Ponce De Leon Was Searching For The Fountain Of Youth
Juan_Ponce_de_LeónThe Truth: He wasn’t. None of de Leon’s writings or letters, or the writings of anyone else associated with his expedition, mention the Fountain of Youth. The truth is that de Leon was a traditional Spanish conquistador—he was out for gold, land, and riches—and wasn’t afraid to brutally massacre the Native American inhabitants of the areas he colonized. As the first governor of Puerto Rico and later in Florida, de Leon demonstrated a ruthlessly pragmatic nature at odds with later stories of his search for a mythical spring.In fact, the story was made up by Ponce’s enemies in Spain after his death in order to make him look like a gullible, sexually impotent idiot. It worked—the story largely eclipsed his actual achievements, like discovering the Gulf Stream. The myth gained traction when America acquired Florida and writers like Washington Irving discovered that they were much more comfortable with the idea of Ponce as a hapless, Don Quixote–like figure, rather than the reality of a brutal man whose name was a source of terror for the native inhabitants of the area. Centuries later, a 16th-century smear campaign is still repeated as fact in some American textbooks.
Juan_Ponce_de_LeónThe Truth: He wasn’t. None of de Leon’s writings or letters, or the writings of anyone else associated with his expedition, mention the Fountain of Youth. The truth is that de Leon was a traditional Spanish conquistador—he was out for gold, land, and riches—and wasn’t afraid to brutally massacre the Native American inhabitants of the areas he colonized. As the first governor of Puerto Rico and later in Florida, de Leon demonstrated a ruthlessly pragmatic nature at odds with later stories of his search for a mythical spring.In fact, the story was made up by Ponce’s enemies in Spain after his death in order to make him look like a gullible, sexually impotent idiot. It worked—the story largely eclipsed his actual achievements, like discovering the Gulf Stream. The myth gained traction when America acquired Florida and writers like Washington Irving discovered that they were much more comfortable with the idea of Ponce as a hapless, Don Quixote–like figure, rather than the reality of a brutal man whose name was a source of terror for the native inhabitants of the area. Centuries later, a 16th-century smear campaign is still repeated as fact in some American textbooks.
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