the great pioneer of puerto rico and florida

Juan Poncede LeónTHE GREAT PIONEER OFPUERTO RICO AND FLORIDA

BY Manuel Trillo

September 2021ISSN 2444-2933

With the support of:

It is now in 2021, 500 years since the death of one of the mainleading figures of the Spanish heroic deed in the New World: JuanPonce de Leon, the man that changed the island of Boriquen andput North America on the map.

Title page picture:

Statue of Ponce de Leon in front of the church of San Jose in Old San Juan (Puerto Rico).

Courtesy: Puerto Rico Tourism Company

Tomb of Juan Ponce de Leon in the Minor Basilica and the Saint Church Metropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista, in San Juan(Puerto Rico).

Courtesy: Metropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista.

Epitaph engraved in the Juan Ponce de Leon mausoleumin the San Juan Bautista Cathedral, in San Juan, PuertoRico. In brackets, the translation of Juan de Castellanos

in his Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias (1847)

MOLE SUB HAC FORTIS REQUIESQUNT OSSA LEONISOVI VICIT FACTIS NOMINA MAGNA SUIS

(The remains of a king rest under this structure, more for hismagnificent feats than because of his name)

Juan Ponce de LeónThe great pioneer of Puerto Rico andFlorida

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After a full life of adventures and great deeds,but also disappointments and setbacks of achanging fortune, Juan Ponce de Leon breathed hislast breath on the island of Cuba in July of the yearof our Lord 1521. Entrepreneur, impetuous anddaring, he served as captain in the pacificationof Hispaniola, he was the first governor of SanJuan (Puerto Rico), he opened to the West a lushland that he named Florida and he found the GulfStream the that ships would follow for centurieson their return to the Peninsula. In short, a manhungry for glory and loyal to his king, who left theheart of Castile to widen the limits of the knownworld, sets sail for his last voyage, this time toeternity.

2021 marks five centuries since the death of oneof the great figures in the exploration andcolonization of America, who made a decisivecontribution to strengthen the Spanish presencein the Caribbean, and laid the groundwork for theexpansion of European civilization across the vastlands of what is now the United States. Afascinating character, with his strengths andweaknesses, the protagonist of brilliant exploitsand hated by political intrigues, in which thelegend is intertwined with history.

His name has been irretrievably associated withthe myth of the Fountain of Youth, howeverfallacious that this really was the object of his first

It is now in 2021, 500 years since the death of one of the main leadingfigures of the Spanish heroic deed in the New World: Juan Ponce deLeon, the man that changed the island of Boriquen and put NorthAmerica on the map.

expedition to Florida. But, beyond the fabulousspring, his legacy lives on today in both PuertoRico and the North American continent for being atrue pioneer who made these lands as we knowthem today. Although there are those in thetroubled waters of racial protests in the United

States and attacks to Spanish colonization, who totake advantage to slander his memory, Juan Poncede Leon's work endures and does not deserve to beforgotten. This is his story.

FIVE CENTURIES WITHOUT PONCE DE LEON

Ponce de Leoncontributed tostrengthening theSpanish presence inthe Caribbean, andlaid the groundworkfor the expansion ofEuropean civilizationacross the vast landsof what is now theUnited States.

Juan Ponce de LeónThe great pioneer of Puerto Rico

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A veil of mystery envelops the misty origins ofPonce de Leon. In fact, historians cannot evenagree on the date of his birth. Many of them place itin 1460, but many others place it fourteen yearslater, in 1474. There is a greater consensus on theplace where he is considered to have come into theworld: Santervas de Campos, today a modesttown of just a hundred souls forgotten amongthe high moorland of the north in the province ofValladolid, and which, in the fifteenth centuryhoused a monastery dependent on the nearbyAbbey of Sahagun.

It is possible that the future adelantado (a highSpanish dignitary who carried out a publiccompany by mandate of service, account and underroyal design) of Florida may belong to the nobility.Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, in his indispensableHistoria general y natural de las Indias, Islas yTierra-firme del mar Oceano (General History of theIslands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea Known As theWest Indies), refers to him as “an honest captainand hidalgo”. In the extended lineage of the Poncede Leon's, there no lack of noble blood, and in thecase of our man there is a relationship, perhapseven a kinship, with people of high birth, but welack a certainty about his social status. In anycase, whether or not he is a member of the nobility,everything seems to indicate that he has a rathermodest position. Fernandez de Oviedo ensures that

Juan Ponce was a poor squire when he passedhere [to Hispaniola], and in Spain he had been aservant to Pedro Nuñez de Guzman, brother ofRamiro Nuñez, lord of Toral. Pedro Nuñez, whenJuan Ponce served him, did not have a hundredthousand maravedies or little more of income, since

[even though] he was of illustrious blood, and laterhe was tutor to the serene Lord Infante Ferdinand,who is now King of the Romans.

This description coincides with that given in amemorial sent to Cardinal Cisneros withoutdate or signature, but attributed to theDominican Bartolome de las Casas between 1516and 1518:

Juan Ponce was the varlet of Mr. Pedro Nuñez deGuzman, Major Commander of Calatrava; he wentto the Indies as a laborer with ChristopherColumbus, and there he married in Hispaniola witha wench of an innkeeper.

Ponce de Leon's relationship with the Guzmanfamily would come from his grandmother on hisfather’s side, Teresa Ponce de Leon y Guzman,according to Aurelio Tio, who cites in 1961 manyother ties with the nobility. Her own mother, hesays, would be Leonor de Figueroa, ownmother, he says, would be Leonor de Figueroa,sister of Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, Lord ofSalvaleon.

However, similar to so many other aspects of theorigins of the adventurer of Santervas, hisbiographers do not agree on who his parentswere. Some go as far as to suggest, such as Juan Gil,that he could be the son of Don Rodrigo Ponce deLeon, “the famous Marquis of Cadiz who died in1492, a ladies' man who left the kingdom of Castilestrewn with bastards”. Seduction skills aside, theMarquis and Duke of Cadiz is the hero parexcellence of the conquest of Granada,compared even to El Cid. Robert H. Fuson contends

POOR SQUIRE AND HIDALGO


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instead that a brother of Ponce de Leon, Luis,married his daughter, or perhaps his sister.

The war against the Moors waged by theCatholic Monarchs to complete the long

Reconquest of the peninsula marked the timewhen Juan Ponce de Leon would have been“varlet” of Nuñez de Guzman, although there isalso no concrete data in the chronicles of hisdirect participation on the battlefield.

In the early morning of September 25, 1493, theport of Cadiz was a hotbed. A thousand and a halfpeople of the most varied conditions, from knightsand hidalgos to religious, rush to embark onseventeen ships and caravels that, equipped withsupplies, weapons and ammunition, make up theformidable fleet assembled by AdmiralChristopher Columbus for his second trip tothe Indies. After reporting to the CatholicMonarchs in Barcelona on the findings of his firstvoyage, the Genovese navigator set out to returnto “instruct in the Catholic faith and imbue ingood customs” its original inhabitants, asindicated by Pope Alexander VI's Inter caeterabull. Among this colorful crew, says the chroniclerGonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, is Juan Ponce deLeon:

Who I knew very well, and is one of those whowent to these parts with the first admiral,Christopher Columbus, on the second trip he tookto these Indies.

The seventeen ships set sail before the sun risesover the horizon and, after landing in the CanaryIslands, they set sail for new lands, still barely

discovered, on the other side of the Atlantic. Afterweeks of sailing, they arrive in the Lesser Antilles,travel through the string of small islands that dotthe Caribbean and pass by an island that thenatives call Boriquen, and which Columbuschristens San Juan Bautista. They finally arrive inHispaniola, where they find to their regret thatthere is no trace of the men who stayed in theprecarious village of La Navidad after the first trip.Columbus builds a new settlement, La Isabela,then replaced by Santo Domingo, now thecapital of the Dominican Republic.

However, the documents do not provide news ofPonce de Leon's arrival in Hispaniola and his trailis lost again for a decade. Authors such as ManuelBallesteros place him on the expedition that sailsfrom Sanlucar de Barrameda on February 13, 1502,with thirty ships, and which took its newgovernor, Nicolas de Ovando, commander ofLares and later commander major of Alcantara, toHispaniola. He replaces Francisco de Bobadilla,the investigator who had arrested ChristopherColumbus himself and sent him back to thePeninsula in shackles, and his purpose is to bringorder once and for all in the affairs of the island.

THE LEAP TO THE NEWWORLD


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It finally comes to light in 1504. That year JuanPonce de Leon participated as captain in thesecond war of Higüey, the easternmost province ofHispaniola. At that time, more than a decade sinceColumbus' arrival in the New World, the Spaniardssettled in Santo Domingo and a handful of smallvillages from which the first gold mines and otherresources of the island begin to be exploited.

Hostilities in Higüey had been triggered acouple of years earlier, but after the first clashes,Cacique Cotubanama (or Cotubano) andSpanish Captain General, and the SevillianJuan de Esquivel, had sealed the peace. As iscustomary, they exchanged names and becameguatiaos, or, in other words, “perpetual friends andbrothers-in-arms”.

The calm is short-lived. The Indigenous burn awooden fort defended by a garrison of nine menand Nicolas de Ovando calls for war for the secondtime “by fire and blood”. Esquivel is appointedCaptain General again.

It is at this time that Ponce de Leon reappearsin history, being appointed captain of the city of

Santo Domingo in the operation to stifle thissecond revolt. Three to four hundred Spaniardscome together, joinedby faithful natives from aneighboring region, and approach the plateaus

The possibility that Ponce traveled toHispaniola in 1502 with Ovando is notnecessarily incompatible with his having doneso before with Columbus in 1493, since betweenthe two expeditions he may have returned toCastile. In particular, Fuson mentions the idea

that he shall return to Antonio de Torres, wholeft La Isabela on February 02, 1494, andarrived in Cadiz in April of that year. In anycase, the darkness over his journeys between1493 and the beginnings of Nicolas deOvando's tenure in Hispaniola is absolute.

CAPTAIN AND FARMER IN HISPANIOLA

Hostilities in Higüeyhad been triggered acouple of yearsearlier, but after thefirst clashes, CaciqueCotubanama (orCotubano) andSpanish CaptainGeneral, and theSevillian Juan deEsquivel, had sealedthe peace.


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where the rebels have their villages. Bartolome delas Casas does not spare any lurid details andensures that they do not pardon “an old man orchild, no woman with child or pregnant”.

The uprising ended with the capture ofCotubanama on Saona Island, and sending thechief to Santo Domingo, where Nicolas de Ovandosentenced him to death. The war comes to an endand Hispaniola was definitely “pacified”.

There is no precise data on the actions of JuanPonce de Leon during this conflict, althoughpresumably that, being Captain of SantoDomingo, capital of the island and actually theonly population worthy of being called a city, hisrole is relevant. In addition, Fernandez de Oviedohighlights another point in his chronicle that,

as he had been in past wars, he had personalexperience in his effort, and he was regarded as aman of trust and good ability.

