Ponce De Leon Never Searched for the Fountain

[Big Bad Voodoo]

J. Michael Francis, a historian at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg who has spent decades studying the Spanish colonies in the Americas , says no mention of a Fountain of Youth occurs in any known documents from Ponce’s lifetime, including contracts and other official correspondence with the Crown. In fact, Ponce’s name did not become connected with the Fountain of Youth until many years after his death, and then only thanks to a Spanish court chronicler out to discredit him.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Ponce-De-Leon-Never-Searched-for-the-Fountain-of-Youth-208345831.html

[freetoroam]

So the Spanish court ponced the name of Ponce to discredit him?

[Mnemonix]

I've been fed lies from my history book! This is outrage

[Kowalski]

Well, a lot of people still think Anne Boleyn had six fingers! The whole lie was perpetuated by a Catholic historian who was out to discredit Queen Elizabeth ( a Protestant) reign.

[Abramelin]

Misconceptions and Myths Related to the Fountain of Youth

and Juan Ponce de Leon’s 1513 Exploration Voyage

~ Douglas T. Peck

(...)

Having cited the numerous errors in current encyclopedias and in academic publications introduced by leading Florida historians, I hasten to point out that the entry for; “Ponce de Leon, Juan (1471-1521)” in the recently published; Oxford Companion to Exploration, is the only academic publication that is historically accurate. The historically accurate entry for Juan Ponce de Leon reads in part: “The native inhabitants of the New World did not have a fountain of youth in their legends nor was Ponce de Leon looking for it (Peck 1993). And contrary to current consensus he landed at Melbourne Beach, 125 miles south of St. Augustine, the generally accepted landing site on the shore of Florida (Gannon 1996; Peck 1993). The Arabic legend of a fountain of youth was introduced into European literature by the epic, medieval French, Roman de’Alexandre (Armstrong 1935). Peter Martyr (Pietro Martire d’Anghiera) later associated the Eurasian legend of a fountain of youth with the New World locating it in the Bay of Honduras, but did not tie it to Ponce de Leon’s voyage (McNutt 1970). The sixteenth-century historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo was solely responsible for attaching the legend to Juan Ponce’s voyage and to Florida adding an unfounded comment that the relatively young and viral Juan Ponce was looking for a fountain of youth to cure his sexual impotence” (Buisseret 2006).

www.newworldexplorersinc.org/FountainofYouth.pdf‎

[shrooma]

So the Spanish court ponced the name of Ponce to discredit him?

.

not half as bad as the rather unfortunately named 'cuthbert clinkerskid' freet!

:-D

[flbrnt]

J. Michael Francis, a historian at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg who has spent decades studying the Spanish colonies in the Americas , says no mention of a Fountain of Youth occurs in any known documents from Ponce’s lifetime, including contracts and other official correspondence with the Crown. In fact, Ponce’s name did not become connected with the Fountain of Youth until many years after his death, and then only thanks to a Spanish court chronicler out to discredit him.

http://www.smithsoni...-208345831.html

This is quite true. He was searching for a winning lottery ticket.

[White Unicorn]

Just goes to show an old conspiracy from the 1500's can live as "truth" in many history books for centuries. There's an important lesson here. Remember this when thinking about about other alternate history speculations. If you really want the truth you have to research the writings of the period of the event not propaganda held as truth in the years after.

May I also add if you seek the fountain of youth, you look for old people that are young not the fountain where people are selling "snake oil" LOL

[Ealdwita]

Well, a lot of people still think Anne Boleyn had six fingers! The whole lie was perpetuated by a Catholic historian who was out to discredit Queen Elizabeth ( a Protestant) reign.

Ealdwita snippet alert........

Nicholas Sander, a Catholic Recusant who was living in exile during Elizabeth I's rule, was not a fan of Anne Boleyn and sought to discredit her and blacken her name by describing her as having a "projecting tooth under the upper lip", yet also describes her "pretty mouth", a large wen under her chin and six fingers on her right hand. This description must be taken with a large pinch of salt.

However, she may have had some sort of minor imperfection on her hand which gave rise to this myth as George Wyatt, grandson of Thomas Wyatt, sais "there was found indeed, upon the side of her nail upon one of her fingers, some show of a nail".

In my opinion, if there was some defect on her hand it must have been very minor because Henry would not have pursued her for so long and broken with Rome to marry a woman who could pass a defect on to his heir to throne or who had signs of being a witch.

[kurtstallings]

Now if schools would just stop teaching that people had forgotten the world was round until Christopher Columbus reminded them of what ancient Greek mathematicians proved and centuries of civilization counted on in ocean navigation.

[pallidin]

This is greatly distressing.

Having been born and raised in Florida, I searched for the fabled "Fountain of Youth", drinking from every spring I could find.

In the end, all it did was turn me into a dolphin.

[freetoroam]

Well, a lot of people still think Anne Boleyn had six fingers! The whole lie was perpetuated by a Catholic historian who was out to discredit Queen Elizabeth ( a Protestant) reign.

Didn`t one of them have 3 or 4 nipples? will have to google it.

[pallidin]

freetoroam... judging by your avatar I can only assume that you were on a quest for the "Holy Grail", you know, in the Indiana Jones movies.

And, though a noble try to be sure, upon which you should be commended, you drank from the wrong cup...

My deepest condolences.

[freetoroam]

freetoroam... judging by your avatar I can only assume that you were on a quest for the "Holy Grail", you know, in the Indiana Jones movies.

And, though a noble try to be sure, upon which you should be commended, you drank from the wrong cup...

My deepest condolences.

Why thankyou, not often I get compliments.

