The House on the Sacred Land
- Yohance Salmon
- Jun 10
- 12 min read
Updated: Jun 11
Afro-Puerto Rican History · Diaspora Reconnection
San Mateo de Cangrejos, Part 1
November 29, 2022. The closing. The realtor handed me the stone lion I’d requested. I wasn’t playing about that lion.
August 27, 2021. 1:32 PM.
I wasn’t looking for anything that day. Just walking back from The Parq, my coworking spot in Santurce, taking a new route. The heat was thick. Humid. The kind where your shirt sticks before you even notice you’re sweating.
Kendrick’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers was on repeat in my headphones. That album was my soundtrack that summer. Family and friends had pulled out on real estate deals with me. I was feeling down. Betrayed. But also… in a zone. That creative, slightly uncomfortable energy where something’s about to shift.
The song “Count Me Out” opened softly, almost like a prayer.
“We may not know which way to go, on this dark road…”
The featured singer’s voice came first, acapella, raw, stripped down. It pulled me in before the melody even dropped. The timing was eerie. The breeze from the ocean hit me right as he started singing.
Right as those words landed, a chill ran up my spine. The hair on the back of my neck stood tall.
I looked up.
Two “SE VENDE” signs. For sale.
The house was… grand. Three tall palm trees out front, not the short cluster kind like that first house I’d looked at weeks before. These were mature. Reaching. Two-tone cream and olive green in the middle, orange awnings catching the sun.
I stared at those three palms and saw us: me, Jade, and Baby Yo.
This was it.
I felt uncomfortable. But the good kind. The kind that says: This is yours.
I stopped. Took out my phone. Walked up to the gate.
That’s when I saw the door.
Tall. Deep brown. Curves carved into the wood, catching shadow and light.
Not aggressive. Just… present.
I stood there longer than I meant to. Something about that house felt heavy. Not sad heavy. Just… present. Like it had been waiting.
I didn’t know what I was doing, honestly. I just knew I couldn’t ignore it.
So I called Jade.
“Babe. I found the house.”
November 29, 2022. 4:00 PM.
The air conditioner hums too loudly in the conference room. Papers everywhere. Mahogany table scarred with years of signatures, marriages, divorces, land transfers, and inheritances. The kind of table that holds history even when nobody says it out loud.
In Puerto Rico, attorneys handle closings. They’re the notaries. The witness to every promise made on paper.
The seller had passed away that summer. May, maybe early June. Sudden. He’d been getting his affairs in order, planning to move to Florida with his son and his family. He was divorced. Living alone in that house with the three palm trees.
His son didn’t want to move back to Puerto Rico. Already had his life in the States. Didn’t want to manage the property from a distance.
So the house went on the market.
What I didn’t know yet, wouldn’t know for months, not until a random hike later, was that this house almost went to someone else. An accepted offer. It fell through.
But on this day, at this table, none of that mattered.
Because the seller’s ex-wife walked in wearing all green.
Green outfit. Pearl necklace. Pearl bracelet. A brooch with a coquí frog clipped to her collar.
Jade? Green head wrap.
Baby Yo? Green onesie.
Me? Navy blue shirt with tropical flowers, green, pink, and orange blooming across my chest.
Nobody planned this. We didn’t coordinate. But we knew she’d be there, we just didn’t know she’d show up dressed like that.
All green. All pearls. That coquí frog is catching the fluorescent light.
There we sat, dressed like we knew something spiritual was happening.
I looked at that woman across the table and thought about the women in my life.
My momma. My grandmothers. Jade.
I didn’t know the name “La Perla Verde” yet. But I knew, sitting there, looking at all that green, at the pearls, at the coquí frog, I knew I’d name this place after them.
After the women who held everything together.
After the women who taught me what legacy means.
A few days before the closing, I’d checked on the place. Walked the perimeter. That’s when I noticed: the lion’s head was gone.
Stone-grey. Regal. It had been watching over the back wall since I first saw the house. Reminded me of my momma, she was a Leo.
I called the realtor immediately.
“The lion. The statue on the back wall. It’s missing. I need it back.”
He paused. Then said he’d handle it.
So when we got to the closing, there it was.