At the end of the war, the governor appointedPonce lieutenant of Salvaleon, one of the twonew Spanish villas in Higüey aimed atstrengthening control over the rebelliousprovince. In Santervas, a house is built there, ofwhich there is a record in a file from 1511 kept inthe General Archive of the Indies:

At the time that said Juan Ponce populated atown called Higüey, he made and built a house ofstone and upholstery and limescale at his expense,which was made for the town's fortress, in whichhe maintained his hamlet and abode.

The house still stands today, converted intoCasa Museo de Ponce de Leon (House Museumof Ponce de Leon), in San Rafael del Yuma, amunicipality of the province of Altagracia fortyminutes drive from the beaches of Punta Cana.

Its robust architecture, with thick stone wallsand no windows on the ground floor, gives it anair of defensive strength, perhaps a preventionagainst new uprisings.

There Ponce de Leon settles with his wifeLeonor, with whom he will have three daughtersand a son, and he dedicated himself to growingcassava and raising cattle. He also benefitedfrom the strategic location of his estate, on theroute of the ships returning to Castile fromSanto Domingo, where they were suppliedbefore facing the long journey across theAtlantic. Once the weapons are silenced,therefore, we are presented with a Ponceconcerned with raising a family, and whogradually begins to prosper with his quiet life asa farmer.

But he is also an ambitious man and will soonextend his gaze beyond the paradisaical coastsof Hispaniola.

The House of Juan Ponce de Leon in San Rafael del Yuma,province of Altagracia (Dominican Republic).

Courtesy: Ministries of Culture and Tourism of the DominicanRepublic.


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The eastern region of Hispaniola, where Ponce deLeon makes his home, is only separated from theneighboring island of Boriquen, or San Juan Bautista,by the choppy waters of the Mona Canal, where theCaribbean meets the Atlantic. Its existence has beenknown since the second voyage of Columbus and in1505 Vicente Yañez Pinzon, captain of the caravelNiña on the first voyage, received royal commissionto populate it and build a fortress, although he didnot complete the task.

But through the Tainos who assiduously cross theMona Canal, the restless hidalgo of Santervas nowhears promising stories about its natural riches.Fernandez de Oviedo says that Ponce

had heard from that province and learned from theindigenous that there was a lot of gold on the islandof Boriquen or San Juan. And knowing this, hecommunicated it in secret with the majorcommander, who at the time resided on the island ofHispaniola: who gave him a license to go to the islandof San Juan to try and find out what it was; becausealthough the island was already known and had beendiscovered by the admiral first, it was neitherconquered nor peaceful.

Indeed Ponce de Leon, after obtaining permissionfrom Governor Ovando, embarks in 1508 with fiftySpaniards and native guides in a caravel to explorethat island of which nothing was known “except thatit was very beautiful on the outside, and that manypeople seemed to be there every time ships passedby”, according to Bartolome de las Casas.

Back in Hispaniola, in May of 1509, theTerracampino explorer presented Brother Nicholaswith a full “account” of his adventures anddiscoveries. It starts like this:

First of all, I left the Villa of Santo Domingo to goto the said island of San Juan on July the twelfth of athousand and five hundred and eight years, and Ibegan to follow the said journey to the said of SanJuan with the caravel, and I went to Salvaleon tosupply myself and the people I brought, which wasforty-two and eight sailors, fifty people in all.

But at the beginning of August “such a storm wasunleashed that put the caravel on some rocks” andmany of the provisions were lost.After the storm, heheads to Mona Island, a small piece of land halfwayto San Juan. From there, Ponce tells,

I left and went to the Southern part of said islandof San Juan, on August the twelfth of that year, whereI emerged on the beach that is in the site of CaciqueQueban, and I went to his house, I spoke to him onbehalf of Your Grace what he commanded me, andassured him and commanded him to make a conucofor His Highness.

After “dressing” the caravel, which had been hit byanother storm while anchored, he went along thecoast of the island, talking to the Caciques andCaribs he encountered along the way, "and givingthem all gifts for their safety". This brings him to acozy bay in the north,

and there I saw such a good port and island fromthe outside; I entered it and walked around the bay,believing I found a settlement and water, and I didnot find it; and from there I went eight leagues downcoast, where I found a river called Ano, which thecaravel could enter, and there I emerged andunloaded on the ground everything that I carried, andI built huts, which once done, I sent the said caravelfor bread to the said Isla de laMona.

IN SEARCH OF THE RICHES OF BORIQUEN


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However, after staying in the place for a month, hewas not convinced. His priority is that the newsettlement meets the right conditions as a basis formining activity, so he continues to explore until hefinally found an appropriate location half a leagueinland. There he raised “a medium house with itsroof and petril and battlements, and a barrier in frontof the door and all whitewashed from inside andoutside”. He immediately begins extraction with acrew, and from the bowels of the island obtained thefirst eight hundred and thirty-six pesos and four goldtomines.

At the same time,he begins to cultivate the land in“two pieces of tillage”. According to Ponce, “fromthese said conucos, the farming to be done for HisHighness will be made and exploited”. With someair of resignation, he concludes that

this is what we have been able to do so far, and nomore, because the town has changed so many times,and because I have nothing to eat or there is nothingon this island, even if I wanted to take advantage of it,and because I could not take advantage of theindigenous people of the said island as expected, forwhich reason it has not been possible to domore.

After presenting his relationship, Ponce entersinto a negotiation with Ovando to determine theisland's colonization model. He proposed a kind ofpartnership between himself and the Crown, inwhich, the explorer would bear the expenses andproceeds would be divided equally between thetwo partners. The commander accepts the proposal,but clarifies: first the mandatory “King's fifth”will bededucted and the remaining amount will be dividedinto two halves, one for Ponce and one for the royalcoffers.

On the other hand, the future governor of SanJuan wants to prevent the island from starting to fillup with Castilians ahead of time.As he warns,

it is not convenient for the service of His Highnessthat the said island be populated with residents atpresent, until we have enough food to eat there,because there is no way to sustain people, nor here totake it from this island [Hispaniola], and for thisreason the island would be harmed, and those whowent there to populate could not be supported.

Jealous in his quest to isolate the island frompernicious influences and avoid the travelingbetween Hispaniola and San Juan, Ponce de Leongoes so far as to pose

that two or three canoes that there may be in theland of Higüey may be to be able to go there to thesaid island of San Juan, so that in them some badindigenous people and bad Christians do not passwho will impose on those there, it will be well tocunningly break and burn them, even if they have topay them to their owners, so that it seems that I wasnot consenting.

At this point Ovando refuses that canoes “break”,but forbids passing in them from Hispaniola, underthreat of punishment.

Ponce also calls for a ship to be dispatched, fromwhich his wife and children, as well as calves andpigs, can go to San Juan.However,he does not wantto part with what he owns in Hispaniola and begsto keep the indigenous people entrusted there "forthe support of the tillage and rearing that I have init", since "it is not hacienda that I can get rid ofquickly of it because it is bulky".

Ponce doesn't forget his subordinates. He asksto help his lieutenant and the Captain of the caravel,Gil Calderon, “with the indigenous to make a farmand take some gold”, as he has not received a salaryfor his service, and requests that officers and othersalso be allowed to benefit from precious metal tocompensate for its low remuneration.


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Nicolas de Ovando gives the go-ahead to thesettlement in the place chosen by Ponce andgives it its name: Caparra. For the chroniclerGonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, however, it is aplace

unhealthy and hard-worked, because it wasamong mountains and swamps, and the waterswere rough, and the children were not raised.Before leaving the milk, they were sore andturned the color of the copper, and until deaththey always went from bad to worse, and all theChristian people were discolored and sick.

In short, the commander meets almost all ofPonce de Leon's demands and signs theCapitulation. Now, the Spanish colonization ofSan Juan begins.

The agreement between Ovando and Ponce turnsthe island into a kind of half-monopoly betweenPonce de Leon and the King, in which the formeroperates the island exclusively, at his expense, and inreturn pays a share to his great partner.

With the agreement closed, the capitulant settlesinto his new destination. He raised a house first inCaparra "a house of brick, and after some timemade another stone; because in truth, he was aman inclined to populate and build," says Fernandezde Oviedo.

Gradually, the Boricua land begins to bear fruitthanks to the gold mining, a task that rests largelyon the backs of the natives, and until then theCaptain of Higüey began to make an estimatedfortune.

Remains of Ponce de Leon’s house in Caparra (Puerto Rico).Courtesy: Puerto Rico Tourism Company.


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While Ponce sets up his fledgling emporium,an important innovation occurs in SantoDomingo that will be the source of numerousheadaches and will mark the rest of his days:Diego Columbus, first-born of the Admiral(died in 1506), disembarks in July of 1509 asthe new governor of Hispaniola. The era ofNicolas de Ovando, benefactor of Ponce de Leonin the Indies, comes to an end. Another one ofconstant tribulations and hardships opens up.

The second Admiral, ready to impose hisauthority from the beginning in the landsdiscovered by his late father, immediatelyappoints his own aides in San Juan, to thedetriment of Ponce de Leon, even though hissettlement with Ovando remains perfectly inforce. Juan Ceron will be mayor and Miguel Diaz,sheriff, thus becoming momentarily the rulersof the island.

Meanwhile, the deposed Ovando intercedesfor his ward before Ferdinand the Catholic,regent of Castile after Felipe the Handsome diedin 1506, and Queen Juana was left heartbrokenand without judgment. The commander getsthe monarch to appoint Ponce as Governorof San Juan "in the meantime", that is, in theinterim. Later, in March of 1510, the post ofGovernor will add those of Captain and Judge:

I command each and every one of you that assoon as you have seen my letter, without anyfurther delay and without requiring orconsulting us, nor waiting for another of my

letters, nor commandment, you shall receivefrom the said Juan Ponce de Leon the oath andsolemnity that in such act, they becomeaccustomed to, which by him be done, you shallreceive him as our Judge and Captain of the saidisland of San Juan.

After receiving royal support, not only to takegold from the mines, but also to exercisepolitical command, Ponce strikes backexpeditiously: he has Ceron and Diazarrested, and sends them back to Hispaniola.He then appoints as mayor a high-endnobleman, Cristobal de Sotomayor who arrivedin the Indies with Diego Columbus. Thearistocrat accepts the new position despite "thegreat inequality of generosity of blood"between him and the simple hidalgo whoappointed him, says Fernandez de Oviedo.

THE ADMIRAL’S SON

The era of Nicolas deOvando, benefactorof Ponce de Leon inthe Indies, comes toan end. Another oneof constanttribulations andhardships opens up.


