Spotlight on Utuado, Puerto Rico

An introduction to the history and culture of the charming mountain town of Utuado (Otoao in Taíno), where my dad grew up.

Una introducción a la historia y la cultura del encantador pueblo montañoso de Utuado (Otoao en taíno), donde creció mi papá. 

Sources in transcript

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Transcript

Welcome to the BoricuameRican podcast, where we talk about a whole bunch of stuff related to Puerto Rico, from true crime and celebrities to food and drink and traditions. I’m your host, Nancy Pinto. Born and raised in New Jersey by a strong traditional Puerto Rican family. I’ve never lived on the island, just visited a bunch of times, but it always feels like home. You can find us on Instagram at BoricuameRican underscore podcast, or join our Facebook group BoricuameRican or follow our Facebook page also called BoricuameRican!  
I’m here with my husband Chris, who isn’t Puerto Rican but knows a lot about the culture from all our years together and all the trips we’ve taken to the island. And we’re excited today because we’re going to talk about the city of Utuado, where my dad is from, and which we have visited many times.
Utuado is in the interior of the island, in the Cordillera Central (cordillera means mountain range). It’s a little west of center, roughly between Arecibo in the north and Ponce in the south. Getting there means driving through windy mountain roads and honking the horn going around the turns. 
I asked the community for their stories and thoughts about Utuado, and, well, maybe the algorithms hate me because I got one reply. Shout out to my Tio Jesus!! Here’s what he said: 

“Ir los fines de semana al rio. Cojer buruquenas. Cangrejos de agua dulce (freshwater brown crab). Camarones (shrimp). En September son las fiestas patronales. Musica, comida y rides. Las navidades en los Campos son las mejores. Despues las promesas de reyes (explain what it is: you ask the three kings to help you solve a problem and then you have to have a big party with food and drink and prayers and religious aguinaldos), caminar por la plaza y comer pizza y muchas cosas mas pero voy a dar espacio para que otros opinen 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣”

And now a little history and timeline. When Christopher Columbus accidentally discovered Puerto Rico in 1493, it was actually called Boriken and inhabited by indigenous people called Tainos. The Tainos lived all over the island in villages ruled over by a chief, called a cacique. If you’d like to learn a little bit about the Tainos, please check out episodes 2, 46 and 75 (75 is in spanish); we will include links to all 3 in the show notes. 
Anyway, at that time, the area now known as Utuado was called “Otoao” which is a Taino word meaning “between mountains.” It was named after their cacique, whose name was Otoao. 
The early 1500s were terrible for the Tainos. The Spanish and other Europeans had started settling on the island, setting up plantations, exploiting the land for natural resources, bringing groups of people over from Africa to work as slaves, and forcing the Tainos themselves into slavery. In Utuado, many Tainos were put to work in gold mines.  A lot of them ran away and hid in caves; Utuado has the most caves in all of Puerto Rico, and they knew the land better than the foreigners so they knew they couldn’t be caught too easily. 

In 1511, Tainos from all over Puerto Rico carried out a rebellion against the Spanish conquistadors, but unfortunately the Spanish forces were stronger, and they lost the war. This conflict came to be known as the Spanish and Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén, also known as the Taíno Rebellion of 1511. 

In 1512, a Spaniard named Antonio Sedeño settled in Otoao. He had been appointed by King Ferdinand of Spain to be the island’s first treasurer (or bookkeeper, depending on what you read).  He owned a yuca farm which he sold a few years later, 1519, to another Spanish settler and man of finance, treasurer Blas de Villasante. Interesting side note about Villasante: in 1536, he caught the wrath of the inquisition and was thrown in a dungeon for cheating on his wife (who was in Spain) with a Taina. 

Anyway, Sedeño and Villasante had both wanted to establish official towns on their respective estates, but the governor said no.

Fast forward to the mid-1600s and early 1700s. The Caribbean region, including Puerto Rico, was plagued by smuggling, piracy and attacks from foreign invaders. Even though this was most prevalent along the coast, the effects trickled down to the interior, and the people in the Utuado region really needed to organize the town for their own economic stability. They wanted to promote agriculture and livestock production. 

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic Ocean, England and Ireland were in constant battle. And this would lead to the founding of Utuado! England was mostly Protestant. Ireland was mostly Catholic and being oppressed by England. Their land and many of their rights were being taken away.  After the Williamite War of 1689-1691, both parties signed the Treaty of Limerick, which promised Catholics some protections, but England didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. Many Irish began to flee. 

