Florida Senate - 2013                            (NP)    SR 1872
       
       
       
       By Senator Soto
       
       
       
       
       14-04056-13                                           20131872__
    1                          Senate Resolution                        
    2         A resolution recognizing Juan Ponce de Leon and
    3         celebrating the quincentennial of his landing in
    4         Florida.
    5  
    6         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon was born into a noble family
    7  around 1474 in the village of Santervas de Campos in the
    8  province of Leon, Spain; became a page to the prince of Castile,
    9  who later became King Ferdinand of Castile; received education
   10  in fighting skills, manners, and religion while serving a knight
   11  named Pedro Nunez de Guzman; and later assisted in the 10-year
   12  conquest of the Muslim kingdom of Granada in southern Spain, and
   13         WHEREAS, hearing stories of Christopher Columbus’s
   14  discovery of a new world, Juan Ponce de Leon began his
   15  exploration after the war with the Moors and became a soldier in
   16  the colony on the island of Hispaniola, and
   17         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon spent most of the early 1500s
   18  in Hispaniola, building farms, distributing land rights, helping
   19  construct buildings to aid defense, and working to set up an
   20  island economy that would include a system of production,
   21  distribution, and use of goods and services, and
   22         WHEREAS, after helping defeat an Indian uprising in the
   23  eastern province of Hispaniola, Juan Ponce de Leon was named
   24  Deputy Governor of the island by Governor Nicolas de Ovando in
   25  1504, and he married and fathered four children during this
   26  time, and
   27         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon led an expedition on Borinquen,
   28  a neighboring island to the east now known as Puerto Rico,
   29  taking 50 soldiers with him on a single ship, settling near what
   30  is now San Juan, where he discovered gold, and within a year
   31  conquered the island for Spain, and
   32         WHEREAS, as a result of his gold discovery, Juan Ponce de
   33  Leon became one of the richest men in the New World, and King
   34  Ferdinand of Spain appointed him as the island’s first governor,
   35  and
   36         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon founded Puerto Rico’s first
   37  European settlement, Caparra, and, a year later, returned to
   38  Hispaniola, having found much gold but running low on supplies,
   39  and
   40         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon was instructed to return to the
   41  island of Puerto Rico and continue the settlement of the island
   42  and to increase his gold mining efforts, and he returned,
   43  bringing his wife and children along, and
   44         WHEREAS, the Spanish Crown encouraged Juan Ponce de Leon to
   45  continue searching for new lands, in hopes of finding more gold
   46  and expanding the Spanish empire, but, due to political reasons,
   47  he was relieved of his governorship, and
   48         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon immediately applied for a royal
   49  grant from the king to settle on an unknown island called
   50  Bimini, where it was rumored that miraculous waters could
   51  rejuvenate those who drank from them, and
   52         WHEREAS, upon receiving permission on March 3, 1513, Juan
   53  Ponce de Leon left Puerto Rico with three ships and, by March
   54  27, saw the mainland of Florida, where he then landed on April
   55  2, and
   56         WHEREAS, impressed with its many beautiful flowers, Juan
   57  Ponce de Leon renamed the area “La Florida” in honor of finding
   58  the area on Easter Sunday, called “Pascua Florida” in Spanish,
   59  and
   60         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon continued to explore, sailing
   61  along Florida’s east coast and discovering the Bahama Channel,
   62  which later became the route of the treasure ships on their
   63  return voyage to Spain, and sailed through the Florida Keys,
   64  which he dubbed “the Martyrs” (“Los Martires”), saying that the
   65  islands looked like suffering men from a distance, and
   66         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon then sailed up the Gulf Coast
   67  to Pensacola Bay and along the southwest coast, coming to an
   68  island he named Tortugas, known today as the Dry Tortugas
   69  because of the nesting turtles found there, and
   70         WHEREAS, on September 21, 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon returned
   71  to Puerto Rico and then to Spain, where he was knighted, given a
   72  personal coat of arms, and granted a royal patent to colonize
   73  the islands of Bimini and Florida, and
   74         WHEREAS, in 1521, Juan Ponce de Leon returned to the west
   75  coast of Florida with 200 men and enough supplies to establish a
   76  colony as the king had ordered, but a fierce attack by Native
   77  Americans caused them to abandon the settlement, and
   78         WHEREAS, Juan Ponce de Leon, wounded in the battle, died a
   79  few days later after returning to Cuba and was buried in Puerto
   80  Rico, and
   81         WHEREAS, the words on his gravestone read, “Here rest the
   82  bones of a valiant lion, mightier in deeds than in name,” NOW,
   83  THEREFORE,
   84  
   85  Be It Resolved by the Senate of the State of Florida:
   86  
   87         That we honor and recognize the 500th anniversary of Juan
   88  Ponce de Leon’s historic journey, his discovery of our great
   89  state, his undeniable valor, and his service as the first
   90  governor of Puerto Rico.