The Taino Indians thought that Yuquiyú, their supreme god, lived on the clouds on top of the
Sierra de Luquillo. They called this mountain Yuque. When the Spaniards arrived, they confused the name and called it Yunque. During the Spanish colonization, El Yunque and
other rivers on Puerto Rico were panned for gold. After the gold supply ran out, the King of Spain proclaimed
the El Yunque rainforest as a nature reserve. In 1898 the Spanish-American War, the
Spanish crown gave Puerto Rico to the United States. In 1903, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt declared the rainforest as the
