{"id":3923687,"date":"2026-01-27T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/ponce-de-leons-enemies-linked-him-to-fountain-of-youth-myth-inadvertently-making-him-immortal\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T09:01:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T14:01:51","slug":"ponce-de-leons-enemies-linked-him-to-fountain-of-youth-myth-inadvertently-making-him-immortal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/ponce-de-leons-enemies-linked-him-to-fountain-of-youth-myth-inadvertently-making-him-immortal\/","title":{"rendered":"Ponce de Leon\u2019s enemies linked him to \u2018Fountain of Youth\u2019 myth, inadvertently making him immortal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Juan Ponce de Leon is probably best known for discovering what is now known as the U.S. state of Florida, but he\u2019s also associated with a search for the so-called \u201cFountain of Youth\u201d which would supposedly make one young again if they so much as bathed in or drank from the water.<\/p>\n

But as with many things that get mythologized over time, it turns out that Ponce de Leon likely never went in search of any such fountain, according to Ancient Origins<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Portrait
Ponce de Leon was born in Spain around 1460. (Via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
From Page to Explorer<\/h5>\n

Juan Ponce de Leon was born in 1460 (though some allege the actual year of his birth was 1474) to a poor family in Valladolid, Spain, and served as a page in the court of Aragon.<\/p>\n

When he matured, Ponce de Leon became a solider, fighting in the Spanish military campaigns against the Emirate of Granada. But once the war ended, his services were no longer needed, so he decided to become an overseas explorer, hoping that he might gain fame and fortune as a result.<\/p>\n

\"17th
A 17th century Spanish engraving of Juan Ponce de Le\u00f3n (Public Domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ponce de Leon trained to be an explorer by joining the second expedition of Christopher Columbus<\/a> to the New World in 1493. As a result of his service with Columbus, Ponce de Leon was named the military commander and later governor of the island of Hispaniola, which is now known as the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

While serving as governor of Hispaniola, Ponce de Leon heard<\/a> that another island, San Juan Bautista, was loaded with gold, so he obtained permission from the Spanish royal family to go and explore the island. A Spanish settlement was established on San Juan Bautista and once again Ponce de Leon became governor of what later became modern-day Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

\"768px
A statue of Ponce de Leon in San Juan, Puerto Rico (Via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Fountain of Youth?<\/h5>\n

As an explorer, Ponce de Leon was far from the only consquistador looking to make his name in the New World. And some of his rivals actively tried to<\/a> bring about his downfall:<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn 1511, two years after he was granted the governorship of Puerto Rico, he was forced to surrender his position as the governor to Diego Columbus, the son of Christopher Columbus. As a form of compensation, the king of Spain\u00a0offered him the mythical land of Bimini, assuming that Ponce de Le\u00f3n was able to finance an expedition, and perhaps more importantly, find it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"The
\u201cThe Fountain of Youth\u201d \u2014 Painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder (Public Domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As he searched for the tiny island of Bimini, rumors spread that Ponce de Leon was actually seeking the elusive \u201cFountain of Youth,\u201d but some historical scholars say<\/a> that was never the the explorer\u2019s intent:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cInstead, it was court politics that resulted in this connection. After Ponce de Le\u00f3n\u2019s death, a Spanish court chronicler by the name of Gonzalo Fern\u00e1ndez de Oviedo y Vald\u00e9s sought to discredit the conquistador. Oviedo was aligned with one of Ponce de Le\u00f3n\u2019s rivals, Diego Columbus.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The court chronicler hated Ponce de Leon, so he slurred him as a fool who was motivated by ego and greed:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn his Historia general y natural de las Indias,<\/em>\u00a0Oviedo relates a tale in which Ponce de Le\u00f3n, having been\u00a0deceived by the natives, goes on a wild goose chase for the \u2018Fountain of Youth\u2019, thus depicting him as a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"Juan
Ponce de Le\u00f3n and his explorers drinking from a spring in Florida while supposedly seeking the Fountain of Youth. (Public Domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Florida Instead of Bimini<\/h5>\n

As he continued to search for Bimini, Ponce de Leon instead found Florida, which got its name from the fact that Ponce de Leon landed there during the Easter season, which in Spanish is known as Pascua Florida.<\/p>\n

A year later, Ponce de Leon was given permission to colonize the region of Florida, but during the expedition the explorer was wounded in a thigh by an arrow. That wound later killed him at the age of 61.<\/p>\n

But despite meeting his end while attempting to secure his place in history, Ponce de Leon gained a bit of immortality, and to this day is one of the most recognizable names of all the famous Spanish explorers, second only to Columbus himself, who was his mentor in the early days of his career.<\/p>\n

Oddly enough, however, Ponce de Leon is now associated with the fictional \u201cFountain of Youth\u201d which it appears was little more than an attempt to discredit him. Instead, it has given him the sheen of immortality all these centuries later.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the famed explorer:<\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=2&v=lmRbNQBQ5OA<\/p>\n

\n

Featured Image: Madame Tussauds Orlando \u2013 Juan Ponce de Leon by Jared via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)<\/a> with Fountain via Pixabay<\/a> by\u00a0<\/span>Mabel Amber<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Go to Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

Juan Ponce de Leon is probably best known for discovering what is now known as the U.S. state of Florida, but he\u2019s also associated with a search for the so-called \u201cFountain of Youth\u201d which would supposedly make one young again if they so much as bathed in or drank from the water.<\/p>\n

But as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3923687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ancient-code","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3923687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3923687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3923687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mikedyess.info\/para\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3923687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}