Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460 – July 1521) was a Spanish conquistador. Juan Ponce de León was innate around Santervás de Campos (Valladolid). Ponce de León accompanied Columbus in his 2nd voyage to the Future Globe. He became a number one Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish Crown. He is look on a number 1 European known to use visited what is the present day United States of America when he set foot within Florida in 1513. Within 1508, Ponce de León founded the number one personal injury settlement inside Puerto Rico, Caparra (later resettled to San Juan). He was greeted by using open arms per Taino Cacique, Agueybana. Shortly when existence known as Governor, Ponce de León & a more conquistadors forced a Tainos to function in the mines & to construct fortifications. A Tainos afterward died within nifty cost fallowing exposure to a European diseases a sailors brought by using the babies & to which the indigen were non eventually resistant. A popular story that Ponce de León was shopping for a Fountain of Youth when he sailed for Florida is misconceived. Around 1506, upon the dying of Christopher Columbus who had been appointed life-time military machine governor of his recently obtained discoveries, a Spanish authorities refused to grant a equivalent privilege to his boy Diego Columbus. A Spanish Crown by so experienced selected Ponce de León to colonize & govern a island of Puerto Rico. Meanwhile Diego Columbus experienced taken his claim to the top court inside Madrid and won his rights. Ponce de León was so flushed from either professional & felt his dependable title experienced been damaged. Non wishing to serve Diego, Ponce de León found title to choose a areas n of Cuba.

Ponce de León sailed into a Bahamas headed toward Floridthe, then considered by slave hunters & fishermen to become a big island. He was looking the spiritual rebirth by having fresh glory, honor, & home enrichment, non the physical rebirth through the waters of the Fountain of Youth. In March 27, 1513, Ponce de León sighted Florida for the first time, however mistaking it for an additional island. Late, in April 2, he landed on the east coast of the newly found land at the point which continues to exist as disputed, however was beyond question in the south of present-day St. Augustine. Ponce de León claimed "La Pascua Florida" for Spainside, & in 1514 received a commission to colonize a "island," though he would non link to until 1521.

On the 2nd visit, Ponce de León & his person were attacked by the tribe of the Calusa (on Pine Isl&), and Ponce de León was hurt by the poisoned arrow. When this attack, he returned to Havana, Cuba, where he died. His grave is around the cathedral in Old San Juan.

Parody
Inside Faust Eric, a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, the eponymous Eric and Rincewind the wizard meet Ponce da Quirm in the Tezumen Empire (a land similar to that of the Aztecs). Dthe Quirm explains he is wanting to find a fountain of youth, a quest that is in the end successful, however by owning unforseen circumstances.