# Ponce de León Sails for Puerto Rico (1508)

URL: https://allhistories.com/dominican-republic/timeline/1508-ponce-de-leon-sails-for-puerto-rico
Location: Higüey, Dominican Republic
Themes: battle

By the end of Ovando's government, Hispaniola had become the base of Spanish power in the Caribbean, and its settlers looked to neighbouring islands for new sources of gold and labour. Juan Ponce de León, a veteran of the second voyage of Columbus and governor of the eastern province of Higüey, had learned from Taíno informants of gold on the island of Borikén, which the Spanish called San Juan Bautista. With Ovando's authorisation, Ponce de León sailed from the eastern coast of Hispaniola in 1508 with a small expedition. He explored the island, made an agreement with the cacique Agüeybaná and founded the settlement of Caparra near the bay of San Juan. In 1509 he was named governor of the island, and the conquest of Puerto Rico followed, with the imposition of the encomienda and the suppression of a Taíno uprising in 1511. The expedition inaugurated a period in which Santo Domingo served as the springboard for the Spanish occupation of the Caribbean and the mainland. Expeditions to Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cuba, the Isthmus of Panama, Florida and northern South America were organised, supplied or authorised from Hispaniola in the following two decades. At this point in the timeline (1508), the Regent of Castile (for Queen Joanna) was Ferdinand II of Aragon (25 September 1506 – 23 January 1516 (regent for Joanna)); the Governor of the Indies was Nicolás de Ovando (15 April 1502 – 10 July 1509).

## Why it matters
Hispaniola became the launching pad for the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean and beyond.

Ruler at the Time: [Ferdinand II of Aragon](https://allhistories.com/dominican-republic/rulers/ferdinand-ii-of-aragon)

Governor of the Indies: Nicolás de Ovando

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Juan Ponce de León](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ponce_de_León)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Juan Ponce de Leon](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Juan+Ponce+de+Leon)
- [Wikipedia (Spanish) — Juan Ponce de León](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Ponce_de_León)
- [Wikipedia — Conquest And The First Spanish Colony (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captaincy_General_of_Santo_Domingo)