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Meanwhile, Ponce's resistance to the islandbeing populated by residents does not prevent theinflux of more Spaniards. After a more or lesscordial coexistence, the excesses of thenewcomers with the natives soon make sparksfly. On a Friday, in early 1511, the natives of thevillage of Sotomayor, named after theaforementioned nobleman, rise up, and therebellion immediately ignites among the Caciquesof the rest of Boriquen.

During the first exchange, they kill “eightyChristians or more”, according to Fernandez deOviedo. More than three thousand Tainos gatherto burn down the village and there would havebeen no one left alive, the chronicler continues,had the brave Captain Diego de Salazar not cometo their aid. He could not, however, save Cristobalde Sotomayor himself, who was killed despitebeing alerted by a sister of the Cacique whom hehad "entrusted" and whom he had as a "friend",and by the interpreter Juan Gonzalez. He is thisone who, after escaping badly wounded, gives anaccount of what happened. Ponce de Leon calls toarms. After the blood spilled in Hispaniola, thewar now took over the island of San Juan.

Fernandez de Oviedo says that the indigenouspeople of Boriquen think that Christians areimmortal beings, having heard how they haveconquered an island as large and populated withnatives as Hispaniola, and

as they had come from where the sun rises, sothey fought; who were heavenly people andchildren of the sun, and that the natives were notpowerful to offend them.

To get rid of any doubt, a Cacique namedUrayoan devises a ploy. He gains the trust of ayoung man named Salcedo who passes throughhis territory, removing himself in courtesiesand putting at his disposal fifteen or twenty ofhis own to carry his things. As they pass a rivercalled Guarabo, the natives they offer to pass himwithout getting wet, which the young man,unaware of what is coming, willingly accepts.

The natives took him on his shoulders, forwhich the sturdiest and hardest working werechosen, and when they were in the middle of theriver, they put him under the water and carriedhim, those who passed him and those who hadremained looking at him, because they all went forhis death from an agreement, and drowned him.

Three days they spent asking questions of thewretched Salcedo to check if he's still alive,until the corpse starts to stink. And even then,they distrusted whether the boy is really dead.Only when the body begins to decompose do

INDIGENOUS REVOLT IN SAN JUAN

Only when the bodybegins to decomposedo they convincethemselves thatChristians are mortallike themselves.


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they convince themselves that Christians aremortal like themselves. “And from there theytook boldness and confidence for theirrebellion, and put in the work of killingChristians, and to rise," Fernandez de Oviedoconcludes the episode.

When the Tainos are still rising up, newevents thousands of miles away give anotherturn to the government of Ponce de Leon in SanJuan. In May 1511, Diego Columbus definitivelywon his lawsuit with the Crown and regainedall of his father's rights and privileges,becoming Viceroy. Consequently, Juan Ceronreturns to San Juan to replace Ponce asGovernor, who nevertheless remains Captainand retains Ferdinand's backing. In fact, theking cares about protecting him fromColombus' men's thirst for vengeance andorders both Ceron and Miguel Diaz, who alsoreturns to the island, that when they recoverthe rods of justice they are to have

very good manners, and do not take them inanger or spite, nor so that no one can believethat you have any grudges with Juan Ponceabout what happened between you and him,because if [they leave] the inhabitants of theisland, and especially those who have followedJuan Ponce, of course it would become verydepopulated, of which we would be verydeserved. You should treat Juan Ponce and hisfriends and relatives very well so that, as theywere yours, they may be yours, and in this waythe things of the island can be grown.

The monarch refuses to confiscate assets fromPonce, demands that he be respected by theTainos entrusted to him, and prohibits DiegoColumbus' officials from taking "residencia", thatis, to open a judicial review. At the same time, heinstructs the ousted Governor to facilitate thetransition to the position, load and to helpconclude San Juan's "pacification”. But hissituation on the island is now untenable andFerdinand suggests returning to the Peninsula.Even that won't be possible for the time being, ashis opponents even seized the ship he intended totake to Castile.

It's time to dream, once again, of new goals.

The natives in Boriquen drown the Spaniard Salcedo to verify heis immortal, in an engraving from 1592.Theodor de Bry.


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Among the weapons of the Spaniards there isone that causes special terror in the natives,according to the authors, more willing toaccentuate the cruelty of the colonizers.According to Bartolome de las Casas,

they taught and trained sight hounds, fiercedogs, who in seeing an Indian tear him to pieces ina creed; and they'd better lash out at him and eathim as if he were a pig. These dogs wreaked havocand carnage.

The most famous of these dogs is Becerrillo,taken from Hispaniola to San Juan, and whoFernandez de Oviedo describes:

red in color, and the front of the eyes black,medium and not armored, but of greatunderstanding and boldness. And surely,according to what this dog did, Christians thoughtthat God had sent him to their aid; because it wasas much a part for the pacification of the island asthe tertiary part of those few conquerors who tookpart in the war, because among two hundredIndians, he took one that ran away from theChristians, or as he was taught, and thus took himby one arm and restricted him to come with himand bring him to the royal, or where theChristians were; and if he resisted and didn't wantto come, he'd tear them to pieces, and he did verypointed things and admirable things.

Moreover, he says he earns pay-and-a-half ofthat a crossbowman enjoys. The story of such anexceptional animal makes its fortune and isreplicated over the centuries, but it may well beone of deeds that pass into the common heritageby mere inertia. According to the historianSalvador Brau, the dog does actually belong toCaptain Sancho de Arango, who takes him to SanJuan when they return to Ceron y Diaz Island, and

he had in him a fierce guardian on his estate.Neither was Sancho de Arango a companion of Poncede Leon when he came to Borinquen, nor in thebattles of Jacaguas, Yagüeca and Culebrillas in 1511is he mentioned, and yet Oviedo - who took timecollecting news about the red color of the animal andin repeating the tale of the old Indian woman,forgiven by the dog after urinating - mentions byname the captains, champions and even soldiers whodistinguished themselves in those martialencounters.

Becerrillo, according to the chronicles, dies inthe act of service, pierced by an arrow of theCaribs, “which was not a small loss, because evenif some Christians died, it was not felt so much bythose who were left and missing the dog”, addsFernandez de Oviedo. This author adds thatBecerrillo has a descendant, who inherited hisferocity, Leoncico, owned by the discoverer of thePacific, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa.

THE LEGEND OFFIERO BECERRILLO


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On July 25, 1511, King Ferdinand drafted acertificate in Tordesillas for his trusted man inthe Indies, treasurer Miguel de Pasamonte,Aragonese for more signs. In it he indicates:

I send Juan Ponce de Leon, our Captain inthe Island of San Juan, and who I have had andhave as a servant, to speak with you, and talkabout everything he thinks I can do him mercy,and he will write to us, especially if he wantedto take a new population in his charge, as hedid that of San Juan; And that with what I willtalk with you, and taking your opinion ineverything, comes to where I am, for come andsee the negotiation, I send in it what should bedone, surely longer of it; you will know thatbecause I am willing to pay, of what Juan Poncede Leon helped us to give him mercy, and hewanted me to understand some new town,because I think he's a man who is prepared forit.

That same day, he wrote to the officers of theSeville Recruitment House. He updates them onthe conversation that the treasurer and Ponceare going to have, specifying now that it isabout populating "some islands":

It seems very good to me what you say aboutJuan Ponce, who is a good servant, and that isreason for him to be rewarded; I regard him assuch, and I am willing to do so, and for this, Iam writing to him to talk to Pasamonte anddiscuss with him all the things that suit you,and get the opinion of Pasamonte about all ofit; and also, that if I get to that City of Seville, Iexpressed to you the opinion of Pasamonte, andtalk with you about the same negotiations,

especially if you want to populate some Islandsagain, as the one of San Juan populated, sothat in view of the opinion of you andPasamonte, I will dispatch your things.

What islands does the monarch speak of?What mysterious lands does Ponce de Leonintend to populate? From ChristopherColumbus' first trip to America, when hebelieved he had arrived in Asia, there is vaguenews of a territory in northern Cuba thatcan provide new riches. And in the followingdecades, raids have been made on the Lucayos(Bahamas) to capture natives, further spurringcuriosity about these enigmatic regions.

In the early 1510s there was talk of anunexplored island called Bimini (it appeared inthe documents in many other forms: Beimeni,Bimine, Bininy…). In fact, on top of a map ofthe Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexicoincorporated by Pedro Martir de Angleria's"Opera Legatio Babilonica", first printed in1511, is the line of a coast designated as"Beimeni part island”. It is the first printedmap of the discoveries in the New World,although, as in so many things of the time,there is no absolute certainty about its date,and may have been added later to Angleria'swork, as it does not appear in all editions.

Apparently, Bartholomew Columbus, brotherof the discoverer, is already on the track ofBimini. But the King is a shrewd politician(believed to have inspired "The Prince" byNicholas Machiavelli) and does not want theColumbus family to further increase itspower in America with new domains. He

THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND OF BIMINI


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Map included in some editions of Opera Legatio Babilonica by Pedro Martir de Angleria, work published for the first time in 1511.

prefers that he should simply administer onlythose that correspond to him, that is, thosediscovered in his day by the Genovese Admiral.So, for the new prospective venture hedistributes game and opts for someone who isalready proven in Hispaniola and San Juan tobe loyal, competent, and willing to keep theColumbus’ at bay: Juan Ponce.

The meeting with Miguel de Pasamonte bythe King revives the adventurous spirit ofSantervas. After the setbacks in San Juan, henow sees before his eyes a new opportunity toachieve glory and fortune, and does not want tolet it escape. So, he sends the King a "judicial

report" requesting the population of the saidisland of Bimini, in which he posed conditionssimilar to those of Columbus in 1492. TheMonarch gives his approval, though he lowershis pretensions. On a document for the officersof Hispaniola, he commissions them to take aseat and capitulation with him for thepeople of the island of Bimini, but warns thathis proposal

is very dishonest and far from reasonable,because everything that can be discovered now, isvery easy to discover. And not looking at this,everyone who talks about discovering wants to endthe capitulation that was made with Admiral


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Columbus, and they do not think how then therewas no hope of what was discovered, nor was itthought that it could be. You must tell Juan Ponceabout this as it is convenient to know the mercy, Igive him in granting him the capitulation... And itseems to me that he is right to be content, becausethe adelantado Don Bartolome Columbus told mehere that he wanted to discover this island, and Ithink he was going to discover it with a bettermatch for our hacienda than the one we do withJuan Ponce.

Despite these reservations, Ferdinand signsthe capitulation. It is February 23, 1512:

Insomuch as you, Juan Ponce de Leon, sentme to beg and ask at your mercy, to give youlicense and power to go and discover andpopulate the Islands of Beniny with certainconditions that will be declared hereinafter,therefore, by doing you mercy, I give you licenseand power so that you can go to discover andpopulate the said Island, so long as it is not oneof those that until now have been discovered,and with the conditions and according to whatit will be contained hereinafter in this manner.

