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Revisiting Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon’s Informaciones Copyright 2016, All Rights Reserved, National And International John J. Browne y Ayes, Author. “Walking, I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of thousands.” Linda Hogan. Native American Writer.

I’ve decided to go back to the document, “Informaciones: Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon” AGI/Mexico, 203, N.19 because I have been seeing the same old data concerning the undocumented consort of Juan Ponce de Leon being listed again online. History, especially erroneous theory concerning Juan Ponce de Leon is still being disseminated to our children by stalwart essayists and historians. I guess old things are very hard to let go of by some people. People have been using Fuson’s erroneous work in their essays. Fuson writes that “Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon was Juan Ponce de Leon’s cousin.” Then other authors, Robert Greenberger, followed suit copying the error and publishing it in their books. These authors also cited Leonor as being the “consort” of Juan Ponce de Leon.

In any case, Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon’s Informaciones is a document that was discovered in the archives years ago by me and Richard Troche when I had been researching and collecting data for my book. I couldn’t include a lot of information derived from that document because my publisher had set a limitation on how many pages my book could have. Five hundred and sixty-eight pages were all my publisher’s printer could handle at the time so I had to drastically edit Informaciones down to who were the parents of Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon.

After a lot of thought on the matter, I’ve decided to release and share more data that seems to have been ignored by people who have written about it, especially those parts of the document that confirm many times over who the legitimate wife and father were of Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon and his siblings. You don’t have to be a DNA expert to prove a specific point, just a good paleographer. And, by the way, the undocumented Leonor, “the daughter of an innkeeper” is not in my family tree. Dona Beatriz de Luna is the legitimate wife and mother of all of Juan Ponce de Leon’s children. I am not going to pull back here or be kind because if you insist on keeping undocumented Leonor in your family tree, you forfeit your claim of being a documented descendant of Juan Ponce de Leon, el Viejo.

Archivo General de Indias. ES.41091.AGI/1.16403.13.203//Mexico,203,N.19 Informaciones: Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon Dated 1532

On page number 0000SWYF Yten y Saben que Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon es hijo legitimo de Don Juan Ponce de Leon y de Dona Beatriz de Luna.

Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon’s document begins in the abad of Tenochititlan, Mexico. The document is dated 1532. Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon gives testimony on his “probanzas.” He talks extensively about his “hechos” in la Isla de Espanola de Santo Domingo and Isla de San Juan de Borinquen as well as his adventures in Mexico during the conquest.

He was twenty-seven years of age when he left the kingdom of Castilla and arrived at la Isla Espanola de Santo Domingo during the year of 1505. After his father’s work was done there, they left for Isla de San Juan. History records that the cleric de Ovando sent a letter to the king full of praise for Juan Ponce’s work. The king was impressed and sent a cedula that set Ponce’s work to begin in Isla de San Juan de Borinquen.

The Armada left Isla Espanola to populate the island of San Juan. The captain of the armada was Captain Juan Ponce de Leon el Viejo. In the document, Juan Gonzalez described the large bay that was discovered by him. That bay was large enough to accommodate the entrance of the armada therein and to facilitate landfall of the soldiers. That bay today sits below San Juan proper.

Juan Gonzalez translated for his father whenever they had any interactions with Indians. Juan Gonzalez never explained in the document how he had become fluent in the language of the Taino. One can theorize that he had studied the language from one of the Taino Indians that Columbus had brought to Spain to show off to the king.

What his compatriots didn’t know was that he was also employed by the king to be his eyes and ears in the Caribbean and Mexico. He was a spy sending back detailed reports and information about the going on within the body politic of those places. One can assume that Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon also sent reports pertaining to the maltreatment and abuse of the Taino at the hands of Spanish settlers. The king probably knew of this well before the cleric de las Casas began sending off his lengthy complaints to the king.

Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon goes on to talk about how Agueybana began the war of revolt in Isla de San Juan. He relates that a lot of good Christians were killed during that revolt including Cristobal de Sotomayor. He went on talking how he and his father went off to protect the settlers of San German, the place his father had founded during 1510. Juan Ponce de Leon set up a foundry there to process gold. They had a brief but fierce battle with the Indians who retreated into the mountains that surrounded San German. In one of those battles, Juan Gonzalez was wounded.

Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon related that he went off with his father on the journey of exploration and discovery of Pascua Florida. He jumped forward to remind his inquisitors how his father was murdered along with many of the good Christians during the task of setting up a settlement.