The realtor, black and white shirt, black jeans, peace sign, up like we’re old friends, stood next to the attorney’s desk holding that stone lion. Lighter than it looked. Eyes staring out, mane wild and textured, carved like it had survived something.
He handed it to me.
I’m smiling in the photo. Big smile. Grateful smile. But if you look closely, you can see it in my eyes, I wasn’t playing about that lion. It belonged to the house. And now the house belonged to us.
The realtor’s grinning, too. But he knows. He can feel it. This closing isn’t just about property. It’s about something older. Something the paperwork can’t touch.
That lion, stone-grey back then, now painted solid gold, watches over the courtyard at La Perla Verde today.
It took 40 days to close on the property.
40 days. Like a biblical reset. Like something was being prepared that I couldn’t see yet.
We signed. Page after page. Initial here. Sign here. Date this.
And when we walked out of that office, I looked at Jade. She looked at me.
Her eyes, brown hazel, shifting between gold and green depending on the light, they were saying what we both felt but couldn’t name yet.
This isn’t random.
The green. The pearls. The coquí. The lion. The 40 days.
The land had been preparing us the whole time.
A couple of months later, my frat brother Chris, aka Legrand, his stage name as a rapper, flew in from the States to see Benito’s residency at El Choli. Chris hosts a podcast called Keep That Same Green Energy, and he wanted to interview me in Puerto Rico. Talk about the move. The vision. What it’s like being a Black American on the island.
Chris’s family is from Puerto Rico. He’s been coming here a few times a year since he was a kid. If anyone was going to know the hidden stories, it’d be him.
We decided to do the interview at El Yunque. The rainforest. Seemed fitting.
Before we hiked, we walked through the visitors center, El Portal. Souvenir shops. Maps. Postcards of coquí frogs and waterfalls. The usual tourist setup.
Then I saw it.
A book. Blue cover. Simple design.
I stopped.
My dad is Jamaican. Immigrated to the States because my grandfather brought him and my aunts over for better opportunities. I grew up hearing stories about Jamaica. About leaving. About what it costs to start over.
But I didn’t grow up hearing about the Taíno. The Kalinago. The Indigenous people who were here before any of us.
I picked up the book. Flipped through it. Then I looked up.
That’s when I saw the wall.
Floor to ceiling. Five shelves high. Afro-Puerto Rican history books. Indigenous history. Slave revolts. Independence movements. Resistance.
All of it. Right there.
“Chris. Yo. Come here.”
He walked over.
“Bruhh, you see this?”
We stood there. Both of us. Just staring.
Then we looked around. People were walking past it. Not even slowing down. Tourists heading to the gift shop. Families with kids. Couples taking selfies.
But there it was, this wall of truth, floor to ceiling, and most people walked right past it.
I started pulling books off the shelf.
A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo. Clean. Contemporary. I flipped it over. Read the back. Solid. But broad.
Puerto Rico’s Revolt for Independence by Olga Jiménez de Wagenheim. Thicker. More academic. I set it aside.
The African & Spanish American anthology. Black and red cover. Essays. I opened to a random page. Dense. Important. But not what I needed right now.
Then I saw it.
Second shelf. Brown cover. Plain font.
San Mateo de Cangrejos: Historical Notes on a Self-Emancipated Black Community in Puerto Rico by Gilberto Aponte Torres. Translated by Karen Juanita Carrillo.
I pulled it off the shelf.
Held it.
The cover was simple. Academic. No flashy design. Just the title and a small illustration of the old church.
I read the back cover standing there.
“San Mateo de Cangrejos is unique in Puerto Rican history because of its origin, its ethnic composition, and the contributions Blacks made to the military and economic life of the island. This town was founded by self-emancipated Africans in the 1600s…”
I read it twice.
Self-emancipated.
Not freed. Not granted. Not bought.
Self-emancipated.
“Chris. Look at this.”
He walked over. I handed him the book.
He read the back cover. Looked at me.
“San Mateo de Cangrejos. That’s Santurce, right? Like the basketball team?”
“Yeah. The Cangrejeros. But I didn’t know it was named after this.”
He kept reading. Then he looked up.
We didn’t say it out loud. But we both felt it.
Of course.
Of course, they kept the name but erased the story.
