Quoted from the Lakeland Ledger:
Viva Florida 500: Marking Ponce de Leon's Discovery
By Eric Pera
THE LEDGER
Published: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 11:51 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 11:51 p.m.
LAKELAND | History paints the Spanish conquistador in brutish terms barbarous and greedy, wiping out the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans and other indigenous populations out of a lust for gold in the name of God and country.
Juan Ponce de Leon was no less bloodthirsty in his conquests that included Puerto Rico, the island of Hispaniola and parts of the Bahamas.
Ponce de Leon, pronounced pon-SAY, was felled by an arrow at the hands of a Calusa, somewhere on Florida's southwest coast. The wounded warrior sailed to Cuba, where he died in January 1521.
As Floridians mark the 500th anniversary of Ponce de Leon's legacy of having been the first European explorer to claim and name Florida, the question remains: What, exactly, are we celebrating?
Ponce de Leon's discovery was monumental for its time, and the Viva 500 event is really more commemoration than celebration, said Mike Denham, director of the Lawton Chiles Center for Florida History at Florida Southern College in Lakeland.
"To recognize the person and what he did is really not celebrating," Denham said, but Ponce de Leon's contribution was huge. "It changed the whole world."
For Ana Rivera, president of the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Polk County and a native of Puerto Rico, Ponce de Leon and his brethren were indeed horrible brutes, but that's no reason to hold a grudge.
"Five hundred years is a long time," she said. "I don't hold any animosity against the man, against Spain."
Viva Florida 500, the official name of the statewide commemoration, is "just a way to bring the Puerto Rican community, and the Spanish community, and the American community, together," Rivera said.
For Denham and other historians, the 500th anniversary of Ponce de Leon's discovery is reason to look back and take stock of the footprint left by Spanish exploration in Florida and other states.
Agriculturally, that footprint was significant for Florida, he said. "The Spanish brought hoofed animals horses, pigs, cows and citrus seeds. As such, FSC is hosting an April 11 panel discussion, free and open to the public, with Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam as moderator.
The event includes an open house and tour of a traveling exhibition, "Florida Agriculture: Then and Now," at 6 p.m. in the Sarah D. and L. Kirk Mckay Jr. Archives Center at FSC.
The panel discussion, "A Celebration of Florida Citrus Through the Years," follows at 7 p.m. at Annie Pfeiffer Chapel. It will explore the historical ties between Florida and its farmers with Spain. Panelists include Lindsay Raley Jr., a Winter Haven citrus grower and board chairman of the Dundee Citrus Growers Association, and Florida Citrus Hall of Fame inductee Jerry Chicone of Orlando.
What Ponce de Leon achieved, Denham said, "is a very serious historical event that really needs to be thought through and analyzed ... Florida was governed by Spain longer than it has been an American territory (and state), so these are just things people never think about."
[ Eric Pera can be reached at
eric.pera@theledger.com or 863-802-7528. ]
