Diego de Torres Vargas - Coat of Arms of San Juan

Coat of Arms of San Juan

On March 8, 1948 the city government of San Juan officially adopted as the city's first flag an orange field, in the center of which is the Coat of Arms of the City. The orange color was based and taken from Father Diego de Torres Vargas' text and it reads : "Escudo de armas dado a Puerto Rico por los Reyes Católicos en el año de 1511, siendo Procurador un vecino llamado Pedro Moreno. Son : un cordero blanco con su banderilla colorada, sobre un libro, y todo sobre una isla verde, que es la de Puerto Rico, y por los lados una F y una I, que quiere decir Fernando e Isabel, los Reyes Católicos que se las dieron, y hoy se conservan en el estandarte real, que es de damasco anaranjado, con que se ganó la ciudad" ("Coat of Arms given to Puerto Rico by the Catholic Monarchs in the year 1511 when a vecino (roughly "freeman") named Pedro Moreno was Procurator. They are: a white lamb with its red flag, on top of a book, and everything above a green island, which is Puerto Rico...which is an orange damask, with which the city was won"). It appears that this orange was changed to white at some point.