Juan Ponce de León

In the 1500s, de Leon married Leonora, an innkeeper's daughter. The couple had three daughters and one son.

While on his second voyage to Florida, the colonists were attacked by Calusa braves. De Leon was hit by an arrow smeared with poison. Following the attack, the colonists sailed to Cuba where de Leon died of the wound in July 1521.

Juan Ponce de León was born in the village of Santervás de Campos, Castile, Spain, in 1474. Not much is known about his childhood and even the identity of his parents is not known. There is however ample proof to suggest that he might have hailed from a distinguished and influential noble family. Rodrigo Ponce de León, Marquis of Cádiz, a celebrated figure in the Moorish wars, was a relative of his.

As a young man, he served as a squire to Pedro Núñez de Guzmán, Knight Commander of the Order of Calatrava. Eventually he became a soldier and fought in the Spanish campaigns against the Moors in the successful completion of the re-conquest of Spain in 1492.

In September 1493, de Leon joined the 1200 sailors, colonists, and soldiers who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. The fleet reached the Caribbean in November 1493 and visited several islands, including the large island that would later become known as Puerto Rico. They finally arrived at their primary destination in Hispaniola.

It is generally believed that de Leon returned to Spain after the voyage and spent some years in his homeland.

In 1502, he was employed by Nicolás de Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola, to curb the rebellions by the natives against the Spanish. De Leon successfully quelled the rebellion and impressed Ovando who appointed him frontier governor of the eastern part of Hispaniola.

He soon heard rumors about presence of gold in the nearby Puerto Rico. He explored the land and confirmed the presence of gold in response to which Ferdinand II of Aragon gave permission to Ponce de Leon for the first official expedition to the island in 1508.

He went to Puerto Rico and collected a good quantity of gold before returning to Hispaniola in 1509. He was told by the crown to return to Puerto Rico and build a settlement there. Named the governor of Puerto Rico, he went on to establish a successful colony. However he soon lost his governorship due to some political issues.

Juan Ponce de Leon is widely credited with the discovery of Florida. Several sources suggest that he might not have been the first European to reach the peninsula, but he is the earliest documented European explorer to do so. He named the region ‘La Florida’ with reference to its lush floral vegetation.