Ponce de León Island was a proposed name for the long,

barrier island Barrier islands are a Coast#Landforms, coastal landform, a type of dune, dune system and sand island, where an area of sand has been formed by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of an ...

stretching from

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

Sebastian Inlet Sebastian Inlet, located in Sebastian Inlet State Park in Brevard County, Florida and Indian River County, Florida, offers surfing and fishing opportunities. It is off State Road A1A just 12 miles north of Vero Beach. There are annual surf tou ...

Brevard County Brevard County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. It is on the Atlantic coast of eastern Central Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county se ...

central Florida Central Florida is a Regions of the United States#Florida, region of the U.S. state of Florida. Different sources give different definitions for the region, but as its name implies it is usually said to comprise the central part of the state, in ...

, located on the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. The population was 67,933 at the 2010 United States Census. The barrier island is . Another proposed name for this area was Ais Island after the native

Ais people The Ais or Ays were a Native American people of eastern Florida. Their territory included coastal areas and islands from approximately Cape Canaveral to the Indian River. The Ais chiefdom consisted of a number of towns, each led by a chief w ...

who originally inhabited the area. Currently, the island has not yet been designated any official name.

History

Since 2000, historians from Brevard County have worked to name this stretch of land to Ponce de León Island due to a theory originated by Douglas Peck that the Spanish explorer and soldier

Juan Ponce de León Juan Ponce de León ( – July 1521) was a Spanish explorer and ''conquistador'' known for leading the first official European expedition to Puerto Rico in 1508 and Florida in 1513. He was born in Santervás de Campos, Valladolid, Spain, in ...

first landed there in 1513 as the first European to set foot in Florida.Datzman, Ken. "Did the famous explorer Ponce de Leon first hit Melbourne Beach", ''

Brevard Business News ''Brevard Business News'' is a weekly newspaper in Melbourne, Florida, United States covering business news and trends for the Space Coast region of Central Florida Central Florida is a Regions of the United States#Florida, region of the U. ...

'', vol 30, no. 1 (Melbourne, Florida: January 02, 2012), p. 1 and 19. This contests the once popular view that Ponce de León first landed in

St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...

. The American Indian Association of Florida also proposed the name Ais Island for this area, sparking a controversy. Both proposals were considered by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) in 2012, but no name was approved. Many beach-side cities who were formally for the naming of Ponce de Leon have since rescinded their previous decisions based on the revelation of old evidence of Ponce's treatment of the Taino Indians in Puerto Rico and that Peck's theory is not universally accepted as fact.

Pros and cons

Arguments against naming the barrier island include claims that he was actively involved in the Higuey massacre in Hispaniola. and then in 1508 chosen by the Spanish Crown to lead the conquest and exploitation of

Puerto Rico ; abbreviated PR), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is a Government of Puerto Rico, self-governing Caribbean Geography of Puerto Rico, archipelago and island organized as an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territo ...

and the enslavement of the native Taino people there, for gold mining operations.

Ais Island

There is a proposal with

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

to name the formentioned barrier islands, Ais Island. The reasoning is that this name is more historically accurate than the name Ponce de Leon. The Ais and their ancestors lived in this area for 3000 years. It was named The Province of Ais by the Spanish in the 17th century. In

1601 This Epoch (reference date)#Computing, epoch is the beginning of the 400-year Gregorian leap-year cycle within which digital files first existed; the last year of any such cycle is the only leap year whose year number is divisible by 100. Jan ...

the Spanish king commissioned a map of Florida indicating his desires for a fort to be built in Miami. On the map he indicated the land we know as Brevard County as the 'Province of Ais', as it was typical in those days to designate a region of specific tribal domination and generally took its name from the ruling cacique.

Coacoochee Island

A third naming application was submitted to the BGN by the Miccosukee Simanolee Nation in 2012 to name the island in honor of the Seminole chief Coacoochee.

Notes

References