In 1832, Benítez published her first poem, "La Ninfa de Puerto Rico" ("The Nymph of Puerto Rico") in "La Gaceta de Puerto Rico", the first newspaper published in Puerto Rico. It is considered to be the first poem written by a Puerto Rican woman. It is also the best known of her poems. "La Ninfa" is a commemorative ode in neoclassical style inspired by the creation of the first Royal Territorial Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. The poem was placed in the court as a symbol of justice. It reveals Maria’s pride in her Puerto Rican territorial affiliation and identity, with intimations of a romantic sensibility yet to come. In the poem, Maria endows the lamb in the center of the Puerto Rican heraldic shield with symbolism of the compliant submissiveness of her colony to the Spanish Crown. Her metaphorical insistence on the passivity and meekness of the lamb perhaps represents the earliest allegory of the figure of the docile Puerto Rican, which more than a century later made a controversial topic of contemporary Puerto Rican intellectual discourse.