Of course, you can cheer for the Cangrejeros and never know the neighborhood was founded by people who freed themselves.
Of course, the sports team gets celebrated while the history gets buried.
It’s the same pattern. Different island. Same playbook.
Rename it. Rebrand it. Strip it of its power. Turn it into something you can sell.
Chris shook his head. Not surprised. Just… tired.
“That’s the game, bro.”
“Yeah. That’s the game.”
I held all four books in my hands. The blue one. The red one. The Indigenous one. The brown one.
But I kept coming back to San Mateo de Cangrejos.
Because that was my neighborhood. The land I’d been walking on without knowing its name. Without knowing who built it.
The Indigenous book? I’d read it later. My dad’s story. Jamaica. The Taíno. All of that connects. I know it does.
But right now?
This book was about home.
I had to tell Jade immediately. I texted her a picture of the cover.
Chris picked up a children’s book for his granddaughter. I grabbed one too, Puerto Rico Treasure Quest by Wolfe & Jaramillo, for my sons. Something colorful. Something they could grow into.
But the San Mateo de Cangrejos book stayed in my hand.
I bought it. Took it home. Set it on my home office desk.
The next morning, I woke up at 6 AM. Made fresh black coffee. Sat down as the sun was rising and started reading.
By the end of the second chapter, I was shocked.
When self-emancipated Africans started arriving in the 1600s, fleeing Danish, English, and Dutch territories, Spanish authorities had three options: re-enslave them in Puerto Rico, return them to the islands where they’d been enslaved, or grant them freedom.
Spain chose freedom.
A royal decree, a cédula, was issued in 1664. It promised freedom to “all the enslaved Africans of non-Spanish-speaking territories” who made it to Puerto Rico.
Not maybe. Not conditional.
Freedom.
If they arrived, they stayed. Free.
Spain wasn’t being humanitarian. They needed bodies. Farmers. Soldiers. People willing to work land the Spanish settlers didn’t want. They wanted to weaken their enemies, England, Denmark, and the Dutch, by draining their labor force. They wanted to grow the population.
But still.
It was freedom.
I sat there, coffee cooling in my hand, staring at that line.
Puerto Rico, this island I’d been living on, this place people call a colony, had been a refuge.
A place where freedom seekers came. Where people who escaped built lives.
And nobody talks about it.
I remember the exact time I read that line: 6:21 AM.
Because that’s when I realized: Puerto Rico has always welcomed freedom seekers.
Even now.
I kept reading.
The people of Cangrejos made it work.
They planted yuca. Fished the lagoons. Caught crabs. Built a chapel. Raised children who were born free.
Not freed later. Not manumitted. Born free.
By the 1700s, there were enough of them to form a town. Enough to elect a mayor. Enough to defend the island when the British attacked in 1797.
And then, in 1862, Spain erased it.
Annexed the town. Divided it between San Juan, Carolina, and Río Piedras. Renamed it Santurce in 1880.
Kept the name for the baseball team. Buried the rest.
I closed the book.
For four years, I’d been living in Santurce. Walking these streets. Passing the Church of San Mateo hundreds of times.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know this neighborhood used to be called San Mateo de Cangrejos.
I didn’t know it was founded by people who freed themselves.
I didn’t know they built a church, farmed the land, and defended the island.
I didn’t know Spain tried to erase them.
I didn’t know any of this.
And the more I sat with it, the more I realized:
You can’t research what you don’t know exists.
That’s the power of erasure.
Not that the story disappeared completely. But it became invisible. Hidden in plain sight. A church with no context. A baseball team with no origin story. A neighborhood name that nobody questions.
I’d been walking on sacred ground the whole time.
And I didn’t know.
A week later, I started asking questions.
I saw my neighbor across the street. She’s in her 80s. Been in Santurce for over 25 years. She’s told me stories about hurricanes. About how the neighborhood used to be. About the people who came and went.
“Abuela, you ever heard of San Mateo de Cangrejos?”
“Sí, the baseball team. Cangrejeros.”
“Yeah, but did you know this neighborhood used to be called that? Back in the 1600s. It was founded by self-emancipated Africans. People who escaped slavery and built a whole town here.”
She stopped. Looked at me differently.
“Here? For real?”
“Yeah. Right here. Where we live.”
