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This essay examines the discursive and visual representations of the port and port city of San Juan Bautista de Puerto Rico during the second half of the eighteenth century to underscore how they functioned as critical venues for sharing imperial knowledge with those abroad while instilling cultural prestige and patriotic affects to those at home. Following the premise of Charles W. J. Withers regarding the mobile and spatial dimension of the Enlightenment (8), this article discusses the manner in which the port and its surrounding areas were read, outlined, mapped, and constructed in an effort to call attention to its global value and its recognition as a place of potential global impact. To this extent, the port and the port city sought to gain a reputation as a global place of entry that aimed to assure that Spanish colonialism endured in the territories surrounding the vulnerable waters of the Caribbean Sea.
