Juan Ponce de León's Accomplishments

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Juan Ponce de León and the Spanish Discovery of Puerto Rico and Florida is an extensive biography about a young Castilian, Juan Ponce de León, who probably emigrated to the Caribbean with Christopher Columbus. While many people are familiar with the name Ponce de León, only a handful know the historical truth about what he did – and did not – do. He was a very important, but misrepresented, figure in the early history of America. He had a major impact on the course of events that occurred in three places: today’s Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Florida. Juan Ponce accomplished many wonderful things in the New World, and failed attempting others. Historical records reveal that Juan Ponce was an unusual man whose ambitions followed paths different from his contemporaries. However, they still managed to lead him to personal, social, political, and financial success – achievements that are all the more noteworthy when one considers the turbulence that existed during this period of history.
The young Juan Ponce de León, fresh from the Moorish wars, sailed with the Second Voyage of Columbus. The voyage departed from Cádiz, Spain around September of 1493. They finally reached their destination, Puerto Rico, on November 18. The man in charge of preparing this voyage to sail was Bishop Fonseca. On this particular trip, only 1000 men should have boarded the boats; however, detailed documentation and letters indicate that closer to 1500 were loaded onto the ships headed to the New World. Defective materials were loaded, good food was replaced with bad, armor and weapons were sold instead of being loaded, and 25 Arabian horses were exchanged for nags. It is very possible that Fonseca’s spiteful management could explain how Juan Ponce ha...

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...entury exploration, and a geographer with strong interests in the Caribbean and Central America. He was also the founding chairman of the Geography-Anthropology department at the University of South Florida in 1960. Fuson was an accomplished Jazz and Classical musician playing both the saxophone and the clarinet. He published in the Playboy Magazine, and he was an award-winning author of books on exploration and discovery. He has authored more than 140 publications, including ten books, among which are the classic Fundamentals of Place-Name Geography, and the award winning The Log of Christopher Columbus. Fuson met his unfortunate death on October 4, 2004. He died at age 77 of Melanoma in Temple Terrace, Florida.

Works Cited

Fuson, Robert H. Juan Ponce De Leon: And the Spanish Discovery of Puerto Rico and Florida. Blacksburg, VA: McDonald & Woodward, 2000. Print.

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