Juan Ponce de León
Juan Ponce de León (* around 1460 in Santervás de Campos , Valladolid Province , Spain ; † July 1521 in Havana , Cuba ) was a Spanish conquistador . He is widely regarded - from a European perspective - as the discoverer of Florida.
Life
Born the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Juan Ponce de León took part in battles against the Moors in southern Spain at the age of 18 as part of the Reconquista . In 1493 he accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second trip to America.
In 1508 he founded Caparra (later San Juan ), the first European settlement in Puerto Rico . He was received with open arms by Chief Agüeybaná . León was appointed governor , although the indigenous population later suffered greatly from his rule. Ousted from the office of governor by Diego Columbus , in return he received an order from King Ferdinand in 1512 to explore, conquer and colonize the island of Bimini . On March 4, 1513 he set out north with three ships from Puerto Rico.
On March 27, 1513 he sighted North America ( Florida ) for the first time and thought it was another island. On April 3, he went ashore north of today's St. Augustine for the first time. However, it is considered likely that European slave hunters who operated from the Bahamas entered mainland Florida before him. Since the discovery took place at Easter (Spanish "pascua de flores"), he called the country "La Florida". In the following decades the Spaniards used this name not only for the peninsula known today, but practically for the entire south-east of today's USA.
Ponce de León is also often ascribed to the discovery of the Gulf Stream . In fact, his navigator Antón de Alaminos noticed this strong ocean current . The conquistador originally suspected that the warm water came from the Gulf of Mexico . Today we know that several factors come together for the formation of the Gulf Stream.
In 1514 Ponce de León received permission to colonize the "island of Florida", but did not return there until 1521. On April 2, 1521, he landed on the east coast of Florida and took possession of the newly discovered land for Spain.
Ponce de León and his group were attacked by locals and he was hit by a poisoned arrow. After this attack, he returned to Havana , where he died.
fiction
The persistently repeated claim that Ponce de León was looking for the mythical fountain of youth is probably an apocryphal legend that can only be substantiated in the writings of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo 14 years after his death . In addition, this detail is not mentioned in the order originally issued by King Ferdinand.
Ponce de León appears as the ancient man in the novel In Stranger Tides by Tim Powers , who inspired the fourth part, Pirates of the Caribbean, of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. He knows the path to the fountain of youth that the pirate Blackbeard is looking for in novels and films.
Afterlife
The Ponce de León Hotel was built in St. Augustine around 1888 by an American millionaire as a replica in the Spanish Renaissance style. It now serves as the main building of Flagler College . It is one of the US National Historic Landmarks .
The place Ponce de Leon and Leon County in the US state of Florida were named after Ponce de León .
literature
- Louise Chipley Slavicek: Juan Ponce de León . Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia 2003, ISBN 0-7910-7255-X .
- Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas: Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano, Tomo I . En la Imprenta Real, por Juan Flamenco, Madrid 1601.
- Excerpt from the report Herrera y Tordesillas' on Ponce de León's Florida trip (Engl.) , Accessed on January 11 of 2019.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Slavicek, pp. 73-74.
- ↑ Colin Schultz: Setting Sail: The 500th Anniversay of Ponce de León's Discovery of Florida , smithsonian.com, March 27, 2013, accessed January 11, 2019.
- ↑ Matthew Shaer: Ponce de León never searched for the Fountain of Youth , smithsonian.com, March 27, 2013, accessed on January 11 of 2019.
- ↑ Slavicek, p. 72.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ponce de León, Juan |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Spanish conquistador |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1460 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Santervás de Campos , Valladolid Province , Spain |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1521 |
| Place of death | Havana , Cuba |