Enter France, which was Catholic, and on the side of Ireland against the British. In fact, their military had formed an Irish Brigade - even before the treaty – and they recruited the fleeing Irish soldiers to join them. These Irish soldiers were called “Wild Geese,” named after the migratory pattern of geese. They boarded French ships bound for Spain, France, and other friendlier countries. Some stories, like those from Irish diaspora histories, say French ships smuggling brandy to Ireland’s west coast would sneak soldiers out, listing them as ‘Wild Geese’ on manifests to dodge British authorities—pretty clever, right? While we don’t have the ship logs to prove it, the name stuck, and for over a century, Irish soldiers and families sought new lives in Catholic countries, including Spain’s colonies like Puerto Rico. It was a win/win situation: the immigrants found a home where they weren’t persecuted, and Puerto Rico – and therefore Spain – became more developed and stronger. 

Just a quick note to say that the Irish weren’t the biggest group of immigrants to Puerto Rico. Wasn’t much, compared to other countries. 

Anyway, one of the Irish families who left Europe was the Murphys. Family trees in ancestry.com suggest that a guy named William Murphy, who was born in Dublin around 1655, was part of the wave of immigrants that ended up in Puerto Rico. He Hispanicized his name to Guillermo Morfi (Guillermo is Spanish for William and Morfi is Murphy in a Spanish accent). No more Murphy M-U-R-P-H-Y.  Now it’s Morfi M-O-R-F-I.  William/Guillermo married a woman named Maria Josefa Navarro, who was from Spain. They settled in Arecibo and around 1696, had a son, whom they named Sebastián (say it in Spanish, with the accent). Now, disclaimer, it’s difficult to research Caribbean history, so the story of the Murphys may not be 100 percent accurate. If that’s the case we apologize. The story is interesting and could very well be true, but we would need to find official documents to support all the details. What we do know is that Sebastián Morfi was Puerto Rican, most likely of Irish descent, with “Morfi” coming from “Murphy.” It tracks!

Sebastian would go on to join the military, and in 1715 married a Puerto-Rican born woman named Andrea Francisca Villafañe de Aranda, who came from a very influential Spanish family, giving him serious clout. By the 1730s, he was a major leader in the community. In 1733, 60 families from Arecibo, San Germán, Ponce and Aguada, got together and asked Sebastian to ask the governor, a Spain-appointed military serviceman named Matías de Abadía, to grant them permission to formally, legally establish the town of Utuado. In 1734, Sebastian and the settlers bought a huge piece of private land for their settlement from Manuel Natal and Felipa Román for 569 pesos and 5 reales (in USD, that could be anywhere from $19,367 to $57,000 in today’s money, according to 2 different AI sources. FWIW). In November 1734, the governor said yes.  The Luck o’ the Irish!
It took five years to get everything settled, but on October 12, 1739, Utuado was officially founded as San Miguel del Utuao. Now it’s Utuado. That “d” seems to be what they call a hypercorrection in grammar. The Spanish colonizers probably thought adding a “d” would make it sound better (they did the opposite of, say, a contraction or shortening of a word)

Sebastian Morfi died on November 27, 1772, three quarters of a century old, and is buried in the Convento Santo Domingo in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a prestigious burial site reserved for high-ranking military and civil figures.
Now back to Utuado’s timeline. At the time of Utuado’s founding, the area included the municipality of Jayuya, which we spoke about in episodes 53 (english) and 70 (spanish) – links in show notes.
On July 15, 1743, the construction of Utuado's first Catholic church, Iglesia San Miguel Arcángel (St. Michael the Archangel Church) was completed. 
The economy and population of Utuado continued growing throughout the 1700s and 1800s. In 1769, there were 110 farms registered! 

