Hernando de Soto or
(c.1496/1497 - 1542) was a Spanish
explorer and conquistador who, while
leading the first European expedition deep
into the territory of the modern-day United States, was the first European to discover the Mississippi River.
undertaking, de Soto's North American expedition ranged throughout
the southeastern United
States searching for gold and a passage to China.
died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River at present-day Lake Village,
de Soto was born to parents who were hidalgos of modest means in
Extremadura, a region of poverty and hardship from which many
young people looked for ways to seek their fortune
elsewhere. Two towns—Badajoz and Barcarrota—claim to be his birthplace.
All that is
known with certainty is that he spent time as a child at both
places, and he stipulated in his will that his body be interred at
Jerez de los Caballeros, where other members of his family were
also interred. The age of the Conquerors came on the heels
of the Spanish reconquest of the
peninsula from Islamic
forces. Spain and Portugal were filled
with young men begging for a chance to find military fame after the
Moors were defeated.
With discovery of
new lands to the west (which seemed at the time to be East Asia
), the whispers of glory and wealth were
too compelling for the poor.
sailed to the New World in 1514 with the
first Governor of Panama, Pedrarias Dávila.
leadership, unwavering loyalty, and clever schemes for the
extortion of native
for their captured chiefs became de Soto's hallmark
during the Conquest of Central
. He gained fame as an excellent horseman, fighter, and
tactician, but was notorious for the extreme brutality with which
he wielded these gifts.
that time, Juan Ponce de
León, who discovered Florida, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who
discovered the Pacific
Ocean (he called it the "South Sea" below Panama), and
Ferdinand Magellan, who first
sailed that ocean to the Orient, profoundly
influenced de Soto's ambitions.
First expedition – The Conquest of Peru
de Soto became a regidor of León, Nicaragua. He led an expedition up the coast of the
Peninsula searching for passage between the Atlantic
Ocean and the Pacific Ocean to enable trade with the Orient, the richest market
in the world. Failing that, and without means to further
explore, de Soto, upon Dávila's death, left his estates in Nicaragua. Bringing his own men on ships he hired, de
Soto joined Pizarro at his first base of Tumbez shortly
before departure for the interior of Peru.
Pizarro immediately made de Soto one of his captains. When Pizarro and his
men first encountered the army of the Inca Atahualpa at Cajamarca, Pizarro sent de Soto with fifteen men to
invite Atahualpa to a meeting. When Pizarro's men
attacked Atahualpa and his guard the next day (the Battle of
Cajamarca), de Soto led one of the three groups of mounted
The Spanish captured Atahualpa. De Soto was sent
to the camp of the Incan army, where he and his men plundered
During 1533, the Spanish held Atahualpa captive in Cajamarca for
months while a room was filled with gold and silver objects to
ransom him. During this captivity, de Soto became friendly with
Atahualpa, and taught him to play chess. By the time the ransom had
been completed, the Spanish became alarmed by rumors of an Incan
army advancing on Cajamarca. Pizarro sent de Soto with four men to
scout for the rumored army.
While de Soto was gone, the Spanish in Cajamarca decided to kill
Atahualpa to prevent his rescue by the Incan army. De Soto returned
later to report that he could find no signs of an army in the area.
executing Atahualpa, Pizarro and his men headed to Cuzco, the capital
of the Incan Empire.
As the Spanish force approached Cuzco,
Pizarro sent his brother Hernando
and de Soto ahead with forty men. The advance guard fought a
pitched battle with Incan troops in front of the city, but the
battle had ended before Francisco Pizarro arrived with the rest of
the Spanish party. The Incan army withdrew during the night. The
Spanish plundered Cuzco, where they found much gold and silver.
Receiving a mounted soldier's share of the plunder from Atahualpa's
camp, Atahualpa's ransom, and the plunder from Cuzco, de Soto
became very wealthy.
