Juan Ponce de León (1474 - July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. Rumors of undiscovered islands to the northwest of Hispaniola had reached Spain by 1511. In an
Juan Ponce de León (1474 - July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown. Rumors of undiscovered islands to the northwest of Hispaniola had reached Spain by 1511. In an effort to reward Ponce de León for his services, Ferdinand urged him to seek these new lands. Ponce de León equipped three ships with at least 200 men at his own expense and set out from Puerto Rico on March 4, 1513. For the next several days the fleet crossed open water until April 2, 1513, when they sighted land which Ponce de León believed was another island. He named it La Florida in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season, which the Spaniards called Pascua Florida (Festival of Flowers). Although he is widely credited with the discovery of Florida, he was not the first European to reach the peninsula. Spanish slave expeditions had been regularly raiding the Bahamas since 1494 and there is evidence that one or more of these slavers made it as far as the shores of Florida. According to a popular legend, Ponce de León discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth. Though stories of vitality-restoring waters were known on both sides of the Atlantic long before him, the story of his searching for them was not attached to him until after his death. In 1521 he organized a colonizing expedition on two ships. The expedition landed on the southwest coast of Florida and were soon attacked by Calusa braves. Ponce de León was injured when, historians believe, an arrow poisoned with the sap of the Manchineel tree struck his thigh. After this attack, he and the colonists sailed to Havana, Cuba, where he soon died of the wound.
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