The 1800s were a time of great prosperity in Utuado for another reason: coffee, called “oro negro” (black gold). Everyone wanted it, including Europeans, and Utuado’s mountainous climate was perfect for growing insanely delicious coffee beans. Between 1864 and 1885, 68 coffee plantations were established. That’s 3 and a quarter farms per year for 21 years! By the 1890s, Utuado had over TWO HUNDRED coffee haciendas producing thousands of quintales (that’s 100-pound units) per year. Utuado had become the largest producer of café in Puerto Rico and had the 2nd largest population on the island, behind Ponce. People moved to the region not just from around the island but from overseas as well. Spain encouraged migration to the island, which brough in expertise and capital. (One blog source names Sebastian Morfi as having moved from Ireland to PR for the coffee, but we don’t know how accurate that is based on what we know. I mean, maybe the family moved to get in on the coffee? Not sure) The actual day to day farming work was done by day laborers called jornaleros, as well as slaves (until 1873, when slavery was abolished). 

And what naturally happens when you have a population explosion and wild success? They set up social institutions. They built a theater and a casino and published a city newspaper. They also had a public electric lighting sytem powered by a hydraulic turbine power plant. The first city in PR to have this. The mayor also had plans to improve infrastructure and transportation by building a train to go between Utuado and Arecibo.
News of Utuado’s prosperity spread to the mother country, and on August 20, 1894 the queen of Spain bestowed the title of “City” to Utuado. Now it’s an official city, not just a town or municipality! 
But then, this “golden era” began to end. 
Puerto Rico took two major blows back-to-back that started the decline of the coffee boom.
On August 8, 1899, while residents celebrated the Feast of San Ciriaco, a hurricane slammed into the island, flattening 80% of Utuado’s coffee trees, destroying plantations, and leaving farmers with nothing. Worst of all, it killed an estimated 3,369 people. That hurricane is now known as San Ciriaco, the deadliest in Puerto Rico’s history.

Then, there was the U.S. takeover in 1898, the year before the hurricane, after the Spanish-American War. Little by little, sugar replaced coffee as the main crop of the island. How? Well, after 1898, the U.S. implemented policies that favored sugar production, aligning with American corporate interests and the tastes of customers on the mainland. The Foraker Act of 1900 established Puerto Rico as a U.S. territory with free trade, making sugar exports to the U.S. more profitable than coffee, which faced stiffer competition in global markets. Unfortunately, Utuado’s climate and geography were not ideal for cultivating sugar, so they weren’t going to be a player. Investors from the U.S. began to pour money into coastal sugar estates, leaving coffee towns like Utuado high and dry. Also not helping was the U.S. devaluation of the Puerto Rican peso in 1898 (from parity with the Spanish peseta to 60 cents per U.S. dollar). This hurt coffee exporters, since European buyers paid in stronger currencies, reducing profits. 

So, the death of Utuado’s coffee dominance can be attributed to San Ciriaco, with the U.S. piling on by favoring sugar, which had a faster production time, over coffee’s slow recovery. Replanting the coffee trees took years, and many couldn’t afford it. Also, a lot of the labor force had moved to the coast to work in sugar. 

Europeans didn’t wait for Puerto Rico’s recovery either. They turned to Brazil, who was churning out cheaper coffee. By the 1900s, Utuado’s golden era was a memory.
For those who like numbers, according to data from the 1899 US War Department census:
Before 1898, Puerto Rico produced 600,000 quintales of coffee annually. Utuado was #1. 
By 1910: 400,000 quintales.
Meanwhile, sugar production rose from 70,000 tons in 1899 to 300,000 tons by 1910. 
This indicates a gradual shift. 
By the 1920s, sugar accounted for 60% of exports; coffee, only 10%.
There’s good news though. Utuado’s coffee farming industry started growing again during the late 1900s. Exact numbers are tricky but very recent data suggests that Puerto Rico today, as of 2025, has somewhere in the vicinity of 2300-2400 coffee farms across the island, altogether producing around 100,000–150,000 quintales of coffee a year. Utuado, historically a coffee powerhouse, probably kicks in 10,000–20,000 quintales. That’s a far cry from the 1890s when Utuado helped push the island to 600,000 quintales, but it’s a solid comeback, especially after Hurricane Maria in 2017.

