Having remained in the good graces of King Ferdinand, Ponce de León received a contract in 1512 to explore and settle an island called Bimini. He became the island’s first governor a year later, but was soon pushed out in a power struggle with Christopher Columbus’ son Diego. In 1508 he received royal permission to colonize San Juan Bautista (now Puerto Rico).
After helping to brutally crush a Taino rebellion on Hispaniola in 1504, Ponce de León was granted a provincial governorship and hundreds of acres of land, where he used forced Indian labor to raise crops and livestock. These rumors conceivably reached the ears of Ponce de León, who is thought to have accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1493. Spanish sources asserted that the Taino Indians of the Caribbean also spoke of a magic fountain and rejuvenating river that existed somewhere north of Cuba. “People are still touting miracle cures and miracle waters.” Smith, a history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “You could trace that up until today,” said Ryan K. During the Middle Ages, some Europeans even believed in the mythical king Prester John, whose kingdom allegedly contained a fountain of youth and a river of gold. Alexander the Great, for example, was said to have come across a healing “river of paradise” in the fourth century B.C., and similar legends cropped up in such disparate locations as the Canary Islands, Japan, Polynesia and England. Tales of sacred, restorative waters existed well before the birth of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León around 1474.
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