The king gives Ponce de Leon three years tocomplete the discovery of Bimini and forceshim to bear the costs of the expedition. On hisjourney he allows him to "touch any Islands andland of the Ocean Sea, both discovered andundiscovered", provided that they do not belongto the Serene King of Portugal, and from thebeginning grants him the title of "adelantado"of Bimini and other regional islands that hediscovers, as well as the government and justicein them for the rest of his days.

In his stipulations, Ferdinand states "to takegold if any in the same way as in Hispaniola"and descends into detail to specify that thenew inhabitants will pay the Crown for goldand other metals or profitable things that thereis one-tenth the first year, the ninth thesecond, the eighth the third, the seventh thefourth, the sixth the fifth and fifth the next fiveyears. The economic aspect of the company isevident.

The King allowsPonce to “touch anyIslands and land ofthe Ocean Sea, bothdiscovered andundiscovered”,provided that theydo not belong to theSerene King ofPortugal.


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While the expedition to Bimini was takingshape, the adversaries of Ponce de Leon were notresting. The men of Diego Colombus in SanJuan call into question the accounts of the manfrom Santervas regarding his earnings with theking. The Monarch, as mentioned above, deniesthat the anti-Ponce faction itself is in charge ofinvestigating him, but he decides to take action.Through a decree signed in Burgos on theNovember 1st, 1511, he commissions the lawyerSancho Velazquez, to investigate Ponce de Leonand his officials to check

how and in what way he and his officials usedand exercised such office, executing Our justiceregarding everything attached and related; and ifhe or his officials, named the parties, were guilty, tofind out the truth, and once found, to make justiceto the accused, so that any of them gets injured tohave a reason to complain.

The king is surprised that there is an imbalancein the accounts by who he trusted so much. In adocument sent to the officials in the RecruitmentHouse in Seville, on the February 23, 1512, hestates:

I am very surprised that Juan Ponce de Leon is insuch a bad place as the one regarding the earnings.

The Velazquez audit concludes that Ponce deLeon quitted the company with the king withouthis consent and he continued benefit from theseearnings without giving the Crown its part.According to the estimation made, Ponce owes theroyal tax office the important amount of onethousand, three hundred and fifty-two reals, twotomines and six gold grains. The judgment, datedon October 06, 1512, obliged him to refund it.

The convicted, totally disagreeing, feels “veryoffended by many grievances, that clearly seemsand can be deducted from these accounts and thesaid capitulation”, so notice of appeal is filed. Heconsiders that the monarch’s company wasdissolved when the officials of Diego Colombusarrived, and the natives were reassigned. ButVelazquez ignores the appeal and ratifies. Poncehas no other option than paying the one thousand,three hundred and fifty-two reals, two tomines andsix gold grains to the San Juan treasurer, Franciscode Cardona, who provides him a payment receiptand an acquittance on October 10, 1512.

This case would not be finished there. Poncewould never forget the suffered affront that meanta painful economic damage for him and turned theking against him. But he kept his revenge for theright moment…

THE “INSPECTION” OF THE ACCOUNTS IN SAN JUAN


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They left here towards northwest and, onSunday 27, Easter day, commonly known asFlowers, they saw an island and did not recognizeit; on Monday 28, they traveled fifteen leagues inthe same route; and on Wednesday, they traveledthe same way; and then, with bad weather, untilthe second of April, they traveled towards thewestnorthwest, the water diminishing to ninefathoms to one league of land, which was in thirtydegrees and eight minutes, the traveled long thecoast to find port, and at night, they emerged nearland, eight fathoms of water. And thinking thatland was the island, they called it Florida, becausethere was a beautiful view of many fresh grovesand it was flat and even; and also, because theydiscovered it in Easter (Pascua Florida in Spanish),so Juan Ponce wanted to name it like that for thesetwo reasons. He got on land to take notes andpossession.

Latitude 30º 8’ is located at the height of whattoday is Ponte Vedra beach, in St. Johns County. Inthis point, close to the historical city of SaintAugustine, in April 2013 would be commemoratedthe fifth centenary of the landing of Ponce de Leonin Florida. Nevertheless, as Herrera narrates that inthe expedition, they traveled the coast to find port,some authors locate more south the point wherehe set foot on land. Some of the locate it 250kilometers from Ponte Vedra, on Melbournebeach, not far from the Kennedy Space Center atCape Canaveral.

Wherever it was, Ponce de Leon and his crewarrived, without noticing, at the huge North

Problems with the liquidation of the companyin San Juan do not prevent the king Ferdinandfrom trusting Ponce de Leon and the Biminiproject continues. With the capitulation in hishands, the adelantado gets on with it. Hecollects two ships in Hispaniola, the Santa Mariade la Consolacion and the Santiago, and he headsfor San Juan with them, where he adds a thirdship, the San Cristobal. In the afternoon of theMarch 03, 1513, Ponce de Leon leaves with hissmall fleet to San German and stops in Aguada, inthe northwest of the island. At night next day,Friday March 04, he leaves for good towards theenigmatic Bimini.

A varied crew from Andalusia, Galicia, BasqueCountry, Castile and Leon aboard these ships,among others. The logbook disappeared, so theinformation about that historical navigation isknown thanks to the story of Antonio Herreray Tordesillas in his “Historia de los hechos de loscastellanos en Tierra Firme e Islas del Maroceano” (History of the Castilians’ facts in theIslands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea),published in 1601, and for which it is assumedthat he had access to the official records of theexpedition.

Ponce de Leon sets a northwest course. Hetravels the route followed by ChristopherColumbus on his first trip in reverse, crossing theLucayos to reach Guanahani, baptized as SanSalvador by the Admiral. By the end of March,he sighted an until then unknown land. Herreranarrates it as follows:

THE “DISCOVERY” OF FLORIDA


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Map attributed to Alonso Alvarez de Pineda of the Gulf of Mexico coast, which includes the Florida peninsula, with the legend: “Floridanamed Bimini discovered by Juan Ponce.”

General Archive of the Indies.

American subcontinent, immeasurable dry landthat extends west to the Pacific and North to theArctic ice, and on which, as time passes, wouldsettle the United States and Canada.

It is often discussed whether it is appropriate tospeak of a “discovery” with the arrival of the

Spaniards in America, since by then it was alreadypopulated by natives and the idea that there hadalready been an unrecorded incursion is notdismissed. Of course, for those who arrived at anunknown land for them, it was a true discovery,and in the documents from that time it isconstantly said that Ponce “discovers” new lands.


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welcome in San Juan, this time the natives triedto grab his rowboat, paddles and weapons, andthe first problems arise. Spaniards avoid thehostilities, but, according to Antonio deHerrera, they are forced to fight after a sailorwas “dampened” after being staked. A couple ofskirmishes occur, in one of which, theSpaniards take a native to be used as guide andinterpreter.

After leaving in what they call the river of theCross a Christian symbol sculpted in stone, theexplorers continue their journey. On Sunday,May 08, they turn in the Cabo Corrientes(currents cape), baptized as such “because thereis so much water there, that it is stronger thanthe wind, and it does not allow ships to moveforward, even with all the sails”. They find twoislands close to the current Miami city and onMay 15, they begin to traverse a chain of islandsand islets that they name Los Martires (martyr),

Route of the expedition to Florida of Ponce de Leon in 1513.Manuel Trillo.

When disembarking in Florida, he connectsboth civilizations ignored until then and hejoins the region to the written History. It seemsthen that is not senseless to describe JuanPonce de Leon as the discoverer of Florida.

The members of the expedition set sail againon Friday April 08, following the coastlinesouth. On April 20, they discovered huts andthey anchored, but Herrera did not manage tomeet any of the inhabitants of these cabins.Something unbelievable happens the nextday. While the three boats were sailing alongthe coast,

they saw a current, that even with favorablewind, they could not sail forward, butbackwards, and it seemed like they were sailingwell; and at the end they knew that the currentwas stronger than the wind. The two ships thatwere closer to land anchored; but the currentwas so strong that all the cables tangled; andthe third ship, which was brigantine, that wasfurther into the ocean, did not find the bottom,or did not face the current, and distanced fromland, and they lost sight of it, in a clear fair-weather day.

They just made another great “discovery”,even if they did not know its importance then:it was the powerful Gulf Stream, which forcenturies will propel Spanish ships loaded withriches on their return voyage through theBahamas Channel and the Atlantic towards thePeninsula, a type of maritime highway fortransoceanic traffic.

Ponce de Leon set foot on land again to findthe natives. However, in contrast to the kind


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because from afar the rocks look like menthat are suffering, and the name is suitable toofor the great number of them were lost there.

We are of course referring to the Florida Keys.After sneaking between the islets and enteringthe water in the Gulf of Mexico, they stop torefill the water supply, get firewood and cleanthe San Cristobal. Being there, on June 4th, anative that speaks Spanish shows up, Spaniardssuppose that he could come from Hispaniolaor another of the already colonized islands,and he promises them that the cacique in theregion would send them gold. But while the waitfor the announced gold, twenty canoes appear,and the natives attack the intruders by surprise.They react and get five of the canoes, kill “somenatives” and take four prisoners, but they lostone of their own in the scuffle. Ponce wants tomake peace with the cacique. But he, however,gathers a bigger contingent together to launchan offensive on June 11. The fight begins and

they fought from morning to night, Spaniardsnot being harmed as the arrows did not get tothem, because the crossbows and artillery shotsdid not get closer, and at the end the nativesretreated.

In memory of the spilled blood, that place isnamed Slaughter. Spaniards decided to goback to San Juan, but taking advantage ofopportunity to discover other islands on theirway. On June 21, they arrived at the islandsnamed Turtle, as they took in one of them “just

for a while at night”, up to 160 of these animals.This little archipelago in the southeast of theFlorida peninsula preserves the Spanishfootprint in its name: Dry Turtles.

They stop in what seems to be Cuba, they gothrough the Martyrs again and, without losinghope of finding the evasive island of Bimini, theycontinue towards the Lucayos. There, they runinto a boat from Hispaniola, in the charge ofDiego Miruelo, who was illegally prowling thewaters where Ponce de Leon had exclusive rightsgranted by the King. He ends up joining theexpedition, but it gets lost at sea after a storm,but the crew manages to save themselves.

After roaming the archipelago for weeks,Ponce de Leon finally determines to head SanJuan, to where he arrives on October 09, 1513.Before that, however, he ordered one of theboats, commanded by Juan Perez de Ortubia andnavigated by Anton de Alaminos, to continuesearching for Bimini. When they return, they saythey have found the famous island, that it is “big,fresh and full of water and grooves”. Nowadays,there are some islands in the Bahamas CalledBimini North, South and East, but they seem tonot match the description of the explorers.

That’s how the treacherous expedition ends.Despite discovering and exploring what he thinksis a lush island, for the moment, Ponce did onlyget a series of clashes with aggressive natives. Heignores that, with his adventure, he started a newchapter in history.