In 1924, the Blanco Bridge, aka Bridge 152, was built to connect Utuado and Adjuntas. Fun fact, my dad was born in Adjuntas and raised in Utuado. It’s only 67 feet long, but it played a big role in Puerto Rico’s coffee trade. It made it easier for local farmers and communities to transport their coffee beans and goods, strengthening the region’s economy and keeping people connected. It’s even earned a spot on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places—not just for its design, but for its importance during a time when Puerto Rico’s mountains ran on coffee.
On October 30, 1950, Utuado joined the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party’s bold push for independence in the Utuado Uprising, sometimes called El Grito de Utuado, a fiery revolt against U.S. rule. Alongside towns like Jayuya, Nationalists in Utuado attacked police stations, but the rebellion was crushed by the U.S. National Guard within days, ending in the tragic Utuado Massacre, where five fighters were killed. We will cover this dark chapter in the town’s fight for freedom in a future episode.
Utuado has a few nicknames: 
1. “Ciudad del Viví,” (City of the Viví), so called because the Viví River runs through it. Viví means “I lived” but it is not known exactly why it was named that. 
2. “Los Montañeses” (“The Highlanders”) 
3. “La Capital Taína” (The Taíno Capital) because of its indigenous history.
4. Ciudad de Campeones (City of Champions) – probably due to their success in local sports like baseball. 
To this day, Utuado is a big player in agriculture – including coffee! - and livestock.  You can also find manufacturing there, as well as a University. Many local farms offer tours where visitors can learn about the coffee-making process.
The design of Utuado’s flag is three equal size horizontal stripes, green for the mountains, brown for the rich soil, and blue for its rivers and lakes. In the middle is the Taino sun symbol. 

Let’s talk festivals! Utuado has several festivals throughout the year including:
January: National BBQ Festival – where people exhibit their custom-made grills! They make them out of all kinds of things, and past festivals have showcased grills made out of car parts, tool boxes, and even a coffin! Whose coffin? :P 

February: Festival del Sombrero – this one is pretty recent, started around 2018. As its name indicates, it celebrates the hat! Food, drinks, music on a couple of stages (my cousin’s kid’s school band performed in 2024). 
(Ya know, some of these festivals may sound funny, but they’re great community events. It gets people out to have a good time, helps promote businesses, and keeps the culture alive. Plus Latinos use any excuse to throw a party!)
In February or March, there is the Juan Domingo Reyes Negrón Bike Day of Friendship. This started in 2001 to honor the memory of the young boy whom the festival is named for, who died in 2000 when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike. 
Fiesta del Barrio Angeles (Angeles Neighborhood Festival) – Held every year in either March or May (I read two different articles with different dates). It takes place in the Angeles neighborhood of Utuado. They have music, food, arts and crafts. What you typically expect of a festival! 
Fiestas de Guarionex in April. Guarionex is a name meaning “The Brave Noble Lord.” He was a Taíno cacique (chief), actually from the Dominican Republic, who lived at the time of Columbus. Guarionex fled to Puerto Rico after fights against the Spanish. Fun fact: His father was a chief and prophet named Guacanagarix, who legend says had a vision of the coming of the White Man (Guamikena in Taino). 
Festival Tierra Adentro (Inland Festival), April or May. This is an annual several-day event hosted by the Agricultural Technology department of the University of Puerto Rico at Utuado. It’s free and open to the public to promote the ongoing development of agriculture. In recent years, agriculture has had a revival in Puerto Rico and it’s important for the economy. The festival has all kinds of nature exhibitions as well as arts and crafts and entertainment. 
Longaniza Festival – Started in June 2009 but this year it’s going to be over a weekend in August. This festival celebrates pork sausage! Pork was introduced to Puerto Rico by Spain – Christopher Columbus brought over the first pigs in the late 1400s - and it’s become a staple of Puerto Rican cuisine ever since. 
Fiestas Patronales de San Miguel Arcangel (Patron Saint Festival in honor of St Michael Archangel)- September. This is a Christian festival complete with a religious procession, music and dance, and of course local food. 
Otoao Cultural Festival – early December – celebrates Utuado's very rich Taino heritage.
There’s also a lot to see in Utuado, especially for nature lovers. Check out Lago Dos Bocas (Two Mouths Lake) and Rio Tanamá (Tanamá River), which spans Arecibo, Utuado and Adjuntas (when we went to PR in ’24, we found a secluded part with a gorgeous waterfall in Arecibo).