On the road to Cuzco, Manco Inca
, a brother of Atahualpa, had joined Pizarro. Manco had
been hiding from Atahualpa in fear of his life, and was happy to
place himself under Pizarro's protection. Pizarro arranged for
Manco to be installed as the Inca leader. De Soto joined Manco in a
campaign to eliminate the Incan armies who had been loyal to
Atahualpa. By 1534, de Soto was serving as lieutenant
governor of Cuzco while Pizarro was building his new capital (which
later became known as Lima) on the
In 1535 King Charles
awarded Diego de Almagro
, Francisco Pizarro's
former business partner, the governorship of the southern portion
of the Incan Empire. Pizarro and de Almagro quarreled over which
governorship Cuzco was in. When de Almagro made plans to explore and
conquer the southern part of the Incan empire (Chile), de Soto
applied to be his second-in-command, offering a large payment for
the position, but de Almagro turned him down.
De Soto packed
up his treasure and returned to Spain in 1534.
Return to Spain
De Soto returned to Spain with an enormous share of the Spanish conquest of the Inca
. Famous for being the hero of that conquest, he was
admitted into the prestigious Order of
. His share was awarded to him by the King of Spain,
and he received 724 marks of gold, 17,740 pesos. He married
Isabel de Bobadilla
of Pedrarias Dávila
relative of a confidante of Queen
. De Soto petitioned King Charles for the
government of Guatemala "with "permission to make discovery in the South
Sea", but was granted the governorship of Cuba
De Soto was expected to colonize the North American
continent for Spain within four years, for which his family would
be given a huge piece of it forever.
Fascinated by the stories of Cabeza de Vaca
Spain's just-returned North American explorer, de Soto selected 620
volunteers, some of African
descent, for the governing of Cuba and
conquest of North America. Averaging 24 years of age, they eventually
embarked from Havana on seven of
the King's ships and two caravels of de Soto's.
With tons of heavy
and equipment, the livestock count
came to over 500, including 237 horses and 200 pigs.
De Soto planned to explore America for a passage to the Orient. His
men, lured by Cabeza de Vaca's
stories of gold to be found, would need to provide themselves with
food and shelter during their four-year continental search. Tens of
thousands of natives died as a result of encounters with the
Spanish, mostly from infectious diseases to which they had no
De Soto's exploration of North America
The main course of de Soto's expedition is subject to discussions
and controversy among historians
politicians. The most widely used version of De Soto's Trail comes
from a study commissioned by the Congress of the United States
A committee chaired by the anthropologist John R. Swanton
published "The Final Report of the
United States De Soto Expedition Commission" in 1939. Among other
locations, Manatee County, Florida, claims an approximate landing site for de Soto and
has a national memorial recognizing the event.
part of the expedition's course until de Soto's battle at
in Alabama) is disputed only
in minor details today; yet de Soto's trail beyond Mabila is
contested. Swanton's reported the de Soto trail ran
from there through Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.
theories have argued for a northern route through Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana from Mabila.
HIstorians have more recently considered archeological
reconstructions and the oral history
of Native Americans. Most
historical places have been overbuilt, however, and more than 450
years have passed between the events and current history tellers.
site definitively associated with de Soto's expedition is the
Governor Martin Site at the Apalachee village of
Anhaica, located about a mile east
of the present Florida Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida.
It was found by archaeologist B. Calvin
Jones in March 1987. Many archaeologists believe the Parkin
Site in Northeast Arkansas was the main town for the province of Casqui, which de Soto noted.
this on similarities between descriptions from the journals of the
de Soto Expedition and artifacts of European origin discovered at
the site in the 1960s.
The latest theory draws a route based on accounts from two journals
of de Soto exploration survivors: de Soto's
Secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel, and the King's agent with de Soto, Luys
Hernández de Biedma. They described De Soto's Trail in relation
to Havana, from which
they sailed; the Gulf of
Mexico, which they skirted inland then later headed back
toward; the Atlantic
Ocean, which they approached during their second year;
high mountains, which they traversed
immediately thereafter; and dozens of other geographic features along their way - large
rivers and swamps - at
that the earth's natural geography
changed since de Soto's time, those journals have been analyzed
with modern topographic intelligence
render a more precise De Soto Trail.