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The reader will notice that, until now, this storyhas not mentioned the universally renownedFountain of Youth, to which the name JuanPonce de Leon is linked. According to thetraditional legend, the discovery of Florida wasthe result of his crazy search for extraordinarywaters that rejuvenated those bathing in it. It is atall tale.

As we have seen, what the fearless explorerfrom Santervas was looking for what was newterritories for fame, titles and fortune, for whichhe obtained royal permission.

Any of the documents from the time Poncede Leon lived, written by him or others, namethe fabulous fountain. Not in the capitulationnor in the correspondence of Ferdinand with theadelantado, the officials in the Indies nor theRecruitment House appears such absurdity. Onthe contrary, there is only talk of the search forgold and other riches, and of the Christianizationof the natives, but never of miraculous springs.

The first time that the Fountain of Youthappears is in the account written by the chroniclerGonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo in his “Historiageneral y natural de Indias” (General and naturalhistory of the Indies) published in 1535, that is tosay, more than two decades after Ponce's discoveryof Florida and fourteen years after he died inCuba. According to this version, which, by the way,confuses the year of the expedition,

he agreed to start and left with two caravels toNorth, and he discovered the Bimini islands, whichare in the northern part of Fernandina Island[Cuba]; and then the fable was disclosed about thefountain that rejuvenated or turned old men into

younger men: this was in the year fifteen twelve.And this was so well publicized and testified bythe natives there, that Captain Ponce de Leon andhis crew and caravels were lost and with much ofthe work for more than six months on theseislands to find the fountain: which was a hugemockery from the natives, and nonsense that theChristians believed it and wasted time looking forthat fountain.

The historian Michael Francis, one of theexperts that more firmly tried to disprove thearoused obsession of Ponce de Leon with theFountain of Youth, underlines that Fernandez deOviedo “praised the actions of men such asChristopher Columbus and, to a lesser extent,Hernan Cortes; however, he vilified the greed, thewhim, the superstition and the stupidity of others.One of these objectives was Juan Ponce de Leon”.

In fact, even that he recognizes his work inHispaniola and Puerto Rico, the first chronicler

THE MYTH OF THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in Saint Augustine,Florida (United States).Manuel Trillo.


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Statue of Juan Ponce de Leon in Saint Augustine, Florida(United States).Manuel Trillo.

of the Indies is merciless with Ponce andsarcastically makes fun of “how he looked forthat fabulous fountain of Bimini, that the nativessaid turned old men into youngsters”:

And this I have seen (without the fountain), notin the person nor the improvement of his strength;but in the weakening of his manhood, and inbecoming in his deeds younger and of littleunderstanding, and one of these was Juan Poncehimself, as he kept that futility of believing such anonsense from the natives.

Four decades after the chronicle of Fernandezde Oviedo came to light, in 1575, a Spaniard calledHernando de Escalante Fontaneda insists on themyth writing the memoirs of the seventeen yearshe spent captive by the Florida Calusa. ButEscalante, instead of locating the magic fountainin Bimini, talks about a sacred fountainsomewhere in Florida where, according tonatives from Hispaniola and Cuba, those whodived in, recovered youth. He himself says tohave bathed in many rivers without, to hisdisappointment, being able to confirm itsexistence.

Despite the fidelity he seems to accept thedefeat of the adelantado in his expedition,Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas also falls intotemptation to echo this succulent legend, and, inhis case, he also refers to the fountain to a river inFlorida. He affirms that Ponce

went to look for the Fountain of Bimini, and inFlorida a river, believing like that the natives fromCuba, and others from Hispaniola, that said thattaking a bath in it, or in the fountain, old menturned into younger men, and it is true that manynatives in Cuba, thinking that this river was true,

went, not many years before Spaniards arrived atthis island, to Florida, to find it, and they stayedthere and settled a town, and this generation ofthe ones from Cuba exists today.

The truth is that the stories about themysterious waters with miraculous properties areabundant since ancient time and in differentcivilizations. The sacred aura of rivers such as the


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Ganges, Nile o Jordan, or the mythical fountainthat returned youth to old men described in theAlexander Romance, a French medieval poemabout the life of the Macedonian king, are justsome examples. Therefore, it is not strange thatthe saga of the Spanish in America is alsoaffected by these legends. But if Ponce de Leonactually heard about the Antilles natives storiesabout the fountain of youth, in Bimini or inFlorida, it was of course not his main motivationto go discover these lands.

Since Herrera's book was published, “dozens ofmodern writers have repeated, twisted and, often,exaggerated the relation between the Ponceexpedition in 1513 and the Fountain of Youth”,affirms Michael Francis, who adds that, over time,“the myth has been slowly turned into a historicalfact”. The legend has become ingrained in such amanner that it is now an identity sign of Florida,which is exploit for tourism. Nowadays, it ispossible to visit in Saint Augustine the Fountainof Youth Archaeological Park, where it is evenoffered to taste the sulfurous water supposedlypursued by Ponce. In any case, Francis mentions,

the “real” history of Florida is richer and, Iwould say, more entertaining that the mythicaltale of an aging conqueror in a failed search tofind a magical river whose restorative water wouldprovide good health and perpetual youth.

The legend hasbecome ingrained insuch amanner that itis now an identitysign of Florida, whichis exploit for tourism.Nowadays, it ispossible to visit inSaint Augustine theFountain of YouthArchaeological Park,where it is evenoffered to taste thesulfurous watersupposedly pursuedby Ponce.


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The time between the Ponce de Leon's twovoyages, from 1513 to 1521, may at first seemless exciting, compared to his discoveredachievements, but, for our hero, it is for sure anintense period, full of shock and disputes, andnot devoid of action.

Changes in the Indies happen quickly.Spain secures its administration in the Antilles,while new explorations spread over thecontinent, what begins to shape a powerfulempire. It is the era of the Hernandez deCordoba expedition to Yucatan (1517), theconquer of the Aztecs empire by Hernan Cortes(1519) and the fierce empire of Pedrarias Davilain Castilla del Oro (1514-1526). Not to mentionthe epic planet circumnavigation set out on byFernando Magallanes and Juan Sebastian Elcanoin 1519.

In the absence of Ponce, notable facts happenin San Juan. On the July 02, 1513, DiegoColumbus arrives at the island with new publicworkers to manage it, once again a detriment ofthe influence that the discoverer of Florida stillhad. But what was more worrying is that theCaribbeans attack Caparra and burn it toashes.

These war natives, famous for being viciousarchers and cannibals, come from LesserAntilles and terrified the other Pacific Tainosthat inhabited San Juan. Columbus launches acounteroffensive against these cannibals, butPonce suspects that he uses it as an excuse towin territories at the expense of the poorTainos, make slaves and increase his power inthe region. Faced with this alarming state of

affairs, and surely eager to promote his recentdiscoveries, Ponce decides to travel to thePeninsula for the first time in a long time.

He arrives in Bayona, on the Galician coast, inApril 1514. Juan Perez de Ortubia and fivethousand pesos for the Royal Treasury travelwith him. In Valladolid, where Ferdinand isstaying, he again obtains the support of YourMajesty, according to Antonio de Herrerainfluenced by Pedro Nuñez de Guzman, to whoPonce was once a servant and is now the tutorof prince Ferdinand, grandson of the CatholicKing and future Emperor. The Monarch confirmshis privileges in the discovered land, this timegranting him the title of adelantado in Biminiand Florida:

To doing good and thanks to you, Juan Poncede Leon, regarding the services you have doneme and those which I hope you will do mehereafter, mainly for your work and service inthe discovery of the island of Bimini and islandof Florida, in the Indies of the Ocean sea, whichyou have discovered, and as we consider thatyou were always at our service in the Indies, andtrusting your sufficiency and ability, so that weremember you and your services, it is my mercyand will, as far as I am concerned, that now andfrom now on for the rest of your life you are myadelantado in these islands of Florida andBimini, that you have discovered, and of otherislands and land that there you have discoveredunder my command, that are not yet discoveredby anyone.

This document, signed on September 27,1514, in Valladolid, is the first one in history

THE ARMADA AGAINST THE CARIBBEANS


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to include the name Florida. The Monarch alsogives him instructions to populate the new lands,including the reading of the SpanishRequirement to the natives so that they embraceCatholic faith.

Ponce de Leon also has his titles in San Juanratified and is granted an annual salary of fiftythousand maravedies as compensation for hisexpenses. But, furthermore, he receives from theking the assignment to command an armada toconfront the Caribbeans, granting him onceagain pre-eminence over Diego Columbus andhis clique. The Recruitment House is this time incharge of creating the fleet, formed by threeships, that leaves Seville on May 14, 1515,commanded by Ponce.

The armada first docks on the Island ofGuadalupe, where they suffer a confusing attackby the Caribbeans. Apparently, some Castilianswere wounded when they arrived on land by thewater and four of them died, according to thetreasurer of San Juan, Andres de Haro, who writesa letter to the King. Pedro Martir de Angleria,in a vitriolic narration of this chapter, addsthat several women are captured and the leaderof the expedition “turned his back to theCaribbeans, who, being safe and sheltered,boasted to have exterminated”. In his opinion,“Ponce lost his honor” in Guadalupe.

Whatever happened, the fleet arrives in SanJuan in July of 1515. By that time, a newGovernor had taken control in the plaza, Sancho

Velazquez, the residence judge that sentencedPonce de Leon to pay the funds supposedlyembezzled. The armada against the Caribbeanseems to not have a good reception on the island.According to De Haro, “there is not that muchneed of it as until now, due to the good armadascreated there.” Ponce commissioned CaptainIñigo de Zuñiga to take charge of the ships andsent him to fight the Caribbeans, but the armadadoes not succeed, and his role is faded intohistory unnoticed.

While Ponce continues facing the eternaltensions in San Juan, on January 23, 1516,Ferdinand the Catholic passes away inMadrigalejo (Caceres province now), whosupported and protected him from a lot of hisenemies. Charles, the son of Queen Joanna andPhilip the Handsome, still very young and absentfrom his peninsular kingdoms, will ascend to thethrone.

The shabby adventurer of Tierra de Campossets course again to Castile, to make sure thateverything is the same under the newadministration. He arrives in Seville in November1516. Ponce now has to deal with the CardinalCisneros, and above all with Adriano de Utrecht,the man of the new king in Spain. His processesseemed to yield results. His titles and privileges,in San Juan as well as in his adelantamiento inFlorida, are intact, and the future for Adriano VIorders to end the armada against the Caribbeans,provided that the accounts are in order. He takestwo loads off to return once again to the Indies.


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Real Order by King Ferdinand, naming Juan Ponce de Leon adelantado of the Florida and Bimini Island, dated on September 27, 1514,Valladolid.General Archive of the Indies.


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Lately, attacks of Spanish “conquerors”monuments in the totum revolutum of theprotests against racism in the USA havereached Ponce de Leon, whose statue inMiami was covered in red paint andmessages in favor of the “Black Lives Matter”movement last June.