Visit the Río Abajo State Forest, Cueva Ventana (a cave with stunning views of the Río Grande de Arecibo valley), or Cañón Blanco, White Canyon, a small canyon you reach by a short hike, with picturesque views of mountains, rocks, and a river. 
If you are interested in farming, a lot of farms offer tours. You can see how coffee is made. Also, if you like wine, you can visit a vineyard! Finca Vista Bella offers tours and tastings. 
Last but not least, Utuado is the home of one of the most important archeological sites in the Caribbean, the Caguana Indigenous Ceremonial Park, aka the Caguana Ceremonial Ball Courts Site (or just Caguana Site for short). This park has a number of courtyards, I’ll have to go there myself and count exactly how many because I’ve read there are 10, 12 and 13. Anyway, these courtyards are called bateyes, and each one is named after a cacique, a chief. They’re all different sizes, the longest being approximately 85m by 20m, and the biggest by area being 65m by 50m. Each courtyard is outlined by large stones that are carved with petroglyphs. These courtyards were a very important part of Taino social life. The community gathered there for religious ceremonies, festivals, and to play a ball game called batu. Batu could be played for fun, to settle disputes, or to help make important decisions. An exact date of construction is hard to find, but our best guess is around 1100 or 1200 AD. They were still being used at the time of colonization, and were only discovered in modern times in the early 20th century.
We should say, make sure you take plenty of water and snacks when you go exploring and hiking, because Puerto Rico is hot year-round. Also, make sure you know where you’re going. Some roads are tight and windy, some have potholes and are in need of repair. Some places are hidden gems, not the easiest to find, especially when you’re in rural areas. To get to the part of Rio Tanama we were looking for, we hadda go through a sketchy looking area with an abandoned power plant. Nothing happened but still, if yr not from there you might be like, uhhhhh.  So try to go with a friend or two. The locals are really nice but they may not speak English in those parts, and also like anywhere else you have some creepy people. So, go enjoy, just be careful. Oh, also, double check to make sure whatever festival you wanna attend is taking place, or wherever you wanna visit is open. It’s island life and while they’re pretty organized, there’s government and law enforcement and all that, but things can change. 

So that’s our brief overview of Utuado, a town that is definitely worth visiting if you find yourself in Puerto Rico. It’s lush and green and everywhere you look the views of the mountains are just gorgeous. There’s a lot to learn about the politics of the region, the native culture, and how the city is doing today.  
There’s so much more to say, but we will close out with a personal story (celebrating Three Kings in the mountains at dad’s cousin Israel’s house)

SOURCES:
 The Tainos:
 Taino 101 in English: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1946209/episodes/10238070
Taíno Beliefs on Creation, Burial, and the Afterlife:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1946209/episodes/13982723
Taíno 101 in Spanish: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1946209/episodes/17073232
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utuado,_Puerto_Rico
http://www.conoceapuertorico.com/parque-ceremonial-caguana/
https://web.archive.org/web/20071231111215/http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/prvi/pr25.htm
http://famousamericans.net/antoniosedeno/
https://workmall.com/wfb2001/puerto_rico/the_inquisition_1520_1813.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93Ta%C3%ADno_War_of_San_Juan%E2%80%93Borik%C3%A9n#
Jayuya (English): https://www.buzzsprout.com/1946209/episodes/14687961
Jayuya (Spanish): https://www.buzzsprout.com/1946209/episodes/16793896
https://boricuaonline.com/en/utuado-puerto-rico/
https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/sebasti%C3%A1n-morfi-xim%C3%A8nez-nabarro-24-hgxg1m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utuado,_Puerto_Rico
https://utuadohoy.com/sebastian-de-morfi-la-biografia/
https://thepuertoricorealestate.com/article/utuado-pr-history-attractions-real-estate
https://www.geni.com/projects/Utuado-Puerto-Rico-and-it-s-Citizens/35575
https://thewildgeese.irish/page/the-wild-geese-history#:~:text=French%20ships%20which%20arrived%20on,the%20origin%20of%20the%20name.
https://www.carolinacountry.com/carolina-stories/remembering-the-san-ciriaco-hurricane-of-1899
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanco_Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utuado_uprising
https://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/utuado.shtml
https://www.discoverpuertorico.com/article/things-to-do-utuado
https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/pr-ut.html
https://www.upr.edu/upr-utuado-celebrara-nueva-edicion-de-festival-tierra-adentro-con-innovacion-agroempresarial/
https://www.lexjuris.com/pueblos/pueblos_files/UTUADO.HTML
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarionex
https://www.fincavistabella.com/
DMassaIII - Pixabay
https://www.boomplay.com/songs/200677407
Promesa: https://youtu.be/HtKauyFtQlc?si=8cReNh4qKwEgB635