Beschreibung:

PONCE DE LEÓN, Juan (1474-1521). Letter signed ("J on poce de leo" {NEED STRAIGHT LINES OVER O IN POCE AND O OF LEON] with large penwork sign manual) as Adelantado (Governor) and Captain-General of San Juan Bautista (Puerto Rico), to Ochoa de Isásaga of the Casa de Contratación de Indias in Seville (a precursor of the Supreme Council of the Indies); [Caparra?], Isla San Juan [Puerto Rico], 7 October 1511. 1 page, 4to (10 x 8 in.), the sheet with indistinct watermark, address panel on verso, light stains at edges, left-hand margin with minor paper loss, otherwise in surprisingly good condition, with original deckle edges of the sheet preserved on three sides. Written in a typical Spanish court hand, several letters in the top line of text with penwork flourishes, address on verso in the same scribal hand, boldly docketed (by Isásaga?) on verso "Juan Ponce de Leon" followed by a small cross. In Spanish (full transcription available). IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS: 18 MONTHS BEFORE HE BECOMES THE FIRST SPANIARD TO SET FOOT ON THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT, PONCE DE LEÓN WRITES FROM THE NEW WORLD, ALLUDING TO THE EXPEDITION WHICH RESULTED IN HIS DISCOVERY OF FLORIDA ONE OF THE EARLIEST EXTANT LETTERS FROM THE NEW WORLD. ONE OF ONLY FIVE KNOWN LETTERS OF PONCE DE LÉON. APPARENTLY THE ONLY PONCE DE LEÓN LETTER IN PRIVATE HANDS An unpublished, newly discovered letter of exceptional interest for the history of the eventful early phases of Spanish exploration and conquest in the years immediately following Columbus's epic voyages. Juan Ponce de León, a native of Castile who had fought in the final years of the Moorish expulsion from Spain, was one of a group of young men from noble Spanish families who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. The flotilla departed Cadiz in September 1493 and over the next three years revisited Cuba and Española and was responsible for the discovery and partial exploration of Dominica, the northern islands of the Lesser Antilles, the Virgin Islands, Jamaica and the large island called Boriquén by the Taino natives, named San Juan Bautista by Columbus and, since 1512, known as Puerto Rico. The richly forested island was sighted by Columbus's flotilla between November 18 and 19, 1493. (No log or full roster of those who sailed on this momentous voyage exists, but contemporary testimony, beginning with Francisco de Oviedo and Bartolomé de las Casas, is extensive; later authorities To name a few) include Samuel Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea ; Anthony Q. Devereaux, Juan Ponce de León, King Ferdinand and the Fountain of Youth , 1993; Robert H. Fuson, Juan Ponce de León and the Spanish Discovery of Puerto Rico and Florida, 2000; Vicente Murga Sanz, Juan Ponce de León , 1971; Iñigo Abad y Lasierra, Historia geográfica, civil y pol/aitica de la Isla de San Juan , 1959; Aurelio Tió, Nuevas fuentes para la historia de Puerto Rico , 1961). Ponce de León's subsequent activities for almost a decade after that voyage of are almost entirely undocumented. He may have returned to Castile, or is believed by some to have sailed again for the New World in 1502 with Don Fray Nicholas de Ovando, newly appointed governor of Española (Hispaniola). Columbus had founded the earliest permanent European settlements in the New World there, and the island had become the administrative center of the growing Spanish presence in the Caribbean. It is recorded that Ponce de León served with distinction in the difficult battles against the hostile Taino inhabitants (as chronicled by de las Casas), winning the commendation of Ovando, and was rewarded with a prosperous encomienda (land grant) and the post of Lieutenant Mayor of Higüey (a district in the eastern part of Española). Ponce de León's massive stone home, built there in 1505, still stands near San Rafael del Yuma, Dominican Republic. In this period he befriended another encomendero , Vasco Nuñez de Balboa (1475?-1519) also destined to win fam