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| Juan Ponce de Leon (1474-1521) |
Relayed by the writings of Greek traveler Herodotus and the
legend of Prester John's Kingdom, the alleged reality of such a spring had been
updated since the discovery of America through stories reported by the Natives.
The water of this miraculous fountain supposedly granted an exceptional
long life to those who drank it and cured their ills. This myth was also
found among the Arawak Indians of the Caribbean who talked
emphatically about a rich island located northwest called Bimini. According
to them, the precious spring was over there, beyond the Bahamas (Lucayos). One of their leaders had even left seeking
after it with a party but never returned.
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| Spanish flag 1513 |
When
Christopher Colombus landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, these islands
were inhabited by the Lucayos (Luku -cairi, meaning in Arawak language "
people of the islands "), people related to the Tainos (meaning "good people") who lived mainly
in the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico).
Endowed
with a generous and peaceful nature, the Lucayos, estimated at about 40 000,
were soon decimated by diseases brought by Europeans or taken in
slavery to the Greater Antilles to make up for the lack of labor. Thirty
years hardly after the Spanish conquest, the Bahamas had become desert islands.
They would remain so for almost 130 years.
The Lesser Antilles were, meanwhile, inhabited by the Caribs,
people come from the shores of the Orinoco River in present-day Venezuela. Contrary
to the Tainos who were regarded as peaceful people before the arrival of the Spaniards, the Caribs showed traditionally a warry spirit and
mistrusted foreigners. For their part, the Spaniards feared them because they
practised cannibalism. Was it a hollow reputation or reality? Actually,
they happened to eat sometimes the body of a foe during well-defined rituals.
The Bahamas, which were the first islands discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, quickly
experienced a tragic destiny. The 40 000 Lucayan Indians who lived there were
fast wiped out by smallpox and few survivors
condemned to hard labor or abducted by slave traders. Twenty years after the
Spaniards arrived, the islands were already widely depopulated.
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| A Tainos family |
Juan Ponce
de Leon was born in the province of Valladolid into a family of minor nobility
including some ancestors become famous in fighting the Moors. He had
chosen the military career but the fall of the Kingdom of Granada leaving him
unemployed, he joined most probably in 1493 the colonization army set up by
Christopher Columbus and tried the adventure in America.
In 1502, he
was called to side Governor of Hispaniola Nicolas de Ovanda so as to subdue the Native
Tainos in open rebellion.
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| Tainos Massacre |
Far from
being condemned for these abuses, Ponce de Leon was upgraded governor of the
island of San Juan Bautista (Puerto Rico) that he had previously discovered
and eager to temper the claims of Diego Colon (the son of Christopher Columbus) on
the colony, King Ferdinand rewarded him by allowing him to found a new city at Ygueï,
eastern Santo Domingo and to enslave the remaining Tainos to work in gold
mines.
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| Enslaving Tainos |
Regarded as a great servant of Spain, Ponce de Leon could, without fear, terrorize his province, stoking the anger of the Tainos who
rebelled again in 1511, before being once more harshly subdued and decimated by
Spanish arquebuses when it was not by fatal diseases such as smallpox or
measles. As a result of the Spanish brutality, the Tainos population
decreased in a dizzying pace generating pressing workforce needs. A solution to
this situation was to conquer new territories. The Bahamas being already
emptied of their former inhabitants, it urged to fetch slaves somewhere else. Far
from seeking the Fountain of Youth as it was later said, Ponce
de Leon left rather for slaves hunting. Meanwhile, Spanish settlers came
in numbers. They were already 10
000 in 1508.
Was it for
him a way to ward off the memory of a poor childhood and ungrateful family
land, the fact is that Ponce de Leon undoubtedly took advantage of his
position to become a wealthy planter. Maybe he was not a brave soldier but was
able to be feared by his cruelty, using ruthlessly a substantial and cheap
indigenous labor work to develop his vast domains. He grew vegetables and
developed livestock such as pigs, cattle and horses, building a prosperous business on
an island in turmoil.
The myth of the Fountain of Youth
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| Searching for the Fountain of Youth |
The Indians made perhaps a confusion between
this mythical land and that of the Mayas but it was clear to the Spaniards
that it could be on the Bahamas side. As far as he was concerned, Ponce de Leon never admitted officially
in his lifetime that the main purpose of his search would have been the
fountain of youth if it ever was.
The question
of the fountain quest was discussed only after his death and the first one to
mention it was Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo in a book published in 1535 about
the history of this time. There was no doubt in his mind that the
conquistador hoped to discover the spring in order to regain youth and sexual potency. One would think that there was a bias in this claim but other
Spanish authors confirmed that Ponce de Leon was well obsessed with finding
this fountain.
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| Ponce Leon and his men preparing to land in Florida (Jackson Walker) |
It is right
to think that it is about an unfounded assertion even if the Spanish
biographers fastened, for reasons remaining to determine, making this
character inseparable of the mythical quest. It is sure, actually, that in the early 16th century, the Spaniards, who had set foot on
the American continent for only 20 years, did not stop being fascinated by the extraordinary
wealth of this New World that contrasted with the barenness of their own country. It could
seem obvious that if there was so much gold, a rare and precious metal, it could also
be found the Fountain of Youth, a rare and precious water.