She shook her head slowly. “I didn’t know that. But I want to know more.”
I told her I’d bring her the book when I finished.
A few days ago, October 12, 2025, I asked another neighbor. Afro-Puerto Rican. Born and raised on the island. Works in the area.
“You know about San Mateo de Cangrejos?”
“Yeah, the Cangrejeros. Why?”
“Nah, I mean the history. The self-emancipated Africans who founded this neighborhood in the 1600s.”
She stopped. “Wait. What?”
I told her. The 1664 decree. The escape from St. Thomas and St. Croix. The church. The town they built.
She leaned in. “Wait. For real? That’s here?”
“Yeah. Right where we live. But they don’t teach it. They renamed it Santurce in 1880. Kept the name for the baseball team. Erased the rest.”
She let that sit for a second.
“That’s… wow. That’s heavy. But it makes sense, you know?”
“Yeah. It always makes sense.”
She smiled, but not the happy kind. The kind that says of course they did that.
“Send me the info. I’m intrigued.”
I asked a few others. Local Puerto Ricans. People who work in Santurce. People who’ve been here their whole lives.
Everyone knew the name.
Nobody knew the story.
Cangrejeros de Santurce? Iconic. Historic baseball team. Pride of the island.
San Mateo de Cangrejos, the self-emancipated Black community?
Erased.
And that’s when it hit me.
The colonizers didn’t destroy the name. They just repurposed it.
Kept the branding. Killed the meaning.
You can wear a Cangrejeros jersey. You can cheer at the games. You can rep Santurce.
But you’ll never know it was founded by Black people who freed themselves.
You’ll never know they defended the island in 1797.
You’ll never know the Spanish crown tried to erase them in 1862.
That’s the game.
Keep the name. Bury the power.
I thought about the green clothing at the closing.
I thought about the lion’s head.
I thought about Kendrick’s voice in my headphones, “We may not know which way to go, on this dark road…” right as I looked up and saw those three palm trees.
The land had been trying to tell me something the whole time.
I just didn’t know the name yet.
San Mateo de Cangrejos.
Not Santurce. Not the gentrified, tourist-friendly version of the neighborhood.
San Mateo de Cangrejos.
The refuge. The settlement. The place where freedom was fought for and won.
And then erased.
I don’t know if the land chose me or I chose it.
Maybe both. Maybe neither.
But I do know this:
For four years, I’d been walking on sacred ground. And I didn’t know.
Not because the story was gone. But because it had been made invisible.
Hidden in plain sight. A church with no context. A baseball team with no origin story. A neighborhood name that nobody questions.
That’s the power of erasure.
Not that the history disappears. But it becomes something you can’t even think to look for.
You can’t research what you don’t know exists.
But now I know.
And I can’t unknow it.
Can’t walk these streets the same way. Can’t pass the Church of San Mateo without thinking about who built it. Can’t hear the name Cangrejeros without thinking about who they erased.
The story didn’t end in 1862.
It just went underground.
And I’m still digging.
If you’ve been looking for the stories that were buried, the places where your ancestors stood and said no more, maybe it’s time to walk this land with us.
Not as tourists. As kin.
This is the land where we host retreats now. Where we walk history together. Where we remember what was almost erased. Where we ask the questions that don’t have easy answers.
Join us in San Juan this February for the La Perla Verde Heritage Retreat.
Walk the streets of San Mateo de Cangrejos. Stand in the church they built. Hear the drums they played. Learn the names they were called.
Not because Puerto Rico is perfect.
But because this is where the story survived.
And you’re part of that story too.
Learn More About the Retreat → Here
📚 Sources & Further Reading
Aponte Torres, Gilberto. San Mateo de Cangrejos: Historical Notes on a Self-Emancipated Black Community in Puerto Rico. Translated by Karen Juanita Carrillo. SUNY Press, 2017.
Jiménez de Wagenheim, Olga. Puerto Rico’s Revolt for Independence.
Wolfe & Jaramillo. Puerto Rico Treasure Quest. Tiny Travelers series.
Next in the series is Part 2: Built on Sacred Ground
What did they build on the land Spain didn’t want? What did freedom look like when it was practiced, not just declared? And what does it mean to stand on that ground today?
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