[freetoroam]

Ms. Boleyn had a double nail and a bulge of flesh on the little finger of her right hand that was apparently the beginnings of a sixth digit, and she also had a strawberry-size mole on the front of her neck. Conceivably the latter was a vestigial nipple, a benign congenital defect occurring in about one percent of the population.

I knew it was somewhere.

[pallidin]

So, in short, obviously there is no truth of the Fountain of Youth story, be it in Florida, or anywhere else.

It was a complete fabrication.

Wouldn't make any sense anyway.

Except that I became a dolphin and freetoroam disintegrated into a skeleton. Buy hey, that's another story.

Edited May 26, 2013 by pallidin

[colorqueen]

There are a lot of fascinating stories about the explorers that most people are not aware of.

[Explorer1948]

http://www.pbchistoryonline.org/middle-school-lessons/006-Ponce/006-Ponce_de_Leon1--true_story.htm

this book cuts to the chase without any of the hoopbla ---

http://www.history.com/news/the-myth-of-ponce-de-leon-and-the-fountain-of-youth

this website lays it out -- and as far as he "discovering" the gulf stream, i have a bridge in brooklyn for sale - cheap -- the french and british knew about the "stream" because they had already mapped florida and it is almost impossible to sail the coast of florida and not know of the stream -- might i encourage people to read and look at the map of Waldseemuller as it already shows Florida as a peninsula

de Leon didn't "discover" anything

Waldseemuller Map, 1507 (Geography and Map Reading Room, Library of Congress)

[regeneratia]

The history we get in school is strongly skewed. As I raise my child, I make him aware that things are not as we have been told and that the searth for truth is the utmost sign of intelligence.

[Doug1029]

Old Fumble-finger strikes again. Sorry.

Doug

Edited May 28, 2013 by Doug1029

[Doug1029]

The history we get in school is strongly skewed. As I raise my child, I make him aware that things are not as we have been told and that the searth for truth is the utmost sign of intelligence.

We depend for much of our "knowledge" of early history on just one or two accounts, or even some made up ones.

We know about Wallace because of a blind minstrel named "Harry" who collected the stories. This was about 20 years after the fact and a few "errors (like Wallace' genealogy) had already crept into the story.

Only one account tells us of Christians being burned to light Nero's garden parties. That was by Tacitus and is believed to be a later Christian redaction.

We have only Caesar's account of Gauls being sacrificed by burning in huge wicker baskets. Nobody else records that. Was this an invention of Caesar's, was he repeating a rumor or did he actually have evidence? In contrast, there are three accounts of the Viking Blood Eagle sacrifice.

Empress Theodora was libeled by a historian who didn't like her. Most-likely she was not a prostitute-turned-empress, but a very capable and aggressive leader who saved the Byzantine Empire from the mob.

Remember Catherine the Great and the story about the horse? Not true. But her lover was Prince Alexander Potempkin and he ... You get my drift.

We are told about Commodore Perry's heroic defeat of the British at the Battle of Lake Erie, but there's a lot known to historians that didn't make it into the history books. The American fleet was built at Misery Bay, the harbor for Erie, Pennsylvania. There was a sandbar across the mouth of the bay that kept cannon-laden ships from sailing into the bay. At the same time, American sharpshooters controlled the land. The result was a standoff. Then one dark and stormy night, the British commander decided to go see a lady in Buffalo. While the British fleet was in Buffalo, the Americans launched their ships, floated them across the bar and loaded the cannons. That girl deserves a commendation from the President, but she'll probably never get it. And the rest, as they say, is "history."

Doug

[regeneratia]

Old Fumble-finger strikes again. Sorry.

Doug

Who is fumble finger?

Oh I get it. no need to respond.

Edited May 31, 2013 by regeneratia

[regeneratia]

We depend for much of our "knowledge" of early history on just one or two accounts, or even some made up ones.

We know about Wallace because of a blind minstrel named "Harry" who collected the stories. This was about 20 years after the fact and a few "errors (like Wallace' genealogy) had already crept into the story.

Only one account tells us of Christians being burned to light Nero's garden parties. That was by Tacitus and is believed to be a later Christian redaction.

We have only Caesar's account of Gauls being sacrificed by burning in huge wicker baskets. Nobody else records that. Was this an invention of Caesar's, was he repeating a rumor or did he actually have evidence? In contrast, there are three accounts of the Viking Blood Eagle sacrifice.

Empress Theodora was libeled by a historian who didn't like her. Most-likely she was not a prostitute-turned-empress, but a very capable and aggressive leader who saved the Byzantine Empire from the mob.

Remember Catherine the Great and the story about the horse? Not true. But her lover was Prince Alexander Potempkin and he ... You get my drift.

We are told about Commodore Perry's heroic defeat of the British at the Battle of Lake Erie, but there's a lot known to historians that didn't make it into the history books. The American fleet was built at Misery Bay, the harbor for Erie, Pennsylvania. There was a sandbar across the mouth of the bay that kept cannon-laden ships from sailing into the bay. At the same time, American sharpshooters controlled the land. The result was a standoff. Then one dark and stormy night, the British commander decided to go see a lady in Buffalo. While the British fleet was in Buffalo, the Americans launched their ships, floated them across the bar and loaded the cannons. That girl deserves a commendation from the President, but she'll probably never get it. And the rest, as they say, is "history."

Doug

History is a propaganda tool.

[WoIverine]

Hmmm, having been to the actual Fountain at St. Augustine a few times, I would bet the community there would highly disagree.

[nohands]

its just so nice that they made these stories....

its gives excitement to all who are young anytime of their lives....

in other sense it drives tourist also... lol making money thus gives you the capacity to try stem cell therapy toinks lol