1539 to early-1540 in Florida
[[Image:DeSoto-Hernando-1791.jpeg|thumb|Library of Congress'
The Spanish caption reads:
"HERNANDO DE SOTO: Extremaduran, one of the discoverers and
conquerors of Peru: he travelled across all the Florida and
defeated its still invincible natives, he died in his expedition in
the year of 1543 at the 42 of his age".]]
1539, de Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men and 220 surviving
horses at present day Shaw's Point, in Bradenton, FL.
He named it Espíritu Santo
after the Holy Spirit
. The ships brought
priests, craftsmen, engineers, farmers, and merchants; some with
their families, some from Cuba, most from Europe and Africa. Few of
them had ever traveled outside of Spain, or even their home
A Spaniard named Juan Ortiz
who had come to Florida with the failed Narváez Expedition
and been held by
an inland tribe, was sighted near de Soto's port. Ortiz came to
Florida in search of the earlier Narváez Expedition and was
captured by the Uzita
. The daughter
of Chief Hirrihigua of the Uzita reportedly begged for Ortiz's
life, as her father had ordered Ortiz to be roasted alive. Ortiz
survived captivity and torture, and quickly joined the new de Soto
expedition. Ortiz knew the countryside and also helped as an
As a lead guide, Ortiz established a unique method for guiding the
expedition and communicating with various tribal dialects. He
each tribe along the route. A chain of communication was
established whereby a guide who had lived in close proximity to
another tribal area was able to pass his information and language
on to a guide from a neighboring area. Because Ortiz refused to
dress and conduct himself as a hidalgo
Spaniard, other officers
questioned his motives and counsel to de Soto. De Soto remained
loyal to Ortiz, thus allowing him the freedom to dress and live
among his Paracoxi friends. Another important guide was the
seventeen-year-old boy Perico, or Pedro, from modern-day
He spoke several of the local tribes'
languages and could communicate with Ortiz. Perico was taken as a
guide in 1540 and treated better than the rest of the slaves, due
to his value to the Spaniards.
The expedition traveled north, exploring Florida's West Coast,
encountering native ambushes and conflicts along the way. De Soto's
first winter encampment was at Anhaica
, the capital of the Apalachee
. It is one of the few places on the
route where archaeologists have found physical traces of the
expedition. It was described as being near the "Bay of Horses"
members of the preceding Narváez expedition killed and ate their
horses while building boats for escape.
1540 – In Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama &
their winter location in the western panhandle of Florida, having
heard of gold being mined "toward the sun's rising," the expedition
turned north-east through what is now the modern state of Georgia. Recently archaeological finds were made at a
remote, privately owned site near the Ocmulgee River in Telfair
These included nine glass beads, some of
which bear a chevron pattern believed to be indicative of the de
Soto expedition. Six metal objects were also found, including a
silver pendant and some iron tools. The expedition continued on to
expedition was received there by a female chief (Cofitachequi
), who turned over her tribe's
pearls, food and anything else the Spaniards wanted. The expedition
found no gold, however, other than pieces from an earlier coastal
expedition(presumably that of Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón
headed north into the Appalachian Mountains of North
Carolina, where he
spent a month resting the horses while his men searched for
gold. De Soto then entered Tennessee and Northern Georgia, where he spent another month before turning south
toward the Gulf of
Mexico to meet two ships bearing fresh supplies from
way, along a river in southern Alabama, de Soto was led into Mauvila (or
Mabila), a fortified city.
tribe, under Chief Tuskaloosa
, ambushed de Soto's army.
Other sources suggest de Soto's men were attacked after attempting
to force their way into a cabin occupied by Tuskaloosa. The
Spaniards managed to fight their way out and retaliated by burning
the city to the ground. During the nine-hour encounter, twenty
Spaniards died, and most were wounded. Twenty more died during the
next few weeks. The Native American warriors of that area—between
2,000 and 6,000 of them—died fighting in the fields, by fire in the
city, or by suicide
Even though the Spaniards "won" the battle, they lost most of their
possessions and forty horses. The Spaniards were wounded, sickened,
surrounded by enemies and without equipment in an unknown
territory. Fearing that word of this would reach Spain
if his men reached the ships at Mobile Bay, de Soto led them away from the Gulf Coast, into
Mississippi, most likely near present-day Tupelo, where they spent the winter.
