On January 24, 2022, the statue of Juan Ponce de León was toppled in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico (the statue is located next to the San José Church) just hours before the visit of King Felipe VI of Spain, who was invited by the state government to join the 500th anniversary of the foundation of the city of San Juan. The significance of the statue's toppling was an unprecedented act of political criticism in line with similar statue removals seen in the Americas; however, in Puerto Rico, the removal of controversial statues had not occurred until this event.
This website serves the dual purpose of conmemorating the anonymous removal of Juan Ponce de León's statue in San Juan, the first event of its sort in the island, and serving as a repository for the news coverage and social media commentary that was published after the statue was toppled. The Toppling the Ponce de León Statue project serves: 1. to commemorate the first political statue toppling act in Puerto Rico (January 2022), and 2. to document Puerto Ricans' reactions to the toppling of Ponce de León's statue as found in newspaper articles and social media.
Who was Juan Ponce de León?
Juan Ponce de León (Valladolid, Spain, 1474–1521) was the first governor of Puerto Rico (1508–1511) and the first European to have arrived in Florida, giving the now-U.S. state its name. Ponce de León came to Puerto Rico (then named San Juan Bautista) as part of Christopher Columbus's second voyage to the New World in 1493, where Puerto Rico was "discovered." Although Ponce de León later returned to Puerto Rico in 1609 and established it first settlement, Caparra, he was quickly embroiled in a political conflict with Diego Columbus, son of Christopher, who sought control over Puerto Rico.
Ponce de León is also known as that conquistador who searched for the Fountain of Youth, yet the story is actually not true: it was apparently associated with him after his death. But rumors die hard, and thus Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth were part of the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), a movie filmed in part in Puerto Rico!
Source: Wikipedia.Juan Ponce de León.