It is important to mention the reflexionmade by Manuel Ballesteros in his book “JuanPonce de Leon”.

With the Spanish colonization of Americaand the relationship between the Spanish andthe natives, a curious phenomenon happens:that being the only civilized colonization thatthoroughly worried about the destiny -materialas well as moral- of the less civilized native, hasbeen the most attacked one over the course oftime.

Despite the enormous impact resultingfrom suddenly running into a full continentand some unknown settlements until then,the Catholic Kings made efforts to treatthe natives humanely and to stop abuses.Royal Ordinances that came from the BurgosBoard of 1512, in which it is ordered toeducate natives and respect their customs,without suppressing them to abusive works,it is considered for many a precedent ofthe Human Rights Declaration.

In what we know about Ponce de Leon fromthe documents, he moves away from thestereotype of fierce and cruel conqueror thatmassacres vulnerable natives. When he makeswar, it is not just with the intention ofenslaving the natives, but in response torevolts or aggressions such as those of theCaribbeans, from whom he protects thegentler Tainos. In his first trip to Florida, heeven tried to make peace with those whoattacked him when he just arrived.

Certainly, Ponce searched for his ownbenefit and that of the Crown, and he uses thenatives for the work in the mines, but not atthe expense of free violence nor savageexploitation. He always tries to find anagreement with local leaders and to maintain apeaceful cohabitation with natives. The factthat King Ferdinand ordered him to distributeservants shows that he trusted him with such adelicate responsibility because of his goodjudgment, opposed to others with less scruples.

Finally, it is surprising that the graffiti on hisstatue in Miami say “Black Lives Matter”, sinceduring his first expedition to Florida, it issaid that two black men that were free, notslaves, were traveling with him. As time goesby, this Spanish territory become a freedomsanctuary where slaves escaped from theBritish colonies came to take shelter.

HUMANE TREATMENTOF THE NATIVES


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Statue of Juan Ponce de Leon in Miami, Florida (United States), before and after being covered by paint during protests againstracism in June 2020.The Hispanic Council.


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Once again in San Juan, Ponce de Leon takespart in the island public life as a member of theCouncil of Canons, even though he seems to bein the minority compared to Sancho Velazquez,the strong man at that moment.

In another sign of the changes in process, itis discussed to move the capital from Caparra,the original location chosen by Ponce, to theisland in the entrance of the bay known asPuerto Rico. This matter causes a passionatedebate.

The founder of Caparra opposes to thechange. In a document presented in theafternoon of July 13, 1517, he argues that thecurrent location has “three exists for theservitude of this city through the traverse”; it is“flat and dry, there are no waters at all, and if itrains, mud is not created”, it has deep wells andthree streams in the surroundings, as well as“lots of good wood for planks and beams forearthen houses, and to make straw houses, andlots of straws to cover them”. Plus, thecloseness to farmlands, pastures and mines.But, furthermore, he emphasizes that

if the town is moved, the neighbors andinhabitants of this City and its limits would bedamaged, as they already have their houses builthere, and their ovens and wells, and all the otherthings they need to serve, they would lose it alland they would have to build again where thetown is moved to, and neither the poor nor therich would be able to do that, but with hugedifficulties, because of the decrease of natives.

However, Ponce advises,

the island where you say the town should bemoved to is close to the sea, and it has no exitthrough dry land, and in case there is dry land,and a road or a bridge is built to get to dryland, it would be very expensive, and we do notknow if the building made there would bestable.

But Ponce de Leon was alone in opposingthis move. Nevertheless, the HieronymitesFathers, sent to San Juan in 1516 and with greatimportance now on the island's society matters,approve to have with him the deference toallow him to keep in the old Caparra the househe worked so hard to build:

And because the Adelantado Juan Ponce deLeon has spent a lot of time creating andbuilding the stone house that he has in this city,we allow that the said Adelantado can live inthis house for the desired time, provided thatthe site or sites granted to him in this new City,are fenced and his house inhabited, and he goesand comes to the Council of Canons as manytimes as needed, and to provide him withwhatever else he needs, as Captain General andCounselor of said island and City.

Thus, against Ponce’s will, the capital wouldbe moved to what today is old San Juan, theheart of the Puerto Rican capital. The placewhere Caparra was is today devoured by theexpansion of the modern city and is now part ofits metropolitan area.

ARGUMENT FOR THE NEW CAPITAL


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While the lobbyists take care of moving the city,in 1519, a new residence judge arrives on theisland, Attorney Antonio de la Gama, whoprovides Ponce de Leon with the opportunityto get his revenge against Sancho Velazquez.The then convicted sues now the old judge formaking him pay “unfairly” for the well-known onethousand, three hundred and fifty-two reals, twotomines and six gold grains. In the documentpresented by his attorney, Pedro Sedeño, healleges that “the gold that he had taken was afterthe death of such company”, so he did not oweanything, and he holds that he did not evenprocess his appeal to Velazquez. He, for his part,defends that the lawsuit is inappropriate, and heonly followed the King’s command.

In the cold administrative language of thescribe that transcribes the judicial proceeding, thetension between Ponce and the man that haddishonored his fame was discerned. During thehearing before the judge De la Gama, onSeptember 22, 1519,

said Attorney Velazquez, and the AdelantadoJuan Ponce de Leon, who was also attending,swore to God and Saint Mary and the words of theSaint Gospels and the Sign of the Cross, touchingwith their right hands the five articles, one that

the lawsuit filed, and the one denying hisresponse, both were fully or partly good and true;and being required to tell the truth, they would sayit; and that they would not provide falsedocuments or witnesses, and that they would notrequest spiteful deadlines, and that they would notgive the Judge nor the mentioned scribe too muchmoney so that justice is made to them if they donot get it; and they said I swear, and amen.

The lawsuit is prolonged six months, in which,in addition to the plaintiff and defendant,numerous witnesses appeared from both parties,and documentary evidences are provided,which today are valuable sources to reconstructfirsthand the story of the San Juan colonization.

Ponce de Leon insists that the unilateraldissolution of the company with the king waslegal as the conditions were altered, because theadministrators of Diego Columbus, Juan Ceronand Miguel Diaz, took away the natives that hehad according to the capitulation and distributedthem to the just arrived ones, such as Cristobal deSotomayor. Along this line, in his interrogation tothe witnesses, the aggrieved asks

if they knew whether the said company that hehad with Your Highness had been sustained untilthe time that the said account was requested of

Incidentally, something curious happenswith the name of the capital and the country.First, Spanish name San Juan to what nativesnamed Boriquen or Borinquen, while the newcapital is known as Puerto Rico, because of the

good qualities of its bay. However, over time,the city and the country exchange theirnames, so that the capital is called San Juanand the group of islands and the country,Puerto Rico.

THE REVENGE AGAINST SANCHO VELAZQUEZ


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me, and the natives had not been taken anddistributed to me, and with which I began to takegold and profits, I would have profited from morethan ten thousand Castilians, according to thegreat amount of gold taken then, and according tothe amount I obtained from La Mona for ransom,and from this Island, and from Santa Cruz, as Ihad license for that according to what wascapitulated with me.

Finally, the residing judge Antonio de la Gamapronounces judgment on March 05, 1520:

I rule that I must condemn and sentence thesaid attorney Sancho Velazquez with the onethousand, three hundred and fifty-two reals, twotomines and six gold grains that he seems to havemade the said Adelantado pay too much in theaccount taken from him, which shall be given andpaid to him in the first nine days thereafter, andhe has the right to request the said gold pesos paidto who he gave it to or whoever is convenient.

Eight years after his humiliating sentence, thename Ponce de Leon is clean before justice. Itis a shame that Ferdinand the Catholic joinedQueen Elisabeth to eternally sleep, and he cannotsee it.

Even so, there is one detail that cannot beomitted: in same year, 1520, when De la Gamapronounces his judgment, he marries one of thedaughters of Ponce de Leon, Isabel, “and they gavehim a big dowry with her”, Gonzalo Fernandezde Oviedo mischievously points out.

Finding a husband for his daughters was one ofPonce de Leon's main concerns at that time, as inan unknown date a tragic event takes place: thedeath of his wife, Leonor. The marriage of hisolder daughter Juana, with the accountant GarciaTroche, is joined to the one of Isabel with De laGama. As for his third daughter, who someauthors name Leonor and some Maria, there is noclear information about her marriage either: somelink her to Gaspar Troche, Garcia’s brother, andsome to the residing judge, Antonio de la Llama.

Eight years after hishumiliatingsentence, the namePonce de Leon isclean before justice.It is a shame thatFerdinand theCatholic joinedQueen Elisabeth toeternally sleep, andhe cannot see it.


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Once the marriages of his daughters and the oldlawsuits with Sancho Velazquez were solved, it wastime to resume the task that Ponce de Leon lefthalf done some years before: the Floridacolonization.

During his long absence, other expeditionarieshad been to that land. Bernal Diaz del Castillonarrates in his “Historia verdadera de la conquistade Nueva España” ("True history of the New Spainconquest”) that the expedition of FranciscoHernandez de Cordoba to Yucatan in 1517, in whichthe author takes part, he decides to return toCuba after suffering an attack from the natives,but following a different route than the one used inthe outbound trip.

And the pilot Alaminos arranged with andadvised the other two pilots, that from the locationwhere they were they would cross to Florida,because he found, regarding his charts and degreesand height that it would be about seventy leaguesfrom there, and after arriving in Florida he said thatit was a better trip and a closer navigation to go toHavana than the route we used to arrive, and that ishow he said that, because, as far as I understood, hecame with Ponce de Leon to discover Floridafourteen or fifteen years ago.

The calculation of the passed time was clearlywrong, but Alaminos is not wrong regarding thelocation. When on land in search of water,

he recognized the coast and said that he hadalready been to that location, that he came withJuan Ponce de Leon, when he came to discover thatcoast, and that the natives on that land had causedthem trouble and many soldiers had died, and thatwe should be on alert.

Another expedition that reached Florida was theone led by Francisco de Garay and headed in 1519by Alonso Alvarez de Pineda, who traveled alongthe coast of the Gulf of Mexico, thus proving for thefirst time that Florida is not an island, as Ponce deLeon thought, but the end of a gigantic extensionof dry land still unexplored. A royal decree for De

THE FINAL JOURNEY

Letter of Juan Ponce de Leon to King Charles, informing abouthis returning to Florida, dated on February 10, 1521, in the islandof San Juan, city of Puerto Rico.General Archive of the Indies.


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Garay explains that expeditionaries

came across the Florida land, that Juan Ponce deLeon discovered. And recognized and saw it, andthey wanted to hug the coastline to move forward,but they were not able to, because land appearedeverywhere, towards where the sun is born (…).Therefore, it seems that the adelantados DiegoVelazquez and Juan Ponce de Leon and youdiscovered that it is all dry land and coasts.

