Ponce_de_Leon

Ponce De Leon was an explorer whom like others was looking for fortune beyond any others explorers’ imagination. Born in 1460 and a Descendant from a Royal Spanish Family. He had sailed with Christoforo Columbo; During Columbo’s second voyage to the America. Though without the technology we have today they had no way to precisely track where exactly they were in the Americas causing misleading area that looked similar to lands they had conquered. De Leon had used whatever he had at his time to properly try and attempt to strategize how he was going to make it to the fountain of youth. But in the new world this kind of searching for the right island was hard without any proper maps or completely accurate latitude or longitude of exactly they were at. Also due to the lack of the amount of America founded there was no beneficial maps created that had most of America mapped out. So De Leon had to work on his own instinct De Leon was looking for the fountain of youth said to be in Bimini in the Bahamas. The fountain of youth was said that whoever drank from it would never age and forever be young. But when they had sailed and landed, De Leon hadn’t known that he landed in Florida and had claimed the land for Spain and named it “La Florida” meaning “place of flowers” in Spanish. But that whole time he was in Florida he never found the fountain of youth thinking that it was the island of Bimini. De Leon had returned to Spain claiming he had claimed land for Spain. As quoted by Think Quest.com “Ponce de Leon sailed back on another voyage to Bimini in February of 1521with 2 ships and 200 men. They landed on the west coast of Florida. When they went ashore, they were met by a large group of Native Americans shooting arrows at them. An arrow hit Ponce De Leon. He was taken back to the ship and brought to Cuba.” And further most retreating to Cuba after being hit by a poisoned arrow. He had died from his injuries and wounds overtime, causing his conquest to finally end. After the result of his death not many known explorers chose to look for the fountain of youth. Although all are unable to find the fountain of youth at least the other explorers will be at Bimini and not in Florida. Although even though De Leon may never have found the fountain of youth, he did find a state in the world that is in America now which is Florida.