On page 0000SWYC

Before 1521 Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon left Isla de Fernandina-Cuba, in the armada of Panfilo de Narvaez.

On page 0000SWYD Juan Gonzalez spoke about the battle of la Noche Triste. He was a Captain of cavalrymen and almost got killed in that battle fighting against Aztec warriors. Despite losing a lot of his comrades in that battle he saved many of his companions during the retreat.

Juan Gonzalez relates how he was the first to scale a stone runway after crossing enemy lines. He engaged enemy warriors in a fierce battle single-handedly and was wounded many times before retreating from that battle. He later served in Tlaxcala exploring and fighting with Aztec warriors in those mountains.

Let’s stop here for a moment while we are on the subject of the conquest of Mexico. Historians like to gloss over important facts when it comes to the conquest of New Spain.

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico they encountered Aztec priests tearing the hearts out from live victims atop temples in Tenochtitlan dedicated to their gods. After the victims were bereft of their hearts their heads were cut off and their bodies were thrown down the temple’s steps. One can imagine the terror, anguish, and fear in the hearts of the other victims waiting their turn, while they waited their captors worked trying to convince them that it was a great honor to die this way. In the eyes of the Christian conquistadors, these acts of appeasing false gods must have been repulsive and loathsome. The Spanish might have

thought that the Mexican people had to be saved from demons that must have taken possession of the powerful priesthood. The rulers in their turn must have been deemed to also have been possessed because they allowed the meaningless slaughter of innocent people to continue instead of protecting them. Historians can only see the wholesale slaughter of a generation of the emperor, his nobles, and soldiers-warriors who went out to capture victims for those sacrificial rites.

Historians tend to forget or ignore the fact that these Spanish explorers were commanded by their king and pope to spread the word of Christianity wherever they went by contract. It was the Spanish Christian duty to punish and eliminate by whatever means those who were deemed possessed by the evil who demanded blood and hearts of innocent people. Thus historians have painted the conquistador not as saviors but as butchers and murderers when in fact they were releasing a nation of people from what they saw as devil worship.

The gold that was taken from the Aztecs is no different from our own action of closing down banking accounts and real interests of people who support terrorism today. It was a way to stifle the Aztec nobility from calling up and paying more warriors to continue to fight against the Spanish.

That gold and silver that was taken served a higher purpose to support ongoing discovery and exploration and to spread the word of Christianity in the New World. It also served to support the Christian king back home who was at war on three fronts against the English, French, and Dutch as well as pirates who had been contracted to harass the Spanish by the aforementioned countries. Yes, gold was needed by Spain to arm and outfit infantry, to build and arm ships for Spain’s armadas and to protect her new colonies from invasion as well as her borders and ports.

When the Spanish moved farther south they encountered what was left of the Maya civilization. The Spanish discovered that the Maya were also performing ritual human sacrifice. Again, the Spanish dealt with the heretic emperor, priests, nobles and soldiers in the same way they did in Mexico.

When the Pizarro and his troops entered Peru they must have already known that Peruvian priests were taking children up to the summit of mountains to garrote them painfully and slowly on behalf of their gods. On November 16, 1532, Francisco Pizarro, set a trap on emperor Atahualpa and his retinue at Cajamarca. With fewer than 200 men against several thousand, Pizarro lured Atahualpa to a feast that was supposed to honor the Incan emperor.

When the Inca ruler arrived at Cajamarca, he was met by the cleric, Vicente de Valverde, Valverde attempted to convert Atahualpa to Christianity and urged him to accept the Spanish monarch, Charles V, as his sovereign. This outraged and angered Atahualpa, who refused the friar’s demands. At the cleric Valverde’s signal, Pizarro’s men opened fire on the Incas.

Spanish spies brought news that one of Atahualpa’s generals was planning to attack the Spanish with a large force of warriors. Atahualpa was sentenced on charges of stirring up rebellion, The emperor was sentenced to death to burn at the stake in 1533, this sentence was befitting a heretic who had refused to convert to Christianity. Atahualpa became frightened and horrified because the Inca believed that the soul would not be able to cross into the afterlife if the body were burned. In an attempt to avoid the stake, Atahualpa offered to fill a large room once with gold and twice with silver within two months. However, his offer was refused by the Spanish. Atahualpa converted to Roman Catholicism before his death, in order to avoid being burnt at the stake. He was baptized and given the name Francisco Atahualpa. In a manner conforming with his request, he was strangled by way of garrote on 26 July 1533. He was given a Christian burial.