But, besides these official expeditions, there weresome irregular incursions in search of nativesfor Hispaniola. The adelantado himself complainsto the Court. He left the

caciques and natives in this island of Biminibeing peaceful, and made sure they were on ourside, promising them that they would not be hurt byJuan Ponce nor any other person, and that no onewould move them from there to take them toHispaniola as servants, which was their biggest fear.

That is how it is registered in a Real Cedula(Royal Decree) of 1517, addressed to theHieronymites Fathers and signed by CardinalAdriano de Utrecht, who heard news about the“insurance” promised to the natives by Ponce andordered to obey by the King being broken. Becauseof that, the decree orders that the captured nativesare returned to their place of origin and left alone.

Now Ponce is ready to set sail to Florida again. Ina letter sent to the Cardinal from Puerto Rico onFebruary 10, 1521, he makes excuses for not havingbeen able to resume until that moment what hestarted in 1513, and he announces his immediatedeparture, asking “profits” from that. It is one of theonly two letters received that are signed in his ownwriting:

I served the Royal Crown a lot in these parts ofthe Indies, subordinated by the Catholic King, andthus far my services have been suspended, thereforein the continuation I will do, as well as in what wasalready done and give me benefits from; because ofthat, and also because of time and the work arose,as well as becoming a widower and beingresponsible for my daughters and not wanting toleave them until they were married, and now thatthey are married, as per God desired; I know therehave been many works and difficulties, for YourMajesty and Your Honor; but as I trust God thateverything will be fine and the Estate and thedominance of Your Majesty will increase and he willhave mercy for me, I agreed with that poverty I hadleft to serve Your Majesty and go to the Floridaisland and its regions, and populate if possible anddiscover all I am able to; I will leave here in five orsix days for there, with two ships and the people Iam able to take, I will keep Your Majesty and YourHonor informed about what is done there; and I begyou to remember how I served and I serve, and how I

Route of the expedition to Florida of Ponce de Leon in 1521.Manuel Trillo.


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spent all I had to serve, and now I am not staying inthe lodge. I beg Your Honor that by your hand Ireceive mercies from Your Majesty, so that I mayserve, I really do not want to amass nor to pass thismiserable life, but to serve with that and myselfwhat Your Majesty needs, and populate that landthat I discovered.

That same day, Ponce de Leon sends anotherletter directly to the king himself, to whom heaccounts for the made services, to inform himabout his return to Florida and he demands tobe compensated as deserved. This is the fullcontent:

As wanted my usage and habits have served herethe Royal Crown, by order of the Catholic Kingincreasing his Profits and Manors, now, poorly, Iwant to continue to serve Your Majesty, and hopefor profits as I do; among these services I made, Idiscovered at my expense and my mention theFlorida Island and others in its region, which arenot mentioned because they are small and useless;and I am now returning to this island responding toGod’s will, to populate, taking with me people withwho I would be able to do it, so that the name ofJesus Christ is praised there, and Your Majesty isserved by the fruit made in that land; and I wouldalso try to discover more, the coast of such island,and get to know if it confines within the land whereDiego Velazquez is [Governor of Cuba and since1518 also of Yucatan] or with any other land, and Iwill try to discover whatever else is possible: I willleave in five or six days; I will inform Your Majestyabout what is done or seen in that land I will be in,and I will ask for benefits; and from now I beg youto provide it, because I would not start such a greatthing, nor so expensive, and I would not be able todo it, without asking you the favor and profits fromYour Most Gracious Majesty; and if I stopped asking

for it until now, is because I saw that Your Majestyhad little rest and lot of work, what I really sufferas if it happened to me.

Save Our Lord Your Royal person wishing you along life a many other Kingdoms and Estates, asYour Majesty desires. From this San Juan Islandand City of Puerto Rico in the Indies of the OceanSea, on the tenth day of February of fifteentwenty-one.- Slave and servant of Your Majesty,who kisses your Royal feet and hands.-. JuanPonce de Leon

Thus, eight years after stepping foot in Floridafor the first time, Ponce de Leon set sails againtowards that land he still thinks is an island,ignoring the result of the Alvarez de Pineda’sexpedition. He no longer mentions Bimini.

There is even less information about thissecond expedition than about the first one. Tofulfill what he mentioned in his letters, he weighsanchor on February 15 or 16 in command of thetwo ships. However, a letter from Antonio de laGama to the emperor Charles on the February 15delays the departure date several days:

The Adelantado Juan Ponce de Leon departsfrom this island on the twentieth of this month,with another Armada, to populate the FloridaIsland, and discover its regions.

He possibly follows a similar route than the onein the prior occasion, so it is to suppose that inthe second half of March 1521, he was alreadyin his adelantamiento. He thinks he is movingtowards the southwest of the Florida peninsula, inthe Gulf coast, with the aim to establish there hisfirst village. But things did not end as he expected.Once Ponce lands in Florida,


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after a difficult navigation, the natives came toresist, and fought obstinately with him, they killedsome people, and being injured in the thigh, hewent back to Cuba with the ones that remained,where he ended his days, and the king,contemplating his services, gave hisAdelantamiento and his other benefits to LuisPonce de Leon, his son.

With this brief and cold paragraph, Antonio deHerrera sorts out the end of this adelantado.Chroniclers that have devoted rivers of ink to Poncede Leon's adventures, are extraordinarily scaredwhen narrating the outcome of his lastexpedition. Little is known about theconfrontation, probably with the Calusa, he cameoff badly, nor about the navigation to Havana,

Statue of Ponce de Leon in San Juan (Puerto Rico).Courtesy: Puerto Rico Tourism Company.


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during which it is told that the cadaver of hisnephew Hernan, dead in the quarrel with thenatives, was thrown into the sea. Fernandez deOviedo just notes that, after returning from Spain,Ponce

he returned to the island of San Juan, and hegathered more courage to populate hisadelantamiento and that was given to him, and hespend a lot in the armada and returned from therebroken into pieces and injured with an arrow, whichwas the wound that caused his death on the islandof Cuba. And it was not only him who lost his lifeand wasted his time and money in this petition:many others that followed him, died on the journeyand once they arrived there, some died at the handsof the natives and some due to diseases; and that ishow the adelantado and the adelantamiento ended.

Bartolome de las Casas uses, as expected, lesskind words to refer to the end of Ponce de Leon'sexistence:

Arriving there [to the island of Cuba], and I think,if I did not forget, to the port named today Port-au-Prince, which is on that island, he left behind ahard-work life; and this is how he lost his body,spent a large amount of gold pesos and, as I said, hearrived with many deaths and painful and bitterlikes of natives, and he made big works going to andcoming from Castile, and to discover and topopulate, and we do not know how his soul made inpurgatory. And that is how the Adelantamiento ofBimini concluded with everything else.

We have some additional information thanks tothe informing letter that Hernan Cortes sends in1522 to the Emperor Charles, in which he writesabout the arrival to Veracruz (Villa Rica, wealthy

city) of one of the ships on the Ponce de Leonwretched expedition. According to the dates hementions, it may have arrived in thebeginning or middle of June 1521. The braveman from Extremadura just recovered from abattler where the Spanish and its allies hadsuffered serious losses, being him himselfinjured. A ship from Florida broughtreinforcements for the final attack toTenochtitlan:

By that time, the ones injured in the battlewere already recovered, and a Juan Ponce deLeon ship had been sent to Villa Rica, which hadbeen destroyed in the Florida island or land; andthe ones from the town sent me some gunpowderand crossbows, which we extremely needed; andthen, thanks to God, we did not have landaround us that was not in favor of us.

Little is known aboutthe confrontation,probably with theCalusa, he came offbadly, nor about thenavigation toHavana, during whichit is told that thecadaver of hisnephew.


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When Juan Ponce de Leon died, his only malechild is Luis, who is recognized by the King andthe Emperor Charles as his heir and names himas Councilor of the city of Puerto Rico. But as hewas underage, this legacy is assumed by his son-in-law Garcia Troche, married to his oldestdaughter, Juana.

Some authors say that Luis dies before hebecomes an adult, and some say that heconsecrates himself to religious life. In any case,the inheritance ends up passing the son ofGarcia Troche and Juana, who takes the nameof his grandfather. This second Juan Ponce deLeon would be the first acting governor of PuertoRico born on the island. The lineage continues.

The inheritance endsup being for the sonof Garcia Troche andJuana, who takes thename of hisgrandfather. Thissecond Juan Poncede Leon would be thefirst acting governorof Puerto Rico bornon the island. Thelineage continues.


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Juan Ponce de Leon leaves this world in 1521,without achieving his intent to populate Florida,but he leaves a clear path for others to continuethe colonization task of what, without himknowing, was the great North Americansubcontinent.

In the following decades new expeditionstake place to try to dominate a region thatopposes the Spanish, and not only because ofthe hostility that the natives showed towardsPonce. A despicable climate, sticky heat andviolent hurricanes, as well as a marshy ground fullof caymans make Florida a huge challenge. It is farremoved from the happy paradise that themillions of tourists that visit the “Sun State” nowenjoy.

The first one to take the baton of Ponce de Leonis Lucas Vazquez de Ayllon, who in 1526 managesto establish a settlement in what is today Georgiaor South Carolina, named San Miguel deGuadalupe, despite its short-lived existence. Twoyears later, Panfilo de Narvaez tries again inanother unfortunate expedition from which therewere only a few survivors, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza deVaca among them, who in turn is involved in alegendary epic journey of several years through alarge part of the south of North America.Hernando de Soto, the man from Extremadura, forhis part, takes charge of an expedition withhundreds of people that sets sail in 1539around the current Tampa Bay and traverseswhat is today about ten states in the USA, duringwhich he dies, and his remains are deposited inthe Mississippi riverbed. Later, in 1559, Tristan deLuna y Arellano establishes a precarioussettlement on the Gulf of Mexico coast, in what

today is known as Pensacola. But it is not until1565 that Spain, urged by the French Huguenotattempts to appropriate Florida, finally gets theAsturian sailor Pedro Menendez de Aviles toestablish San Agustin. Today it is the oldestcontinuously inhabited city in the United States.

The Spanish Florida stretches to include aterritory much bigger that the occupied by the

AN EVERLASTING LEGACY

Tomb of Juan Ponce de Leon in the Minor Basilica and the SaintChurch Metropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista, in San Juan(Puerto Rico).Courtesy: Metropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista.


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United States state with that name, extendingover a great part of the North American coast.That is what Las Casas says when he writes,referring to the return of Ponce to the Indies fromthe Peninsula:

He [Ponce de Leon] returned to Castile veryfavored with the title of Adelantado and Governorof Bimini, that he called by another name Florida,even that this name refers to all the land andcoast of the sea that starts in the big cape that hediscovered [the Florida peninsula] until the landof Bacallaos, also the Labrador land, which is notfar from the England Island.

