Pre-Columbian period and colonization The region adjacent to the Toa river (now called the La Plata river) was inhabited by several indigenous groups who left behind physical proof of their presence in the region. Near the river, the conquistadores built some huts in which to rest. During the beginning of the Spanish colonization, the area known as Toa was ruled by Taíno cacique (a title akin to Chief) Aramaná, who controlled the regions between Punta Salinas to the Cibuco river (modern day Toa Baja through Vega Baja). Ponce de León himself created Hacienda del Rey and requested the creation of a new conuco near Toa river, which was later sold to Pedro Ortiz. Around 500 Taínos worked under the caciques in the area. Oral tradition claims that a Spaniard named Juan González somehow survived long enough after being severely injured in the initial Taíno offensive of the
Spanish–Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén to reach the region of Toa and warn the conquistadores. Ten years after the beginning of the colonization, more than 17 estates were built in the region, with harvests being transported through the Toa river to Palo Seco and to the capital from there. However, it is not until 1731 that a mayor, Juan Dávila, appears in the records.
Existence as part of Toa Baja On September 11, 1627, San Juan's council ordered the creation of a ship route between Bayamón and Toa, giving control of the rent to the council of the first city. From here, the rest of the route was traversed on horseback. With an increase in traffic, the inhabitants of the town of Toa saw business opportunities and began joining the local fishermen, steadily creating a small settlement. The
Santa Hermandad mayor then became the municipal mayor. In February 1761, there was a conflict between the overseer of the Boca Havana passage, Cayetano Quiñones, and the local fishermen in which the location became relevant. Other crops were also grown, but no priority was given to them. However, the roads that led to western Puerto Rico crossed through el Dorado and this, combined with flooding concerns, did not allow the municipality to develop a proper urban center, with Palo Seco being its main commerce epicenter. On October 20, 1824, the move was authorized, but it stalled due to opposition from the settlers. However, this same year a hurricane named Santa Ana ravaged and flooded the municipal town, causing the death of people and cattle, accelerating the process. In the following years, the construction of a royal house and a church began at Dorado. However, the free transit to Dorado for the neighbors of the municipal town of Toa Baja was attended afterwards, despite being part of the initial request. By 1829, the local militias and the justice offices were relocated as well. By 1832, a teacher named José Viada was teaching the local children. The settlement eventually earned the nickname of "Pueblo Nuevo" to differentiate it from Toa Baja ("Pueblo Viejo").
Secession disputes with Toa Baja With the plantations led by administrators, the flourish of the sugar industry continued until 1840, when the market entered in a crisis and the price of products crashed, leaving the region with a declining industry. The justification was based in the population growth in Dorado and adjacent barrios and possessing enough resources to sustain itself separately. In arrangements that took place on July 27, 1841, in San Juan, López was joined by José de Folgueras as prospective beneficiaries if the move and his proposal was supported by Manuel Canales, Celedonio Nevárez, Juan P. Nevárez, Domingo López, Andrés Martínez, Florencio Sánchez, José M. López, Ignacio Arrazaín and Ignacio Cordero, who offered to build the buildings necessary to sustain the town. After being given copies of Toa Baja's opposition, López and Folgueras requested that the complaints were dismissed and questioned the accuracy of any of the counterarguments, also opting to criticize that some of the proponents were being targeted for being poor, which should not prevent them from entering association. The group also labelled Toa Baja as a failed municipality by using its iwn criteria, responding that the criticism for lack of a workforce was unfair since despite its age the town faced similar problems. Public hearings were then proposed and accepted by the colonial governor. Delgado also supervised the status of progression in the construction of a Catholic church. Afterwards, Delgado returned to San Juan with a report for the governor favoring the establishment of a new municipality due to favorable conditions and military potential and discarding proximity as a factor, since Camuy and Hatillo were already proximate. Buelta then recommended beginning a new process again in Toa Baja, which the colonial governor conceded and assigned the task to councilor Domingo García. All ratified their previous support except five, who felt that they would be forced to work in the church, a job that they had left at Toa Baja. The only exceptions, according to the rural mayors of Dorado and Maguayo, were either sick or absent. The Toa Baja Commission, represented by mayor Juan Landrón an overseer and the municipal secretary, proposed that only proprietors, those that paid subsidies, should be consulted, considering the declarations of those that didn't useless and potentially damaging to those that did. The municipal government also opposed the declarations of no -resident proponents, those that weren't family heads or that had any connection with the main proponents, accompanied by a list of people that they considered ineligible.
