Juan Ponce de León, Calusa Indians, & Sanibel Island: 1513–1521

By Charles LeBuff

Juan Ponce de León’s discovery of Florida has been told and retold for over 500 years. Historians continue to quarrel about the sites of his Gulf Coast landings, whether Charlotte Harbor, Sanibel Island, or other locations. In Juan Ponce de León, the Calusa Indians, and Sanibel Island 1513-1521, LeBuff provides his reasons for Sanibel Island’s choice.
Juan Ponce de León was active during the Age of Discovery along with notable conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés and Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. All shared a favorite pilot (navigator)—Antón Alaminos, who had become widely known as Spain’s greatest pilot. He sailed with Juan Ponce when they founded Florida and he piloted Cortés when he invaded Mexico.
Juan Ponce’s Southwest Florida visits were endangered because of the highly socialized and militarized Calusa Indians, who had controlled South Florida for over a millennium. The natives’ ferocity, war skills, and weaponry prevailed over the Spanish, prompting the Spanish crown to warn their ships to avoid Southwest Florida.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles LeBuff
• Release date: Jun 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224849130

Charles LeBuff

Charles LeBuff launched his writing career in 1951 with the publication of a note in a herpetological journal. Later, in the 50s he published papers on Florida snakes and crocodilians. He started a federal career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at its Red Tide Field Investigation Laboratory in Naples, Florida, in 1956. In 1958 Charles transferred to Sanibel Island after accepting the number two position on what then was known as the Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge. He and his family would remain on Sanibel Island for 47 years. During his time on that barrier island he completed a 32-year career as a wildlife technician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, retiring in 1990. During Charles’ federal tenure he and his wife and two children lived at the Sanibel Lighthouse for nearly 22 years. During that time it was headquarters for the refuge (renamed J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge in 1967).In 1961, Charles was elected president of the Sanibel-Captiva Audubon Society and in 1967 he was a founding board member of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. He is the last surviving member of that founder group. In 1968, as an avocation, he formed a loggerhead sea turtle conservation organization known as Caretta Research, Inc., and headed that group until 1992. Charles received the first sea turtle permit issued by the State of Florida in 1972, STP-001, and he held it for 40 years. In the decades of the 70s and 80s he published many works on the biology and conservation of sea turtles. By the mid-70s the Sanibel-based organization included most all of the sea turtle nesting beaches along the Florida Gulf coast. Today’s successful sea turtle conservation efforts on the beaches of Southwest Florida evolved from Charles LeBuff’s pioneering work.He was elected as a charter member of the first Sanibel City Council and served as a councilman from 1974 to 1980. Charles began writing seriously after his 1990 retirement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That same year his book, The Loggerhead Turtle in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, was published. This is now out-of-print, but has been replaced by an updated eBook and paper edition, The Sea Turtles of Southwest Florida. The most successful of his early commercial books is his historical autobiography, Sanybel Light (a revised edition is available as both an eBook and a paper edition). Amphibians and Reptiles of Sanibel and Captiva Islands, Florida, a book he coauthored with Chris Lechowicz (2014) was an exciting addition to his catalog. In 2013, he and Sanibellian Deb Gleason coauthored Sanibel and Captiva Islands, which was published by Arcadia Publishing, in March, 2013. This pictorial book is part of their Postcard History Series. His earlier Arcadia book, J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, details the history of this popular wildlife refuge, and was published in 2011. In 2004 he published The Calusan, a historical novel with Southwest Florida as its theme. The Calusan is still in print, in eBook and paper formats. His Everglades Wildlife Barons is a biography about the legendary brothers, Bill and Lester Piper of Bonita Springs. This is a popular paper book (also in eBook format) about the Pipers and their Everglades Wonder Gardens that closed after nearly 77 years of operation in Bonita Springs, Florida, in early 2013. It was recently sold by the extended Piper family and has recently reopened in a different mode. In 2015 he released the first volume in a trilogy, Fearsome is the Fakahatchee. This is a modern crime novel that is a spin-off from The Calusan. Fearsome is the Fakahatchee unfolds in and around Naples, Florida. The second tile in this trilogy, Lake Trafford Sniper, and the final book, Pirating of Duke's Cap'n, has recently been released.In his retirement Charles continues a busy lecture schedule and writes. Currently he is also working on a book dealing with the American crocodile in Florida; carefully balancing his time between the two active writing projects he has underway. His hobbies include wildlife photography, replication of Calusa Indian artifacts, and wildlife-oriented wood carving. Charles also manages to get out in the field to engage in python-hunting from time to time.

