European Invaders vs Native Americans - Ponce de Leon

In May of 1513, Juan Ponce de Leon (1460?-1521) encountered Calusa Indians while exploring the Gulf Coast of Florida. In a fight with the Calusa, Juan Ponce de Leon captured 4 warriors. Ponce de León was typical of the Spanish conquistadors. A military officer by training, he served in the campaign that drove the Moslems from Spain in 1492, before joining Columbus’ 1493 expedition. After helping to conquer Hispaniola in 1502-1504 (now the Dominican Republic), he was made governor of its eastern province. Discovering gold in Puerto Rico in 1508, he invaded that island, too, & as its governor enriched himself by trading in real estate, gold, & slaves.  Ponce de León obtained permission in 1512 to explore & colonize Bimini, an island reported to contain a river whose waters had a rejuvenating effect. It did not. (The origins of the “fountain of youth” myth are given in the opening pages of Chapter one of Francis Parkman's (1823-1893) 1897 Pioneers of France in the New World.) 

Ponce de León's vessels left Puerto Rico on March 3, 1513, reaching the east coast of Florida on April 2, 1513. For 6 weeks he skirted the coastline southward past Cape Canaveral, Palm Beach, & Biscayne Bay to the Keys & Tortugas. He then coasted up the west side of the peninsula as far as the site of present city of Naples, before turning back to Puerto Rico, arriving on September 21, 1513.  No eyewitness accounts survive from the 1513 voyage, but two archival documents related to the expedition survive. The earliest description of Ponce de León’s explorations was written 70 years later, when Antonio de Herrera (d 1625) compiled his Historia de las Indias, which contains his account of the 1513 exploration voyage of Juan Ponce de Leon, published in 1601. He wrote, "On the 20th of April, they discovered some huts of Indians, where they anchored: the day following, all three vessels following the seacoast, they saw such a current that, although they had a strong wind, they could not go forward, but rather backward, & it seemed that they were going on well; & finally it was seen that the current was so great it was more powerful than the wind. The two vessels that found themselves nearest the land anchored, but the current was so strong that the cables twisted; & the third vessel, which was a brigantine, which was farther out to sea, could find no bottom, or did not know of the current, & it was drawn away from land, & lost to their sight, though the day was clear with fair weather.
"Here Juan Ponce went ashore, called by the Indians, who immediately tried to take the boat, the oars, & the arms. In order not to break with them, they suffered it to cause trouble in the land. But, because they struck a seaman in the head with a stick, from which he remained unconscious, they had to fight with them; they, with their arrows & armed shafts — the points of sharpened bones & fish spines — wounded two Spaniards, & the Indians received little hurt. The night separating them, Juan Ponce regathered the Spaniards after hard work. He set out from there to a stream where he took water & firewood, & stayed awaiting the brigantine. Sixty Indians went there to hinder him. One of them was taken for a guide, & so that he might learn the language. He gave this stream the name of La Cruz & he left by it a cross hewn from stone, with an inscription; & they did not finish taking water, because it was brackish."

Theodor de Bry and sons, Americae Frankfurt

By some estimates, at that time Florida was home to as many as 300,000 Native Americans. The only identifiable tribe that played a documented role was the Calusa, a now-extinct tribe that Ponce de Leon encountered on the southwest coast. Ponce de Leon served as governor of the Spanish colony of San Juan (now Puerto Rico). There, he was known as a conquistador with a reputation for taking Native Americans as slaves.  Herrera also recorded Ponce de Leon's method of quelling Native American unrest in Peurto Rico. "He had a dog, called Bezerillo, that made wonderful havock among these people, & knew which of them were in war & which in peace, like a man; for which reason the Indians were more afraid of 10 Spaniards with the dog, than of 100 without him, & therefore he had one share & a half of all that taken, as was done to one that carried a crossbow, as well in gold as slaves & other things, which his master received. Very extraordinary things were said of this dog.”

Combating Native American revolts on various islands occupied his attention for several years, but in 1521 Ponce de León organized a large-scale colonial expedition to settle Florida. When they landed near present-day Tampa Bay, however, Native American resistance was so fierce, that it drove the 200 Spanish colonists back to their vessels. Ponce de Leon entered the Calusa village in an effort to establish a Spanish colony. When the Calusa attacked, Ponce de Leon was hit with an arrow & suffered a mortal wound. He died in July of 1521, in Cuba. 

Within 80 years of Ponce de Leon’s landing in the New World, much of the indigenous Calusa population had succumbed to slavery, disease, or death in combat against the invaders.  Before Ponce de Leon, Willie Johns, a historian for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, notes that there were 8 groups of Native Americans in the region. They all had their own distinct languages & cultures. None of them remain. 

See 
American Journeys Eyewitness accounts of Early American Exploration & Settlement. University & Historical Society of Wisconsin 

The Saint Augustine Record article on Ponce de Leon by Sam Turner Apr 28, 2013

Native History: Ponce de Leon Arrives in Florida; Beginning of the End. Indian Country Today by Alysa Landry. April 2, 2017