The second-largest city in Puerto Rico, with a population of just under 130,000 (compared to San Juan’s over 300,000), is a city built in 1692 and named after the nation’s fearless hero, the conquistador Juan Ponce de León. His mausoleum rests within the Cathedral of San José. This is the very same Juan Ponce who, in 1508, arrived on the island of San Juan Bautista in the name of Spanish prosperity—to plunder, enslave, and decimate the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean, nobly converting to Catholicism those who accepted their fate as subjugated subjects. The nation venerates its hero. And it is hardly surprising, for nearly one-third of Puerto Rico’s present-day population consists of the distant descendants of Juan Ponce de León himself, while the remaining two-thirds descend from his loyal soldiers.
When 19-year-old Juan Ponce joined Christopher Columbus’s second voyage to the New World, his primary motivation was war. As a youth, he trained in the art of combat, serving as a squire to his relative, a knight of Spain’s first Catholic order. He had already gained battlefield experience during the Reconquista, but by 1492, the campaign had ended, and no major wars loomed in Europe. Meanwhile, the New World beckoned, promising an abundance of gold and vast expanses of fertile land inhabited by naive natives. To an ambitious but unjustly impoverished nobleman—a descendant, albeit through an illegitimate line, of King Alfonso IX of León—it was a world of limitless opportunity.
And so, at 19, Juan Ponce left Europe and aided Columbus in the conquest of Hispaniola. As a reward for his military service, he was appointed governor of the island’s eastern regions (present-day Dominican Republic), a land rich in gold. The same Taíno people who once eagerly traded their gold ornaments for European glass beads were now enslaved, laboring in the gold mines of their new Spanish overlords. The young governor quickly corrected fate’s injustices, securing his family’s wealth for generations. Yet rumors reached him of another island—Puerto Rico—where gold was even more plentiful. Naturally, he set his sights on it. With his experience, connections, and newfound fortune, he could secure the governorship by any means necessary. The rest, as they say, is history.
But Juan Ponce’s story is not merely one of gold and warfare. A new dream took hold of him. In Europe, he had heard whispers of the Fountain of Youth, a miraculous spring that could restore youth and grant immortality to those who drank from it. According to legend, it lay hidden among the islands of the New World. People, then as now, were credulous, and in the 16th century, their credulity knew no bounds.
By 1513, Juan Ponce was wealthy enough to fund his own expedition in search of the Fountain of Youth. In April of that year, he reached the lush, flowering shores of modern-day Florida and named it “La Florida” (from the Spanish ‘flor’—flower). Later, he would receive official authorization to colonize and explore the region. His royal commission from King Ferdinand II of Aragon even instructed him to continue the search for the fabled fountain—a search that would prove fruitless. In his first skirmish with the local indigenous people, he was wounded by a poisoned arrow and would not live to see Puerto Rico again. He was buried there, later enshrined in a grand mausoleum, and posthumously glorified by his countless descendants.
And now, let me present to you the architectural heart of the city of Ponce.
As for the life-giving waters Juan Ponce so desperately sought but never found—they had been close all along, in the south of Puerto Rico. The Taíno people had known of them for generations, safeguarding them as a sacred gift from the gods. The waters of this spring possessed divine power, healing wounds, easing pain, and bestowing longevity. With the arrival of the Spanish, many Taíno traditions were banned, and their knowledge was gradually lost. Yet, stories of the miraculous Coamo waters endured, fueling the ambitions of adventurers eager to uncover the true Fountain of Youth that the valiant conquistador had failed to find.
By the late 19th century, the path to the healing Coamo Hot Springs (Aguas Termales de Coamo) was rediscovered, and in 1847, the local Puerto Ricans—descendants of Juan Ponce’s conquerors—began using them for therapeutic and restorative purposes. The waters, rich in sulfur and minerals, indeed proved beneficial for the skin, soothing muscle and joint pain, and bringing relaxation and tranquility. I can personally attest to their effects.
The Taíno believed that those who stole the sacred gift of the gods would face a terrible reckoning. How could they have foreseen that, just half a century after their sacred site was opened to the public, in 1898, Puerto Rico would suffer brutal bombardments, the Spanish Empire would fall, and the descendants of the conquistadors would lose everything their warlike ancestors had seized from the peaceful Taíno people? In turn, they would be condemned for generations to serve their new overseas masters—the United States of America. A fate that, to this day, still haunts them.