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Copyright © 2024, by Charles LeBuff

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.

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Front cover image: Background—An early map of the Florida peninsula, The T. Jefferys map of Florida, 1763. Public domain

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Over twenty years ago, when I wrote and published my fictional historical novel, The Calusan, part of my storyline included Juan Ponce de León’s return to Florida eight years after he discovered it in 1513. This was his second dangerous interaction with the native people of Southwest Florida, the Calusa Indians. In this nonfiction project I present more detailed elements about the life and legacy of Juan Ponce, his contemporaries, and the Calusa.

His conquistador cohorts who also wandered the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea during the Age of Discovery faced many of the same challenges experienced by Ponce. Their adventures and exploits were important and some are included here, too. Most of these soldier/mariners fit the timeline that is included in this discussion. They were historical personalities who expanded the horizons of Christopher Columbus’ New World discoveries. Each mentioned herein had a common bond—their working relationship with the famed Spanish ship’s pilot, Antón Alaminos. He directed many of their individual maritime related exploits, thus those accounts are included here.

There is little published evidence that tells us from whom the traditional place names of discovered Western Hemisphere lands originated. Leaders, like Juan Ponce, certainly contributed to naming some of the places he and his many crewmembers visited and impacted during his time in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Here and there in this text, I give Master Pilot Antón Alaminos the credit of naming the places where he finds himself. Some historians have suspected he did so but evidence is scant. I believe this position to be accurate. Not only was Alaminos responsible for determining course headings and global positions, he had to be skilled at a high enough level to produce quality cartography and render state-of-the-art charts depicting the places he and his leaders visited and named during their travels. Like the logs of Juan Ponce de León, most of the documents and nautical charts rendered by Antón Alaminos are also missing from the archives of Spain.

I have elected to select Sanibel Island as the location of the Gulf Coast landing site of Juan Ponce’s expeditions in 1513 and 1521. This is certainly within the bounds that have been established by notable historians and perhaps a majority of them are in agreement with me. I have done so for good reason. I considered that as the small fleet of Spanish ships approached the Florida Gulf coast in 1513 from the south-southwest, they contacted land somewhere immediately north of modern Charlotte Harbor. Antón Alaminos was apparently skeptical that the sailing vessels he supervised could safely enter the narrow and shoaled passes (or inlets) he viewed. He made the decision to coast south and look for an advantageous and safe entrance through which the three ships could pass to find a secure anchorage. Perhaps existing current and wind conditions at the moment convinced Alaminos to direct the helmsmen that they sail in that direction.

They sailed southerly down the coast, keeping well clear of inshore shoals, for a distance of about ten leagues. A league was a Spanish unit of measurement in those times and ten leagues would equate to about thirty miles. This distance would bring them within sight of the inviting three-mile-wide entrance to modern San Carlos Bay. Westerly projecting Sanibel Island would certainly meet the definition of an island that makes out to sea as recorded many years later by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. A tack would bring the ships into the bay following a deep channel on the eastern side of the passage. Once inside the broad bay they soon discovered deep water and a substantially good bottom for anchoring. The three vessels were securely anchored close to shore and located inside and immediately north of Sanibel Island’s easternmost point.

If Juan Ponce de León or Antón Alaminos named this landing site and recorded their arrival in log books and on working charts as stated earlier, those documents and specifics have been lost to posterity. If a place name was given to Sanibel Island at this time it did not survive. Spanish historian Herrera wrote many years later that in 1517, four years after Ponce’s landing, an expedition that was originally overseen by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba returned to what was recorded as Ponce’s watering place after the Spanish retreated from Mexico with a mortally wounded Hernández. I