Spain would be the proprietor of Florida until1821, with a digression of British sovereigntyfrom 1763 to 1783, and it would extend its controlto the Pacific, managing to control frozenlocations in the distant Alaska that todaypreserves its Spanish origin, such as Cordova orValdez.

On top of a big part of these territories, theUnited States of America would be raised. TheCount of Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea,foresees in 1783 that the stuttering nation wouldturn into a powerful titan:

This federal republic was born pygmy, to put itanother way, and it needed the support andstrength of two States as powerful as Spain andFrance to reach independence. It will grow someday and become a giant, and a fearsome colossusin other regions. Then it would forget the benefitsreceived from both powerful countries, and wouldonly think in their gratitude (…). The first step ofthis powerful country would be to take control ofthe Floridas, to dominate the Gulf of Mexico.

After offending us that way and our relationswith New Spain, it shall aim for conquering this

huge empire, that would not be able to protectfrom such a huge powerful country, establishedon the same continent and its neighbor.

In the meantime, Puerto Rico is still Spanishuntil the collapse in 1898, when the lastpossessions of overseas are lost forever.Nowadays, being a commonwealth of the USA,the island maintains its unmistakable Hispanicnature, with the Cervantes’ language being theofficial one.

The remains of the adelantado rest there. In1559, they are moved from Cuba to the island ofSan Juan by his grandson, the mentioned JuanPonce de Leon II. First, they are deposited in themain chapel of the Santo Tomas Church, and in1909 they are moved to the current tomb in theCathedral of San Juan Bautista in the PuertoRican Capital.

Puerto Rico as well as Florida honor thememory of Juan Ponce de Leon as the key leadingfigure that he is in its history. The island, in 2008celebrated a no expenses spared the fifthcentenary of the arrival of the Castilian noble,and will commemorate in 2021 the 500 yearssince his death with “all type of activities,religious as well as cultural”, as well as“symposiums, masses with bishops from differentcountries and classes”, as they stated at thatmoment in the metropolitan cathedral. The eventcoincides with the 500th anniversary of thewalled city of San Juan, so planned exhibitionsin several museums in Puerto Rico and manymore activities they added, even the pandemicfinally faded the commemoration.

In Florida, the trace of Ponce de Leon is alsoeverywhere, through the statues and multiplestreets and institutions that have his name. Evenin the county where the state capital is located,


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Tallahassee, is entitled Leon in memory of theadelantado. But, above all, in the collectivememory, as the person that introduced thewestern culture that has shaped over thecenturies the identity of the current UnitedStates.

In 2013, Florida embraced a long series of actsto commemorate a no expenses spared fifthcentenary of the disembarkation of Ponce on itscoasts, and recognized the author of the merge oftwo worlds separated until then by an ocean. Thespirit of Juan Ponce de Leon is still alive.

Statue of Ponce de Leon in front of the church of San Jose in Old San Juan (Puerto Rico).Courtesy: Puerto Rico Tourism Company.


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(A native of Tierra de Campos) whose noble lineage was a clean executory of hisweird facts. Soldier in Granada, captain in Hispaniola, conqueror and Governor ofSan Juan del Boriquen, discoverer and first adelantado of Florida, brave soldier,skilled leader, loyal servant, honest administrative, loving father and hard-workingand consistent colonist, gave his soul to God and his body to the land in Havana(June of 1521). To his adored memory and in honor of the Christian civilizationintroduced with his impetus, to his strong bravery, and for his assiduous cooperationspread in this Puerto Rican fruitful land, enshrines a merciful homage the CasinoEspañol (Spanish Casino) of San Juan.

JUAN PONCE DE LEÓN

Tomb of Juan Ponce de Leon in theMinor Basilica and the Saint ChurchMetropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista, in San Juan (Puerto Rico).

Courtesy: Metropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista.


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Legend engraved on the tomb of Juan Ponce deLeon in the Minor Basilica and the Saint ChurchMetropolitan Cathedral of San Juan Bautista,

in San Juan (Puerto Rico).


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BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Ballesteros, Manuel. Juan Ponce de León.Madrid, Historia 16, 1987.

• Brau, Salvador. Historia de Puerto Rico. Nueva York, D. Appleton y Compañía, 1904.

• Brau, Salvador. La colonización de Puerto Rico: desde el descubrimiento de la isla hasta la reversión a laCorona española de los privilegios de Colón. San Juan, Tipografía Heraldo Español, 1907.

• Brau, Salvador. Puerto Rico y su historia. Puerto Rico, Tipografía de Arturo Córdova, 1892.

• Castellanos, Juan de. Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias.Madrid, Imprenta de La Publicidad, 1847.

• Díaz del Castillo, Bernal. Historia verdadera de la conquista de Nueva España. Barcelona, Círculo deLectores, 1989 (el texto original se publicó por primera vez en 1632).

• Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo. Historia general y natural de las Indias, Islas y Tierra-firme del marOcéano.Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia, 1855 (el texto original es de 1547).

• Francis, Michael.Who started the myth about a Fountain of Youth? Artículo en la revista Forum. Vol.XXXV, número 3, otoño de 2011. St. Petersburg (Florida), Florida Humanities Council, 2011.

• Francis, Michael. Imaginando Florida.Artículo en el número 35.362 de Diario ABC. 35.583, del 30 demayo de 2013. Madrid, Diario ABC, 2013.

• Fuson, Robert H. Juan Ponce de León and the Spanish Discovery of Puerto Rico and Florida. Blacksburg(Virginia), The McDonald & Woodward Publishing Company, 2000.

• Gannon, Michael (editor y coautor). The New History of Florida.Gainesville (Florida), UniversityPress of Florida, 1996.

• Gil, Juan. Juan Ponce de León. El Adelantado Descubridor de la Florida. Edición conmemorativa del VCentenario de su nombramiento como “Adelantado de Florida” 1512-2014. Madrid, Taberna Libraria,2014.


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• González de Barcia, Andrés. Ensayo cronológico para la historia general de la Florida. Imprenta Real,Madrid, 1723.

• Herrera y Tordesillas, Antonio de. Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas y tierrafirme del Mar Océano.Madrid, Imprenta Real, 1601.

• Las Casas, Bartolomé de, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias Occidentales. Sevilla,Londres y Filadelfia, Juan F. Hurtel.

• Lorenzo, Eufemio. Castilla y León en América. Valladolid, Ámbito Ediciones, 1985.

• Martínez Laínez, Fernando y Canales Torres, Carlos. Banderas lejanas.Madrid, Edaf, 2009.

• Pacheco, Joaquín F., Cárdenas, Francisco de, y Torres de Mendoza, Luis. Colección de documentosinéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas deAmérica y Oceanía, sacados de los Archivos del Reino y muy especialmente del de Indias. 42 volúmenes.Madrid, Varios editores: Imprenta de M. Bernaldo de Quirós, Imprenta Española, Imprenta de Frias yCompañia, etc., 1864-1884.

• Sáinz, María Antonia. La Florida, siglo XVI.Madrid, Editorial Mapfre, 1991.

• Tió, Aurelio. Nuevas fuentes para la historia de Puerto Rico: documentos inéditos o poco conocidos cuyosorginales se encuentran en el Archivo General de Indias en la ciudad de Sevilla, España. San Germán,Ediciones de la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, 1961.

• Trillo, Manuel. La costa de los rebeles. Barcelona, Stella Maris, 2015.

• Sánchez Goyanes, Enrique. Retablo de Ponce de León. Enrique Sánchez Goyanes, 2012.

• Zamora y Caballero, Eduardo. Historia general de España y de sus posesiones de ultramar: desde lostiempos primitivos hasta el advenimiento de la República.Madrid, Imprenta de José A. Muñoz yCompañía, 1873-1875.


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CHRONOLOGY

Juan Ponce de Leon is born in Santervas de Campos.

Juan Ponce de Leon is born in Santervas de Campos.

The king signs the capitulation to “discover and populate” the islands of Bimini.

He travels to Hispaniola on Christopher Columbus' second expedition to the Indies.

Mutiny of the natives on the island of San Juan.

Nicolas de Ovando names him captain of Santo Domingo in the secondHigüey war.

He explores the island of Boriquen or San Juan (Puerto Rico today), andestablishes the first settlement in the island,which would be named Caparra.

The king names him adelantado of Florida and Captain of the armadaagainst the Caribbeans.

Ferdinand the Catholic names him governor, captain and judge of San Juan,and Ponce arrests the men Diego Columbus, Juan Ceron and Miguel Diaz.

Ovando signs the capitulations so that he is settled in San Juan and exploitsthe gold mines in a society with the Crown.

Ponce de Leon discovers what he thinks is an island which he names Florida. Theresidence judge SanchoVelazquez sentences him to pay more than 1,350 realesto dissolve his company with the king without the consent of the monarch.

1460-1474?

1504

1512

1493

1511

1493

1508

1514

1510

1509

1513


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He opposes to move the capital of San Juan from Caparra to the Puerto RicoIsland.

He travels again to the Peninsula to assure his titles after the death of theking Ferdinand.

His remains are moved to the Santo Tomas Church in San Juan ofPuerto Rico.

He brings a lawsuit against the ex-residence judge Sancho Velazquez formaking him pay “against justice” more than 1,350 reales seven years ago.

He travels for the second time to Florida with the aim to populate the land of hisAdelantamiento.After being shot by an arrow to the thigh, he died in Havana.

The remains are moved to their current location in the San Juan BautistaCathedral, in San Juan.

He returns to the Indies in charge of the armada against the Caribbeansand he suffers and attack on the Island of Guadalupe.

The residence judge Antonio de la Gama sentences Sancho Velazquez torefund these more than 1,350 reales.After his wife Leonor passes away,Ponce finds a husband for his daughters, one of which marries De la Gama.

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Manuel Trillo Lodeiro (Valladolid, 1972), is a

journalist and writer. He has been working since 1994

for the ABC newspaper, where he has been in the

position,amongothers,of politics editor ofCastile and

Leon, Delegate in Aragon, Digital Composition Chief,

Society Section Chief and correspondent in Miami.Currently, he works in the International area, in

addition, he is the author of numerous pieces of

information and articles about the Spanish history in

the United States. In 2015, he published “La costa delos rebeldes” (The rebels’ coast) (Stella Maris), the

chronicle of a tour over the history through the North

American Atlantic littoral from Boston to the limits of

Florida, and in 2009 he made for The Hispanic Council

the report “De Florida a Alaska: tres siglos delegado español en Estados Unidos” (From Floridato Alaska: three centuries of Spanish legacy in theUnited States).

We thank for the collaboration to prepare thisreport the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, the

Minor Basilica and the Saint Church Metropolitan

Cathedral of San Juan Bautista and Parish Nuestra

Señora de los Remedios (San Juan, Puerto Rico) and

the ministries of Culture and Tourism of the

Dominican Republic.

About the author

Gratitudes

With the support of:

www.hispaniccouncil.org

the great pioneer of puerto rico and florida

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