On 4 March 1513, Ponce de Leon set sail from Puerto Rico with three ships and 200 men to explore and settle the lands reputed to lie north of the Bahamas, a mythical place called “Beniny”. The ships were the San Cristobal, Santiago, and Santa Maria de la Consolación. They sailed northwest along the chain of the Bahama Islands, and on March 27, 1513, Ponce’s crew saw what they described as an island, which was likely their first sighting of the Florida coast.
The fleet then continued northwest until 2 April, when they saw what they thought was another island. Ponce named it ‘La Florida’ “because it had a very beautiful view of many woodlands, and it was level and uniform; and because, moreover, they discovered it in the time of the Feast of Flowers [Pascua Florida]… “ (Davis, 1935a). The following day Ponce went ashore without incident and took possession of this new land, likely in the vicinity of St. Augustine.
Ponce encounters the Ais
Ponce set sail again on April 8 and headed north along the coast for a day, and then reversed course and sailed south-by-east. On April 21, his ships had to struggle mightily with the strong Florida Current, but Ponce managed to go ashore for a second time. As soon as his group hit land, they were viciously attacked by an Indigenous group of Ais. The local people knocked one of his seamen unconscious with a stick and wounded two others with arrows and armed shafts tipped with sharpened bones and fish spines. This behavior must have shocked Ponce, as he was used to the much less aggressive Taino of the Caribbean, who typically ran and hid at the appearance of the Spanish.
After the sharp fight, Ponce moved his group to a nearby stream where he tried to collect water and wood to take back to the ship, only to be attacked again by sixty Ais. No one was badly hurt in this skirmish, but the Spanish did take one captive. Ponce and the group then fled to the San Cristobal, lifted anchor,and hustled further down the coast.
Ponce encounters the Calusa
On May 8, they arrived at Cape Canaveral and continued south, eventually reaching the Florida Keys, rounding them, and then zigzagged northward, landing on 23 May, in a bay on the west coast of Florida likely between Charlotte Harbor and Sanibel Island. Here they set up camp and careened the San Cristobal. Within a few days, they were approached by a second indigenous people, the Calusa, who initially seemed more interested in trading than fighting.
Over the next few days, Ponce and his crew interacted several times with the Calusa without violence. They traded for hides and body ornaments made of gold. Ponce didn’t know the source of that gold, but it likely came from shipwrecks, rather than mines (Allender, 2018). This gold interested Ponce greatly, and the Calusa told him that their cacique (chief) might be willing to trade more with him.
Before Ponce could interact with the cacique, for no recorded reason, relations with the Calusa turned ugly, and groups of them began assaulting Spanish parties. In the largest confrontation on June 3, the Calusa made a major assault on the ships. As Ponce’s main chronicler Herrera describes: “There appeared at least twenty canoes, and some fastened together by twos. Some went to the anchors, others to the ships, and began to fight from their canoes. Not being able to raise the anchors they tried to cut the cables. An armed bark was sent against them and made them flee and abandon some canoes. The Spanish took five [canoes] and killed some Indians and four were captured” (Davis 1935). One Spaniard died from two arrow wounds.
Two of the captives were sent by Ponce to the cacique to tell him that even though the Calusa had attacked his ship, he still wanted to make peace and trade with them. Quite frankly, Ponce did not want to lose the opportunity to find the source of their gold. The answer came back quickly, when a large group of canoes containing eighty men appeared and began attacking the ships, although both parties stayed out of range of each other. As Herrera describes: They fought from the morning until the night without hurt to the Spaniards, because the arrows did not reach them, while on account of the crossbows and artillery shots they dared not draw near, and in the end, the Indians retired” (Davis 1935).
Ponce heads home
Things then quieted down and after hanging around for another seven days, Ponce had to face the reality that the cacique was not going to come to trade gold, and he decided it was time to head back home. They departed on June 15 and six days later found a group of islands that Ponce named the “Tortugas” after the great number of turtles there. The ships then headed southwest by west and sighted another large island (probably Cuba) on June 26. They then sailed east, followed the Florida Keys, and crossed the Florida Straits to the Bahamas. Sailing from island to island, confused by sea currents, and buffeted by hurricane storms, Ponce de Leon finally tired of the quest in late September and sailed home to Puerto Rico.
Ponce arrived home with little gold and only a vague understanding of what he had found. He knew that there was a large land mass above the Bahamas, but he had no idea of its full extent. He did know, however, that the area was inhabited and would be vigorously defended by the Indigenous people.
Illustration: A 17th-century Spanish engraving (colored) of Juan Ponce de León by an unknown author
Bibliography
Allender, M. (2018) Glass beads and Spanish shipwrecks. Historical Archaeology 52(4): 824 – 843.
Davis, T. F. (1935) Ponce de Leon’s first voyage and discovery of Florida. Florida Historical Quaterly 14 (1); 8 -43.
Turner, S. (2013) Juan Ponce de Leon and the Discovery of Florida Reconsidered. Florida Historical Quarterly 92(1): 1 – 31.
Catalysts of trade and exploration 