April 2nd, 1513
North East Coast of Florida

When Juan Ponce De Leon first set his eyes on Florida’s eastern shore he must’ve felt like Jay Gatsby, staring at the light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had traveled long -- too long, in fact -- on a mission for the Queen of Spain, to locate the mythical Fountain of Youth. It was a perilous mission, no doubt. But Ponce De Leon was accustomed to danger. This was not the first time that ambition and opportunity had collided for the lucky Spaniard.

In the years since Columbus had “discovered” America, rumors swirled that somewhere West of what we now call the Bahamas were untold riches and the secrets of life eternal. As a conquistador of high regard and a failed politician, Ponce De Leon had been granted the ultimate compliment: ensure the longevity of the Spanish Empire by finding the fountain, at any cost. What he found, instead, was something closer to a revelation; what, many years later, Fitzgerald would refer to as: “…a fresh green breast of the new world.” Indeed, Ponce De Leon had stumbled upon something far greater than any fountain, youthful or otherwise -- and this discovery would set in motion a chain of events that has touched everyone who would call themselves citizens of this great country.

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Unlike Columbus however, Ponce De Leon was no visionary. He was a pawn of an ideology he had merely invested in. A mix of pure greed and a genuine sense of adventure drove him; his desire for wealth and power were products of his youth and it was something that he would never escape. As a young man he had ascended the ranks of lower Spanish dignitaries, hitting brick wall after brick wall trying to climb a social structure he never truly understood. He had held many important positions and conquered many places, but something eluded him --something that would elude him to his death -- and when the shot at locating the fountain arose, he was on it without hesitation

Though he was technically on a mission for the Queen, it was a secret mission. Also, he had to fund the expense with his own money, hoping that return would be far greater than the cost. He sunk his remaining fortune into the purchase of three sea-worthy vessels, men, and weapons, and set sail for what turned out to be a victorious kind of confusion. Even after he discovered the continental United States, he never realized the breadth of his own discovery. His first impression of Florida was that it was an immense island, something that stood in his way on the road to the Fountain, which must be further West, if it existed at all.

Of course, Ponce De Leon would not live long enough to see the fruition of his discovery, though he turned out to be much more of a visionary than he even realized. The will that drove him across the uncharted waters of the Atlantic Ocean in search of ever-lasting life was the precursor to one of the greatest of our American instincts: if it's not working out, then keep your ass moving, and just little further west…

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If Ponce De Leon was the great-great granddaddy of Jay Gatsby, which is to say, if he were the first of what has come to be known as the classic “American Dreamer,” then undoubtedly there was something tragic on the horizon -- the history of which we are all spoon fed in our various public and private educations, and is heavily mired in the stench of smoothed-over genocide. One dream was being born, while another was beginning to die.

At the dawn of the fifteenth century there were 41 various Native tribes spread around the state of Florida. Their territories divvied up the state much like we have cut our land into counties. Indeed, if one were to compare a current state map to that of an indigenous territory map, the resemblance would be striking. These territories were self-governed -- that is, they were ruled by what the Spanish (and later the British) settlers would refer to as “brutality.” Though, more than likely, this brutality was the result of two cultures meeting for the first time -- a clash of confusion that embedded itself into our national subconscious.

The extent of what we do know of this period in American history is completely engulfed by the sheer magnitude of what we don’t. We know the names -- The Appalachee, The Timucua, The Calusa, to name a few -- but what we don’t know is how they felt when they first saw the masts of Ponce De Leon’s fleet peeking over the tall dunes as they lumbered toward shore. Indeed, some would argue that we don’t care to know, that somewhere beyond our capacity for this type of knowledge is the idea that recognition is understanding, when it is nothing of the sort.

At the start of the sixteenth century there were hardly any indigenous peoples left in the state of Florida. After a century of war, greed, and disease, their numbers had shrunk to the point of near extinction. What was left had been herded into camps -- reservations as some would call it -- and the great divisions of their peoples were broken, scattered among the state like so many cattle. They had been forced, as Nick Carraway put it, “…into a aesthetic contemplation neither understood nor desired.” Indeed, they had come face to face for the last time in their history, with something far beyond their own realm of recognition. The old dream was dead.

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Juan Ponce De Leon made a total of three trips between Spain and his newly discovered island. Each trip marked a new region explored, a new side of the state to which he would try to lay claim. The exact location of his first landfall has stirred great debate amongst historians, and citizens of North East Florida in particular. Though it is not officially marked, the general consensus for those in and around the “First Coast”, was that he landed on the shore of what’s now called Guana River State Park; a seven-mile stretch of untouched coastline extending south down A1A at the northern tip of St. John’s County.

His second trip pushed him further south, into and through the Florida Keys. It's doubtful he was ever struck with the realization that his discovery was not that far -- only ninety nautical miles -- to Havana (Hispanolia at the time), a far-reaching outpost of Spanish rule, and one time domain of his governorship.

His third and final trip brought him up Florida’s Southwest coast, into what is modern day Charlotte Harbor. This trip saw him bring along not only a small battalion of men, but settlers, cattle, grain, religion -- the tools he needed to build a new civilization. For the first time in his journeys to Florida however, he was met with terrible resistance. He had stumbled upon the fierce Calusa, and they ruled over their territory with a vicious, tight control.

For three months the conquistador’s efforts to establish a settlement were constantly destroyed by the attacks of the Calusa. Buildings were burnt, livestock destroyed, and all attempts at farming were for naught. Eventually, his pride got the better of him and, along with his strongest and most wise troops, set off to eliminate the problem, once and for all.

He traveled up the Caloosahatchee River (now the Myakka River), deep into their territory. As a man who had rarely found any real resistance during his run as a conqueror, he had little fear of the forces that awaited him. He had no reason to feel anything but pure confidence; after all, he had an entire empire behind him, and a long standing idea that his belief in the Queen and in God himself, was more than enough the vanquish the weak, to crush those who did not, and would not share in his beliefs.

His death was simple. A little over a mile up the river, his forces were ambushed. A poisoned arrow brought down the great conqueror, and with him his dream of ruling his greatest discovery. His body rests in a cathedral in Old San Juan, an enclave in Havana, Cuba.

The year was 1521.

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The Calusa were victorious, but it was a hollow victory. Their territory, and their culture, remained intact for another twenty years or so. But soon they were faced with invading numbers they could not overcome. The land had inadvertently become the battlefield for a new war of sorts - the Spanish were now faced with fighting not only the native peoples, but the newly arrived British as well -- and there was no more room for those who did not share in this particular vision.

And what a vision it had become…

In the thirty odd years since Ponce De Leon had sighted land, a struggle for control of something far more valuable than gold, or spices, or the very Fountain of Youth itself, had erupted. The land was the new prize, and who ever controlled this space was to have a strangle hold on not only what would become the state of Florida: but an entire continent. The brutes had been destined to fall to a new kind of brutality, one that prevails and has morphed into its very own ideology: The American Way.

What we’re left with is a vague sense of our own history; a half-assed attempt to claim this ideology as our own, to erase all debts to those who have come before, or after, by holding this history down in our most important, and most secret places. We are constructed of all these things, though none of us care to admit it. That’s the beauty of this country. That’s the beauty of all things taken, but never given.

So, we push on, boats against the current, and blah, blah, blah…