The Fountain of Viagra
The accurate story of Juan Ponce de Leon
Anyone who’s been to St Augustine has viewed the statue of its founder and benefactor, Ponce de Leon, and visited the “Fountain of Youth.” The sulfur water pouring from the fountain is enough to make one question the worth of eternal youth if it means drinking enough of it to make a difference. The statue and the fountain are both complete and utter bullshite, but they make a good story. Here’s how we got to that point.
Juan Ponce de Leon was born in 1474 in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain. The advantages afforded him by birth to a noble family led him to a military career. He served as a “gentleman volunteer” on Columbus’s second conquest of the New World, where he gained reputation as a “great military leader.” Great military leader translates to “killed many Native people in colonizer speak.” In Juan’s case, he squashed a Taino rebellion on the island of Hispaniola by mass slaughter. As a reward for his carnage, he was appointed governor of Puerto Rico and charged with exploring and conquering the island.
Diego Columbus sued in a Spanish court, claiming the governorship was his by right of being a privileged son. Juan lost and was tossed aside by his daddy, Chris, who initially assigned him the task. King Ferdinand gave Juan a consolation prize, allowing him to rebuild his lost wealth by exploring more of the Caribbean. It was on these expeditions that he discovered Florida in 1513.
Perhaps because he hadn’t fully explored it yet, or probably because he hadn’t seen or possibly ignored the map created two years before that showed it to be a peninsula, Juan was convinced that he had found an island in discovering Florida. Naming the “island” La Florida most likely had little to do with it being a land full of flowers because while Florida is lush, it is not particularly floral. It is more likely that the proximity to Easter or Pascua, the Spanish feast of flowers, led him to choose the name.
Myth #1: It’s doubtful that de Leon ever set foot in present-day St Augustine. It’s a safe bet that he landed somewhere between modern-day Melbourne and Smyrna.
He claimed Florida for the crown, stuck around for about a week, and then spent the next two months exploring the coast, perhaps as far as Apalachee Bay, mapping, gathering water, and trying to establish trade with the Caloosa. Establishing trade roughly equated to antagonizing the fuck out of them. It seems that the Caloosa didn’t cater to the idea that they now lived in Spain because some short dude dressed in metal showed up from the sea and said so. There were several fierce battles and nothing meaningful accomplished in line with Juan’s goals, let alone finding gold on a limestone peninsula. He returned to Puerto Rico, then to Spain, where Ferdinand reinstated him as governor of Puerto Rico and the Bahamas as a reward for attaining nothing.
Myth #2: Remember Diego? Well, he and his friends at court weren't going to let Juan take Diego’s seat casually. Several court battles and black ops campaigns ensued. In a supreme act of 16th Century shit-talking, they constructed a tale that Juan went to Florida looking for the fountain of youth. Although he was only 39 years old on his first trip to Florida, they painted him as a frail, old man. They also created a rumor that de Leon was impotent; because questioning virility has been a part of toxic masculinity for eons. They told anyone who would listen that he was searching for the source of everlasting youth and boners. But mostly boners.
Eight years had passed since Juan had turned tail from Florida, and it was time to establish a colony as a base for his treasure hunt. It’s hard to say precisely where – historians argue whether Ft Meyers, Cape Coral, or Safety Harbor – but he landed somewhere between those points to establish his new base. Although it had been eight years, the Caloosa had not forgotten old limp dick Juan. They fucking hated that guy. When he came rolling off of his ships, claiming that he lived there now, they said “Nah,” in the most robust sense of the word. They attacked, wounding Juan in the thigh with an arrow dipped in the sap of the manchineel tree.
Manchineel is a native plant found throughout the Caribbean. Every. Single. Bit of the tree is poisonous. Touch it; you’ll get burning blisters. Eat the fruit; you’ll make ceviche out of your insides. Stand under it, and the sap will drip acid bombs on your skin. The tree does not fuck around. We can safely assume that a wound like Juan received sucked bad.
Once again, de Leon had to peace out from Florida. He made it as far as Havana, where he died from his wounds shortly after. He left some horses and cattle behind, so he wasn’t entirely without a legacy. The abandoned colony was the inflection point for both animals in the US.
His demise should have been the end of the story. Very little further would be said about the subject if it weren’t for one of Florida’s famous bastards and one of America’s first best-selling authors, Washington Irving. Sure, we like to read the Legend of Sleepy Hollow now and again, but Irving never met a fact that couldn’t be told better as fiction. Washington spent some time in Spain searching through historical documents and found how the stories of Juan’s failures to rise to the occasion evolved from shade-throwing to widely discussed “truth.” In 1831 he published his account of Juan Ponce de Leon, discoverer of Florida, seeker of El Dorado, hunter of the elusive fountain of youth, and founder of St Augustine.
Irving literally rewrote history for his own gains. His distortion and manufacturing of facts to tell a good story were taught as historical cannon well into that latter part of the last century. If only this were limited to a single occasion when it came to Florida. He also took great liberties with the story of William Pope DuVal and Enemathla, swapping roles, painting DuVal as benefactor and Enemathla as a vile trickster. The winner always writes history, especially if there is a buck to be made.