thought he was on an island. He named
the territory Florida.
Ponce de Leon had landed near what is
now Saint Augustine, in the northeastern
part of the state. He did not find the
fountain so from there he traveled south
along the coast. He continued through
the chain of islands called the Florida
Keys to Florida’s west coast. On the way
he discovered the Gulf Stream, a warm
ocean current that flows northward.
Ponce de Leon returned to Spain in
1514. The king gave him permission to
start colonies in the areas he had visited.
In 1521 Ponce de Leon sailed again to
Florida. He was wounded in an attack
by Native Americans. His crew took him
to Havana, Cuba, where he died.
#More to explore
Americas, Exploration and Settlement of
the • Florida • Puerto Rico
Pontiac
Pontiac was a Native American chief of
the Ottawa people. He is best known for
leading a war to stop the British from
taking control of the Great Lakes area.
The war is now called Pontiac’sWar.
Pontiac was born in about 1720 in what
is now Ohio. Little is known of his early
life. By 1755 he had become a chief.
At first Pontiac was friendly to British
settlers. But he soon realized that they
were trying to take control of his people’s
land. In 1762 he asked other
Native American tribes in the region to
help stop the British. He planned surprise
attacks on British forts. In 1763
Pontiac himself tried to capture a fort on
the site of Detroit, Michigan. He was
defeated after five months of fighting.
In all, Pontiac’s forces attacked 12 forts
and captured 8 of them. They also
destroyed many British settlements.
After a few years of war Pontiac grew
tired. He agreed to a peace treaty with
the British in 1766. On April 20, 1769,
Pontiac was killed by a Peoria Indian in
what is now Cahokia, Illinois.
#More to explore
Native Americans • Ottawa
Pony Express
The Pony Express was a service that
delivered mail on horseback between
Missouri and California. The service
Pontiac
BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Pony Express 123
lasted for only about a year and a half in
the early 1860s. Nevertheless, the Pony
Express is well remembered in the stories
of the AmericanWest.
Starting in the 1840s many people
moved to the western United States.
Mail from the East took a long time to
reach theWesterners. It took about a
month for a letter to travel from New
York to California by sea. A stagecoach
service from Saint Louis, Missouri, to
San Francisco, California, took 24 days.
A company called Russell, Majors, and
Waddell decided to set up a horseback
mail service from Saint Joseph, Missouri,
to Sacramento, California. The
route was about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers)
long. Along the way there were
157 stations—one about every 10 to 15
miles (16 to 24 kilometers).
A rider carried about 15 pounds (7
kilograms) of letters in a pouch. He
changed horses at every station. After 6
to 8 stations a new rider took over.
Only the pouch of mail traveled the
entire distance. This usually took about
10 days.
The first mail pouch left Saint Joseph on
April 3, 1860, and arrived in Sacramento
on April 13. The service was
closed down after a telegraph system was
completed in October 1861. The Pony
Express lost only one load of mail, even
though the riders faced outlaws,
unfriendly Native Americans, and rough
country. The most famous Pony Express
The Pony Express crossed the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada on the route
between Missouri and California.
124 Pony Express BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA
rider was William Cody, who later
became known as Buffalo Bill.
#More to explore
Cody,William Frederick • Postal Service
• Telegraph
Pope
The pope is the head of the Roman
Catholic church. The office or institution
associated with the pope is called
the papacy. The pope rules the church
much as a king rules a country.
Duties
The pope does many things. He has an
organization called the Roman Curia to
help him. The pope decides the church’s
position on issues. He makes church
laws. He has the power to call ecumenical
councils, which are general meetings
that decide church policy. The pope also
appoints clergymen called bishops and
assigns them to regions called dioceses.
A bishop is in charge of all the Catholic
churches within his diocese.
The pope himself is the bishop of Rome,
Italy. He rules Vatican City, which lies
within Rome’s borders but is a separate
country. Vatican City is all that remains
of the Papal States, a region of Italy that
the popes ruled from 756 to 1870.
Elections
The pope is elected to his position. Only
the highest-ranking bishops, who are
called cardinals, have votes. After a pope
dies, all the cardinals under age 80
gather in a building called the Sistine
Chapel. There they secretly vote for a
new pope. White smoke from the chapel
chimney is the signal that a new pope
has been elected.
History
Catholics consider Saint Peter, who died
in about AD 64, to be the first pope.
Peter was one of the 12 disciples, or first
followers, of Jesus Christ. Since then
there have been more than 260 popes.
During theMiddle Ages, which lasted
from about AD 500 to about 1500,
unhappy cardinals sometimes chose their