1541 – To the west through Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Louisiana & Texas
In the spring of 1541, de Soto demanded 200 men as porters from the
. They refused his demand and
attacked the Spanish camp during the night. The Spaniards lost
about forty men and the remainder of their equipment. According to
participating chroniclers, the expedition could have been
destroyed. Luckily for the expedition, the Chickasaw let them
On May 8, 1541, de Soto's troops reached the Mississippi River
. It is unclear whether
he, as it is claimed, was the first European to see the great
river. However, his expedition is the first to be documented in
official reports as seeing the river.
De Soto was less interested in this discovery though, recognizing
it, first of all, as an obstacle to his mission. He and 400 men had
to cross the broad river, which was constantly patrolled by hostile
natives. After about one month, and the construction
of several floats, they finally crossed the Mississippi at or near
Tennessee and continued their travels westwards through
modern-day Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. They wintered in
Autiamique, on the Arkansas River.
After a harsh winter, the Spanish expedition decamped and moved on
more and more erratically. Their interpreter, Juan Ortiz, had died,
making it more difficult to find directions, food sources and
communicate with the Natives in general. The expedition went as far
inward as the Caddo River
, where they
clashed with a militant Native American tribe called the Tula
, whom the Spaniards considered to be the
most skilled and dangerous warriors they had encountered.
possibly happened in the area of present-day Caddo Gap,
Arkansas (a monument stands in that community).
Eventually, the Spaniards returned to the Mississippi River.
the expedition became the first Europeans to see what Native Americans
referred to as the Valley of the Vapors, Hot Springs,
Members of many tribes had gathered at the
valley over many years to enjoy the healing properties of the
thermal springs. The tribes had developed agreements to put aside
their weapons and partake of the healing waters in peace while in
the valley. De Soto and his men stayed just long enough to claim
the area for Spain.
De Soto's death
De Soto died of a fever on May 21, 1542, in the native village of
(historical sources disagree as to
whether de Soto died near present-day McArthur, Arkansas
or in Louisiana) on
the western banks of the Mississippi. Before his death, de Soto
chose former maestro de campo
(roughly, field commander) Luis
de Moscoso Alvarado
to assume command of the expedition.
Since de Soto had encouraged the local natives to believe he was an
sun god (as a ploy to gain
their submission without conflict), his men had to conceal his
death. They hid his corpse in blankets weighted with sand and sank
it in the middle of the Mississippi River during the night. Native
Americans had been skeptical of de Soto's deity claims.
Return of the expedition to Mexico City
De Soto's expedition had explored La Florida
years without finding the expected treasures or a hospitable site
for colonization efforts. They had lost nearly half their men, most
of the horses had been killed, they were wearing animal skins for
clothes and many were injured and in poor health. The leaders came
to a consensus (although not total) to abort the expedition and try
to find a way home, either down the Mississippi River, or overland
across Texas to the Spanish colony of Mexico City.
They decided that building boats would be too difficult and
time–consuming, and that navigating the Gulf of Mexico too risky,
so they headed overland to the southwest. Eventually they reached a
region in present-day Texas that was dry. The native populations
had thinned out to subsistence hunter-gatherers, which presented a
serious problem as there were no villages to raid for food and the
army was too large to live off the land. They were forced to
backtrack to the more developed agricultural regions along the
Mississippi. There they began building seven bergantínes
. They melted down all the
iron they had, including horse tackle and slave shackles, to make
nails for the boats. Winter came and went and the spring floods
delayed another two months, but by July they set off down the
Mississippi for the coast. Taking about two weeks to make the
journey, the expedition encountered hostile tribes along the whole
course. Natives would follow the boats in canoes and shoot arrows
at the men sometimes for days on end as they drifted through their
territory. The Spanish had no effective offensive weapons on the
water as their crossbows had long ceased working. They relied on
armor and sleeping mats to block the arrows. About 11 Spaniards
were killed along this stretch and many more wounded.