Christianity has always been at odds with paganism. Before history was recorded in Europe there were Druids. The bogs in England are probably still full of the bodies of people. Christianity finally came to those lands. The Druids were put to the sword and human sacrifice ceased.

In France pagans were given a choice, convert or lose your head on the block. Thousands who made the wrong choice lost their heads.

I want you to remember this because the old authors of the history of the conquest of the New World were the sworn enemies of Spain. They worked very hard putting the Spanish who explored our continent as well as South America to place them in an unfavorable light. These erroneous lessons have been taught to us in my day and are still being taught to our children today.

Now to continue with more Informaciones: Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon.

On page 0000SYF ytem y Saben, Item and know that Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon is the legitimate son of the legitimate marriage of Don Juan Ponce de Leon and of Dona Beatriz de Luna. They were his legitimate parents.

On page 0000SWYH Again it is written that Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon is the legitimate son of Don Juan Ponce de Leon and Dona Beatriz de Luna.

On the same page: 0000SWYZF Juan Gonzalez stated that he was born and raised in his families home in Castilla, Seville. And in Isla Espanola and San Juan, he resided for a time with his parents and family. His father built a villa in Isla Espanola de Santo Domingo and Isla San Juan for his wife and family.

Going back to the above statement, it makes me ask why did Juan Ponce de Leon, el Viejo risk exposing his family to the dangers inherent in the potential of an Indian attack and slaughter of his family. If Juan Ponce fortified the villas he surely would have also staffed them with his bravest and skilled soldiers to stand guard and protect his family from danger. Could bringing his wife and family to the Caribbean serve another purpose? Perhaps he wanted to set an example to other settlers to do the same for the sole purpose of getting adventurous people to come to those islands to populate them. After all, it was part of his contract with his king to populate and build Isla de San Juan de Borinquen at his own expense. Amongst these settlers would be craftsmen who would also build and fortify the island. One must not forget the farmers who would work tirelessly to feed the new population.

On page 0000SWYA The name of Agueybana appears in regard to the slaughter of good Christians. The war of revolt begins. On the same page, San German is mentioned as well as Cristobal de Sotomayor who was killed as well as settlers in the villa of Tavora by the Indians. After a short battle with the Taino, the warriors retreated into the mountains that surrounded San German.

On page 0000SWYH A man, first name illegible, Lopez gave witness testimony that Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon served and lived in the Villa on Isla Espanola and on Isla de San Juan de Borinquen with his family. Lopez confirmed that Juan Gonzalez was the legitimate son of Juan Ponce de Leon and Dona Beatriz de Luna.

It is important to note the word familia in the document. The word family was used to indicate mother, father, brothers, and sisters. Not once in the whole of seventy-two pages of Informaciones has the woman’s name Leonor been cited as being the mother of Maria, Juana, and Luis Ponce de Leon. It is without a doubt that I can write here that Dona Beatriz de Luna was the mother of all the children of Adelantado Juan Ponce de Leon.

On page 0000SWZE, the bottom of page, it has been written again that Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon is the legitimate son of Don Juan Ponce de Leon and Dona Beatriz de Luna.

On page 0000SWZG Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon is the legitimate son of Don Juan Ponce de Leon and Dona Beatriz de Luna, the parents in a legitimate marriage.

On the final remaining pages the name of Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon’s wife is finally mentioned, Dona Francisca de Ordaz.

Again, I have finally shared a lot of the content of the document, Informaciones to finally put to rest undocumented Leonor, “the daughter of an innkeeper.” Let this be a firm lesson on how old theories raise erroneous ruminations and needless controversy.

I can not understand or speculate why historians chose to ignore Juan Gonzalez Ponce de Leon’s parents for decades. But I can tell you this today, I have not.

I thank God for gifting me the talent of paleography.

July 5, 2019

John J. Browne y Ayes, author of Juan Ponce de Leon His New And Revised Genealogy, genealogist, historian, visual artist.

Sources:

Atahualpa, Martin Garcia Merou. 1886, Imprenta, M. Biedma

Pizarro, Joseph M. Sinclair, 1929, The Conquest of Peru as Recorded by a Member of the Pizarro Expedition

Juan Ponce de Leon His New And Revised Genealogy, Author, John J. Browne y Ayes, Historian, Genealogist, Paleographer, Visual Artist.