History
Along with subbarrios Catedral, San Cristóbal and San Francisco, Mercado is one of the four districts that represent the original boundaries of the Spanish walled settlement of San Juan during the 16th century. The population of the subbarrio subsequently grew around the Church of San José and the Convent of Saint Thomas Aquinas, established between 1523 and 1528. [4] Originally known as Barrio de Santa Bárbara, Mercado was one of the five barrios that constituted the city of San Juan in 1845. It subsequently became a subbarrio of Barrio de San Juan (today San Juan Antiguo barrio) when Santurce was annexed to San Juan and the previous barrios were dissolved in 1863. [5] As hinted by its name, the main marketplace of the city of San Juan used to be located in this subbarrio. This marketplace functioned until the early 20th century and, with its closure during this time, the nearby slaughterhouses and nearby freed slave houses subsequently developed into the modern community of La Perla. [3] [6] The marketplace today hosts the Museum of San Juan, having been established in 1979 it is the oldest municipal museum in Puerto Rico. [7]
The United States took control of Puerto Rico from Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898. In 1899, the United States conducted its first census of Puerto Rico, finding that the population of Mercado was 2,038. [8]
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Puerto Rico 
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