German Vidal Ponce Popular Books

German Vidal Ponce Biography & Facts

Ponce (US: , UK: , Spanish pronunciation: [ˈponse] ) is a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on August 12, 1692 and is named after Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the great-grandson of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce is often referred to as La Perla del Sur (The Pearl of the South), La Ciudad Señorial (The Manorial City), and La Ciudad de las Quenepas (Genip City). The city serves as the governmental seat of the autonomous municipality as well as the regional hub for various Government of Puerto Rico entities, such as the Judiciary of Puerto Rico. It is also the regional center for various U.S. Federal Government agencies. Ponce is a principal city of both the Ponce Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Ponce-Yauco-Coamo Combined Statistical Area. The municipality of Ponce, officially the Autonomous Municipality of Ponce, is located in the southern coastal plain region of the island, south of Adjuntas, Utuado, and Jayuya; east of Peñuelas; west of Juana Díaz; and bordered on the south by the Caribbean Sea. The municipality has 31 barrios, including 19 outside the city's urban area and 12 in the urban area of the city. It is the second largest in Puerto Rico by land area, and it was the first in Puerto Rico to obtain its autonomy, becoming the Autonomous Municipality of Ponce in 1992. The historic Ponce Pueblo district, located in the downtown area of the city, is composed by several of the downtown barrios, and is located approximately three miles (4.8 km) inland from the Caribbean coast. The historic district is characterized for its Neoclásico Isabelino and Ponce Creole architectures. History Early settlers The region of what is now Ponce belonged to the Taíno Guaynia region, which stretched along the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Agüeybaná, a cacique who led the region, was among those who greeted Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León when he came to the island in 1508. Archaeological findings have identified four sites within the municipality of Ponce with archaeological significance: Canas, Tibes, Caracoles, and El Bronce. During the first years of the colonization, Spanish families started settling around the Jacaguas River, in the south of the island. For security reasons, these families moved to the banks of the Rio Portugués, then called Baramaya. Starting around 1646 the whole area from the Rio Portugués to the Bay of Guayanilla was called Ponce. In 1670, a small chapel was raised in the middle of the small settlement and dedicated in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Among its earliest settlers were Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, and the Portuguese Don Pedro Rodríguez de Guzmán, from nearby San Germán. On September 17, 1692, the King of Spain Carlos II issued a Cédula Real (Royal Permit) converting the chapel into a parish, and in so doing officially recognizing the small settlement as a hamlet. It is believed that Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, Juan Ponce de León's great-grandson, was instrumental in obtaining the royal permit to formalize the founding of the hamlet. Captains Enrique Salazar and Miguel del Toro were also instrumental. The city is named after Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the great-grandson of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. In the early 18th century Don Antonio Abad Rodriguez Berrios built a small chapel under the name of San Antonio Abad. The area would later receive the name of San Antón, a historically important part of modern Ponce. In 1712 the village was chartered as El Poblado de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Ponce (The Village of Our Lady of Guadalupe of Ponce). 19th-century immigrants In the early 19th century, Ponce continued to be one of dozens of hamlets that dotted the Island. Its inhabitants survived by subsistence agriculture, cattle raising, and maritime contraband with foreigners. Mayor José Benítez categorized the jurisdiction into cotos, hatos, criaderos, monterías, and terrenos realengos. Cotos were lands awarded to residents as reward for their services to the king. They were developed into estancias or lands apt to be cultivated for agricultural use. Hatos were lands not granted to anyone in particular, but available for communal use where cattle could roam at will. Monterías were hilly areas located next to hatos were cattle could be reigned in or gathered together with the help of trained dogs. Criaderos were lands were cows could be herded for milk production. Goats, sheep, pigs, asses, and mares were also herded in criaderos. Terrenos realengos were lands that belonged to the state (to the king). However, in the 1820s, three events dramatically changed the size of the town. The first of these events was the arrival of a significant number of white Francophones, fleeing the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804. The effect of this mass migration was not felt significantly until the 1820s. These French Creole entrepreneurs were attracted to the area because of its large flatlands, and they came with enough capital, slaves, and commercial connections to stimulate Ponce's sugarcane production and sales. Secondly, landlords and merchants migrated from various Latin American countries. They had migrated for better conditions, as they were leaving economic decline following the revolutions and disruption of societies as nations gained independence from Spain in the 1810s-1820s. Third, the Spanish Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 attracted numerous European immigrants to Puerto Rico. It encouraged any citizen of a country politically friendly to Spain to settle in Puerto Rico as long as they converted to the Catholic faith and agreed to work in the agricultural business. With such mass migrations, not only the size of the town was changed, but the character of its population was changed as well. Europeans, including many Protestants, immigrated from a variety of nations. On July 29, 1848, and as a result of this explosive growth, the Ponce hamlet was declared a villa (village) by Queen Isabella II, and in 1877 the village obtained its city charter. Some of these immigrants made considerable fortunes in coffee, corn and sugarcane harvesting, rum production, banking and finance, the importing of industrial machinery, iron foundries and other enterprises. At the time of the American invasion of the Island in 1898, Ponce was a thriving city, boasting the Island's main financial center, the Island's first communications link to another country, the best capitalized financial institutions, and even its own currency. It had consular offices for England, Germany, the Netherlands, and other nations. Following trends set in Europe and elsewhere, in 1877, Don Miguel Rosich conceived an exposition for Ponce. This was approved in 1880, and the Ponce Fair was held in the city in 1882. It showed several industrial and agricultural advancements. "It is important to establish a relationship between the European e.... Discover the German Vidal Ponce popular books. Find the top 100 most popular German Vidal Ponce books.