These new lands already offered the Spaniards
more gold than they ever have imagined and reality blending with
fiction, any information, any rumor, the lesser legend exerted immediate
fascination. Everything seemed possible in this unexplored continent the wealth
of which made the head spin. The myth of the Fountain of Youth drew
its origins in Antiquity but was especially associated in the Europeans minds
with a far and unreachable country, America appearing therefore as an ideal
field to restore it. Having themselves similar myths, the Natives had not
delayed to understand that the greediness and rapacity of the Spaniards was
comparable with their credulity. It was fair enough to get rid of these bulky
hosts by sending them to chase fantasies, hoping maybe that they would not
return. Juan Ponce de
Leon had certainly health problems as many of his contemporaries but there
was no evidence that he was obsessed with the myth of perennial youth. He
belonged to a category of minor nobility adventurers especially concerned with
the language of arms and easy fortune. Now, knowing him neither wife nor
child, a sufficiently rare occurence among the conquistadors, historians have
deducted that perhaps he suffered from some intimate problem, thereby justifying
the search of appropriate treating waters.
Discovering
Florida
In 1512,
King Ferdinand decided to pursue the colonization looking for new territories and
chose Ponce de Leon for this mission. The charter of which he was beneficiary
granted him important privileges on the lands to discover among which
gold mining, but all costs were on the other hand at his own
expense.
To this end, he equipped
3 ships, the Santiago, the San Cristóbal and the Santa Maria
de la Consolacion, setting sail late winter,
1513 for new lands to be conquered (1). He sailed along the Bahamas and arrived between April 2 and 8 before a still unexplored coast, believing it was an island (2).
It seems that he dropped anchor in the area
where will be later founded St Augustine, close to present Melbourne Beach. He
took possession of this land on behalf of the king and called it Florida,
probably because of plentiful blooming plants in this season. He had then to
fight against the Gulf Stream that led him northeast but finally succeeded to
set sail south, making surveys of the estuaries of the rivers met.
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| First meeting between the Spaniards and the Calusas |
These islets were only filled with thousands of
marine animals. The Spaniards captured about 160 giant sea turtles and killed
many sea wolves, animals of which Indians reserved generally meat to tribes
chiefs. They left swiftly for Havana and Puerto Rico where Native people had
just revolted.
Ponce de Leon achieved a second trip to the
Florida coast in July and met on his way a Spanish ship captained by certain
Diego Miruelo suspected of being a spy in the service of Viceroy Diego
Colon, son of Christopher Colombus. It chanced that Miruelo was shipwrecked
shortly after and Ponce de Leon rescued the crew. He returned in Puerto Rico
only on October 19. Never during these two trips, it was question of fountain
of youth.
Juan Ponce de Leon's expedition brought no result. He had not ventured
in the mainland contenting himself with a coastal survey. It was obvious that
his first voyage had not allowed to raise the mystery of the fountain of youth.(3)
Preparing the colonization of Florida
Ponce de
Leon spent the months following his return to try to subdue the Caribs who
disputed regularly the Spanish rule in Puerto Rico. The scant information
available would suggest that he had only little results. It is maybe the reason
why he decided in 1514 to leave for Spain in search of support and legitimacy
that seemed to challenge the presence of Viceroy Diego Colon.
He was welcomed with the honors by King Ferdinand who knighted him while he was confirmed in his rights over Bimini and Florida. He was next year back in Puerto Rico with license to raise an army to subject the Caribs permanently. It is unclear if he succeeded in this mission but it seems that he chose to get involved again in the conquest of Florida where he was supposed to hold rights.
What
interest represented Florida for him? An easy conquest, perhaps, against peoples
regarded as weaker by the Spaniards for lack of equivalent weaponry. He maybe hoped to carve out a new empire just like
his governorship in Puerto Rico. This attempt would nevertheless prove fatal
to him.
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| The Calusas attack the Spaniards |
Was Ponce
de Leon too old or too poor strategist to boost so slightly in an adventure
which had already failed earlier. Meanwhile Hernan Cortès, with 500 soldiers and
taking advantage of alliances with indigenous peoples was submitting the
powerful Aztec Empire.
This new
failure postponed the colonization of Florida.
References :
(1) The Track of Ponce de Leon in 1513 (L.D. Scisco - American Geographical Society, 1513)
(2) Ponce de Leon Landed Where (Herald Tribune, March 29, 2013)
(3) Ponce de Leon Exposed (T.D. Allman - New York Times, April 1, 1513)
Bibliography:
E.H. Haines Ponce De Léon Discovers Florida
References :
(1) The Track of Ponce de Leon in 1513 (L.D. Scisco - American Geographical Society, 1513)
(2) Ponce de Leon Landed Where (Herald Tribune, March 29, 2013)
(3) Ponce de Leon Exposed (T.D. Allman - New York Times, April 1, 1513)
Bibliography:
E.H. Haines Ponce De Léon Discovers Florida