Founding of Dorado On June 4, 1842, Landrón submitted a list of people that were considered eligible by his administration, including residents from barrios that were not initially interested in the action. This same day, opposition hearings were held where the administration if Toa Baja presented its case, with López and Folgueras serving as witnesses. A total of 91 neighbors from these barrios attended, with the opinions regarding the foundation of Dorado being in favor of the opposition 125–8, without counting a number of indifferent attendees. Like the first, it was delegated to an aide. On August 12, 1842, the proponents sent a recount of the process and requested that the colonial governor authorized the founding of Dorado, printing the aid to request the opinion of the Toa Baja administration. After receiving it, aide Melitón Belanzathegui recommended proceeding with the foundation of a new municipality, with Méndez Vigo authorizing the creation of San Antonio del Dorado on November 22, 1842. The founders also requested to begin the process to assign or elect relevant authority figures, all of which were granted. The colonial governor also named López Settler Captain and ordered that all buildings were completed within a year and a half. Despite the founding of a number of schools, the education in the new municipality was troubled by the instability in the permanency of teachers appointed by the Catholic Church. Depending on an agricultural economy, there were several hundred African slaves working in the Spanish haciendas of Dorado. On March 6, 1843, there was a slave uprising in the hacienda of Francisco Cantero, who after being received by gunfire in the Catholic Church in Toa Baja, fled to the sugar plantations of Dorado, where the government captured them and sentenced several to death. Despite royal decrees prohibiting the traffic of African slaves, the Spaniards continued illegally importing them, with Dorado mayor José Carreras actively participating in the trade. Consternation in the colonial authorities lead to the slaves being permitted to file complaints before the Municipal Sindico Receiver. Other work sources, like corral fishing, required permission first from the council of San Juan and later from the municipal administration. By 1848, the municipality of Dorado was running all of its functions under López, now mayor and War Lieutenant and in charge of filling several reports related to the population, wealth and agricultural production. Afterwards, the mayor would be elected by the governor from a pool of three candidates selected by the municipality's elite and only served a maximum of two years. Being located in the Camino Real (Royal Highway) grocery and other types of stores were run by people like Antonio Solé, Benito Carreras, and Juana Sánchez and brothers. These types of businesses continued flourishing for the following decades. In the third edition of this event, a Dorado factory won the gold award for a variety if products. His inheritors failed to preserve the terrains that were received from him. In 1870, a group of four slaves -named Manuel Díaz, Juan Pedro, Juan D. Epifanio and Benito- killed the butler of hacienda La Monserrate, Manuel M. Sampayo Saldaña, who had developed a reputation for the eating the violently. For this act, the colonial government executed them on September 26, 1870. In 1872, an incident involving a Frenchman named José Beaupied lead to the slaver being intervened and losing the four children of a slave that he had bought, but she was transferred to Dorado and with the help of a fellow Frenchman and later committed suicide. The event was controversial and lead to the local British ambassador, H. August Cowper, protesting the moving if slaves between the islands before the Spanish crown. Oral tradition claims that the freed celebrated until midnight, when a thunderstorm suddenly appeared and during which the tomb of Sampayo was struck by lightning. In 1872, local instruction was placed in charge of José Iglesias and six years later the situation began improving. Entering the next decade, there were six public schools and several hundred children being educated. By this time there were more than 200 houses in the urban area of Dorado and over 270 families. During this crisis, several of the hacendados were forced to mortgage their haciendas, incurring in large debts that lead to some losing them. On July 20, 1870, the annexation to Toa Baja was proposed by conservatives, but failed to proceed. On June 10, 1873, the municipality of Dorado requested permission to widen and deepen the La Plata river mouth to allow larger ships to enter in an attempt to reinvigorate the sugar industry. However, a prolonged draught seriously affected the crops and combined with the payment that was now given to former slaves, the situation quickly declined. The budgets were not satisfactory, but Dorado received the control of the passage of La Plata, which it rented. However, the passage soon became a point of contention between those that wanted to oversee it and the municipality, including a failed 1878 litigation presented to the colonial governor himself during a visit. The passenger train would operate until the 1940s. The final decade of the century borough forth a sugar renaissance, growing to 11 haciendas which were complemented by a coffee estate.
