which the ships found at Aguada made it convenient for them to call, and the Spanish ships continued to do so long after the need of frightening away the Caribs had passed.

The first regular settlement was founded in 1585 by the Franciscan monks, who named it San Francisco de Asis.  The Caribs surprised the place about the year 1590, destroyed the convent, and martyrized five of the monks, which caused the temporary abandonment of the settlement.  It was soon repeopled, notwithstanding the repeated attacks of Caribs and French and English privateers.  Drake stopped there to provide his fleet with water in 1595.  Cumberland did the same four years later.  The Columbian insurgents attempted a landing in 1819 and another in 1825, but were beaten off.  Their valiant conduct on these occasions, and their loyalty in contributing a large sum of money toward the expenses of the war in Africa, earned for their town, from the Home Government, the title of “unconquerable” (villa invicta) in 1860.

Aguada, or rather the mouth of the river Culebrinas, which flows into the sea near it, is the place where Columbus landed in 1493.  The fourth centenary of the event was commemorated in 1893 by the erection, on a granite pedestal, of a marble column, 11 meters high, crowned with a Latin cross.  On the pedestal is the inscription: 

          1493
     19th of November
          1893