The trace of the discoverer of Florida (southeast of the current USA) and first governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de León (1465-1521), survives in his hometown, Santervás de Campos, in the province of Valladolid, a town of just 65 inhabitants of northern Spain.
Its population, however, it has doubled these days with the arrival of the Around the World expeditionmade up of regarding forty young Ibero-Americans.
It is a project financed by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Aecid) and sponsored by the Autonomous University of Madrid, the Ibero-American General Secretariat and the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities, among other entities.
For 23 days they travel through Spain and Portugal to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the first circumnavigationa journey that began with the Portuguese Fernando de Magallanes, who opened a new route to Especiería, and ended with the Spanish Juan Sebastian Elcano, both at the service of the Spanish King Carlos I.
The welcome sign to this town in the Tierra de Campos region leaves little doubt regarding the importance of Ponce de León for the place, while his bust presides over the square where the museum that the neighbors dedicated to him in 2017 is located.
Located on the ground floor of a 17th century building, the museum consists of several rooms that simulate the prow of a 16th century ship and explains the origins, adventures and achievements of the most illustrious son of Santervás.
In 600 square meters the story of this Spanish sailor is told who took part in conquest expeditions and died without knowing if his greatest discovery, Florida, was an island or a peninsula.
The visitor can observe the tools with which the sailors of the time guided themselves and see a reproduction of what might have been their cabin on the high seas, as well as the ‘Fountain of Eternal Youth’, a myth that they may have heard of speak upon arrival in Puerto Rico.
He was looking for the fountain of youth, but he found Florida
After being the first lieutenant governor of Puerto Rico (1508-1509) under the reign of Juana I of Castile, Ponce de León had differences with Diego Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, and decided to put land in between.
King Ferdinand the Catholic, regent for his daughter Juana, granted permission to Ponce de León to go in search of the fountain of youth and undertook the journey to what was then known as “the land of Bimini”.
The crew, aboard three caravels, landed in the area of what is now Cape Canaveral and Ponce de León, influenced by the lush vegetation, he named the territory “Florida”.
A feat that would enlarge his legend on both sides of the Atlantic and that still resonates in the land where he was born.
“For a municipality like this, it is not that it is important, but rather that it is essential for this fight that we are doing once morest this endemic evil that is rural depopulation” in the interior of Spain, the mayor of Santervás de Campos, Santiago Baeza, told Efe on Tuesday.
He assured that the population has “clung” to the figure of the sailor and he is “helping” them.
“We are known in many parts of Latin America for his legacy, we have relations with Puerto Rico and Florida, we have had illustrious visits such as the mayor of Miami… He has left us a necessary and very important legacy,” he stressed.
Baeza goes further and ensures that, when a child is born to a Santervás family, whether or not he lives in the town, “born with Ponce”.
“We are born and die with him, he is one more neighbor who is now very fashionable and that we like,” he added.
