Ponce: What Actually Happened at the Fountain of Youth

For the most part, history is written by the winners. That includes most accounts depicting the conquests of the New World. Most records and artifacts of Native Americans were destroyed by the conquistadors to complete their total dominance in the new lands. Occasionally, historians working with native populations piece together some lost archives, but those examples are few and far between.

Until students found the original hand written notes by Ponce De Leon’s chronicler, the world could only piece together unfounded summaries of the events at the Fountain of Youth. The only documented facts of the second foray into Florida detailed Ponce’s death upon his return.

Now we can relive one of the short-lived victories of Native Americans over the Spanish conquistadors. Catch a glimpse into the culture and lives of Florida’s native population; how they lived in a land of plenty, how they adopted horses into their lives, and how the outfoxed the mighty Spaniards.

Not all history was written by the winners.