Don juan ponce de leon biographical facts
•
Juan Ponce de León
Spanish explorer and conquistador (1474–1521)
"Ponce de León" redirects here. For other uses, see Ponce de León (disambiguation).
Juan Ponce de León[a] (c. 1474 – July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador known for leading the first official European expedition to Puerto Rico in 1508 and Florida in 1513. Though little is known about his family, he was of noble birth and served in the Spanish military from a ung age. He first came to the Americas as a "gentleman volunteer" with Christopher Columbus's second expedition in 1493.
Ponce dem León was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain, in 1474. By the early 1500s, he was a top military official in the colonial government of Hispaniola, where he helped crush a rebellion of the native Taíno people. He was authorized to explore the neighboring island of Puerto Rico in 1508 and to take office as the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish crown in 1509. Wh
•
Early Life and Career
Born in 1460 into a noble family in León, Spain, Juan Ponce served as a page in the royal court of Aragon. He later became a soldier, fighting in the Spanish campaign against the Moors in Granada. After that war ended, he may have gone along on the second voyage to the West Indies led by Christopher Columbus in 1493.
Did you know? Juan Ponce de León died in Cuba, but his remains were later transferred to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they were put to rest in San Juan Cathedral. Puerto Rico's third-largest city, Ponce, bears the explorer's name.
Nearly a decade later, he was serving as a captain in the force commanded bygd Nicolás de Ovando, Spain’s royal governor of the island of Hispaniola (present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic). After Ponce dem León suppressed a mutiny bygd Native Americans, Ovando rewarded him with the governorship of the eastern province of Hispaniola.
History Lists: Explorers Not Named Columbus
Exploration of Puerto Rico
•
Juan Ponce de León
(1460-1521)
Who Was Juan Ponce de León?
Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León led a European expedition for gold, which eventually brought him to the southeast coast of what would become the United States. He gave Florida its name and went on to become the first governor of Puerto Rico.
Early Years
Ponce de León was born into a poor yet noble family in Santervás de Campos, Spain, in 1460. He served as a page at the court of Aragon, where he learned social skills, religion and military tactics. He eventually became a soldier and fought against the the Moors in Granada. Like other conquistadores, Ponce de León soon sought fame and fortune through exploration, and it is believed he began his quest as part of Christopher Columbus' second expedition in 1493. During his later explorations, he employed the skills and tactics he’d learned in the military to subdue and control the native peoples of the Caribbean.
Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
In the first decade