American military administration Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the
Spanish–American War under the terms of the
Treaty of Paris of 1898 and became a territory of the United States. In 1899, the United States conducted its first census of Puerto Rico finding that the population of Dorado was 3,804. This change in sovereignty resulted in several of the local
haciendas being systematically redistributed between Americans such as R.S. Brown, William W. Miner and corporations like Y.P.R. Fruit Land Co. and Finlay Waymouth and Lee, Inc. during the following decade. The results were certified by representative of the colonial government, Lt. Woodson Hocker. By 1902, there were six schools in Dorado. With time, some families would dedicate to instruction. By the second decade of the century, Escuela Jacinto López Martínez and Segunda Unidad de Maguayo were built to accommodate the increasing school age population, with the first being created at the behest of mayor Heraclio López Canino. Alfredo López would take the office of mayor from his father and begin a series of urban development projects. The following two decades, Pedro López Canino and two rural schools were built. In 1952, Manuel Morales García was elected as mayor. In 1964, a local high school was built so that local children did not have to travel to Toa Baja, the following decade it was renamed after local attorney José S. Alegría. The first telephone lines were placed in 1910 and operators were employed until the 1960s. Milk and ice were also distributed. Maritime and fresh water fishers were responsible for providing fresh fish and several would later become part of Dorado's oral tradition. Ultimately, Dorado was annexed to Toa Alta in 1902, when the Puerto Rico legislature ordered the move due to its economic woes. In March 1905, the same entity reversed the move. Three years after the death of Alfred Livingston in 1923, the government reclaimed Mata Redonda farm since it had been acquired illegally, but after being repelled with armed resistance during the impending, the case was seen by the colonial Federal Court, which failed in favor of Clara Livingston. With the foreign interests, cultivation of sugar rose and reached 400 square meters (a unit known in Spanish as "cuerda") of land, but coffee stopped being produced. In 1936, a new bridge crossing La Plata river was inaugurated. During the 1940s, there was widespread construction of public and private housing to accommodate a series of government reforms. Among these was El Pueblo del Niño, a refuge for children. The end of the Korean War lead to another urbanization wave. The construction of private project Urbanización Martorell resulted in several Doradeños returning to settle the houses. Stores such as La Vencedora and La Favorita were founded during this time, operating during the following decades. Dorado became the first municipality to adopt the landfill system. The
2nd G7 summit was held at the
Dorado Beach Resort between June 27 and 28, 1976. Casa del Rey, which after being acquired from the government by López had served as the house of several people and a political center, was restored by the municipality and the ICP during the second half of the 20th Century. In 1985, the municipal administration began a restoration and redevelopment project named Dorado 2000 prior to the celebration of Dorado's 150th Anniversary. When Alfonso López Chaar left the office of mayor to become Secretary of State in 1987, his successor Carlos López became the youngest mayor in Puerto Rico at that point at the age of 29. In 1988 the Committee on the Quality of Life of a Puerto Rico recognized the municipality as first in their life quality rankings. The municipality revalidated and was included into the entity's hall of fame. By the 1990s, Dorado del Mar had closed, with Cerromar and Dorado Beach continuing their function. In 1991, a reforestation initiative named Dorado Siembra was implanted. In mid 2018, the
United States Army Corps of Engineers announced it would be undertaking a major
flood control project of a river that often causes flooding in Dorado,
Río de la Plata.
Act 60 In 2012, the
Luis Fortuño administration passes broad tax incentives for foreigners through Acts 20 and 22 (later consolidated into Act 60–2019), which included 0% on capital gains and a 4% corporate rate. Some areas became favored by the individuals that arrived to Puerto Rico to benefit, including Dorado Beach where mansions and villas sold in the 20–30 million range. The price of property in Dorado rose 66% between 2016 and 2019. With the turn of the decade more foreigners have moved to Dorado Beach, including Kevin Thobias and
Logan Paul. ==Geography==