On reaching the mouth of the Mississippi, they stayed close to the
Gulf shore heading south and west. After about 50 days, they made it to the
River and the Spanish frontier town of Pánuco.
There they rested for about a month, during
which time many of the Spaniards, having safely returned and
reflecting on their accomplishments, decided they had left La
too soon, leading to fights and some deaths. However,
after they continued on to Mexico City and Viceroy Don Antonio de
Mendoza offered to lead another expedition back to La
, few volunteered. Out of the initial 700 participants,
somewhere between 300 and 350 survived (311 is a commonly accepted
figure.) Most of the men stayed in the New World, settling in
Mexico, Peru, Cuba and other Spanish colonies
Effects of expedition in North America
De Soto's excursion to Florida was a failure from the point of view
of the Spanish. They acquired neither gold nor prosperity and
founded no colonies. The reputation of the expedition, at the time,
was more like that of the later Don
than that of Hernán
. Nonetheless, it had several major consequences.
On one hand, the expedition left its traces in the areas they
traveled through. Some of the swine
, brought by
de Soto, escaped and were the ancestors of razorback
pigs in the southeastern United States
Soto was instrumental in contributing to a hostile relationship
between some Natives and Europeans.
When his expedition encountered hostile Natives in the new lands,
and more times than not, his men instigated the clashes.
More devastating than the battles, however, were the diseases
carried by the members of the expedition. Because they lacked
immunity to Eurasian
indigenous people suffered epidemic illnesses after contracting
infectious diseases, such as measles
. Several areas which the expedition crossed became
depopulated by disease caused by contact with the Europeans. Many
natives fled the populated areas which had been struck by the
illnesses and went towards the surrounding hills and swamps. In
some areas, the social structure changed because of losses to
The records of the expedition contributed greatly to European
knowledge about the geography, biology and ethnology of the New
World. The de Soto expedition's descriptions of North American
natives are the earliest-known source of information about the
societies in the Southeast. They are the only European description
of North American native habits before the natives encountered
other Europeans. De Soto's men were both the first and nearly last
Europeans to experience the Mississippian culture
expedition led the Spanish crown to reconsider Spain's attitude
towards the colonies north of Mexico.
claimed large parts of North America for Spain. They concentrated
their missions in the state of Florida and along the Pacific coast.
Many places were named after de Soto:
- De Soto County, Mississippi (where he allegedly died), the county seat Hernando, De Soto Parish, Louisiana, and both De Soto and Hernando County in Florida.
- Fort De Soto Park at the far southern tip of the city of St.
Petersburg, Florida and DeSoto State Park in Alabama.
place of his disembarkation, Espiritu Santo, Florida, is marked
by the De Soto
National Memorial west of Bradenton, Florida.
De Soto School is a private school in Helena, Arkansas.
- The DeSoto car was named
Sites visited by the de Soto expedition
- Clayton, Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon J. Knight and Edward C. Moore (Editor):
The de Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to
North America in 1539-1543; University of Alabama Press 1996. ISBN 0-8173-0824-5
- Duncan, David Ewing:
Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas;
University of Oklahoma Press 1997. ISBN 0517582228
- Hudson, Charles M.,
Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando De Soto and the
South's Ancient Chiefdoms, University of Georgia Press,
1997. ISBN 0-8203-1888-4
- Albert, Steve: Looking Back......Natural Steps;
Pinnacle Mountain Community Post 1991.
- Henker, Fred O., M.D. Natural Steps, Arkansas,
Arkansas History Commission 1999.
- Jennings, John. (1959) The Golden Eagle. Dell.
- MacQuarie, Kim. (2007) The last days of the Incas.
Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-6049-X ISBN
- Maura, Juan Francisco. Españolas de ultramar.
Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, 2005.