Juan Ponce De Leon

Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460 – July 1521) was a Spanish Conquistador . He was born in Santervás de Campos ( Valladolid ). As a young man he joined the war to conquer Granada , the last Moorish state on the Iberian Peninsula . Ponce de León accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World . He became the first Governor Of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish Crown. He is regarded as the first Europe an known to have visited what is now the United States , as he set foot in Florida in 1513.

Ponce de León settled in 2005

In 1506, upon the death of Christopher Columbus, who had been appointed lifetime military governor of his "discoveries", the Spanish authorities refused to grant the same privilege to his son 2005

The popular story that Ponce de León was searching for the 2005

. The statue was made in New York in 1882 using the bronze from English cannons seized after the English attacked San Juan in 1792.]]
Ponce de León equipped three ships at his own expense, and set out on his voyage of discovery and conquest in 1513. On 2005 .

Ponce de León then sailed south along the Florida coast, charting the rivers he found, passed around the Florida Keys , and up the west coast of Florida to Cape Romano . He sailed back south to Havana , and then up to Florida again, stopping at the Bay of ''Chequesta'' ( Biscayne Bay ) before returning to Puerto Rico. Ponce de León may not have been the first European to reach Florida. He encountered at least one Indian in Florida in 1513 who could speak Spanish Smith, Hale G. and Marc Gottlob. 1978. Spanish-Indian Relationships: Synoptic History and Archaeological Evidence, 1500-1763, in Milanich, Jerald and Samuel Proctor. ''Tacachale: Essays on the Indians of Florida and Southeastern Georgia during the Historic Period.'' Gainesville, Florida: The University Presses of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-0535-3.

In 1514 Ponce de León returned to Spain and received commissions to conquer the Carib s of Guadalupe and to colonize the ''Island of Florida''. His expedition to Guadalupe in 1515 was not successful, and he returned to Puerto Rico where he stayed until 1521.

In 1521 Ponce de León organized a colonizing expedition on two ships. It consisted of some 200 men, including priests, farmers and artisans, 50 horses and other domestic animals, and farming implements. The expedition landed on the southwest coast of Florida, somewhere in the vicinity of the Caloosahatchee River or Charlotte Harbor . The colonists were soon attacked by Calusa s and Ponce de León was injured by a poisoned arrow. After this attack, he and colonists sailed to Havana , Cuba , where he died. His tomb is in the cathedral in Old San Juan .

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Juan Ponce De Leon