Hernando de Soto (explorer)
 |
Hernando de Soto |
Hernando de Soto (c.
1500"
May 21,
1542) was a
Spanish navigator and
conquistador, born in
Barcarrota,
Spain.
He participated in the conquest of
Panama at the side of
Pedro Arias de Ávila (Pedrarias),
Nicaragua and took a very active role with
Francisco Pizarro in the
Spanish conquest of Peru.
Later, de Soto led the largest expedition of both the
16th century and the
17th century through what would become the
Southeastern United States and the
Midwestern United States searching for gold and silver and other valuable goods.
He is presumed to have died on the banks of the
Mississippi River near present-day
Lake Village, Arkansas.
In
1514, de Soto accompanied
Pedro Arias de Ávila to the
Spanish colonies, landing in
Panama. His only possessions then were a shield and his sword.
In
1516, he became commander of a cavalry unit and went with
Francisco Fernandez de Cordoba on his discovery and colonization voyage through
Nicaragua and
Honduras.
De Soto gained fame as an excellent horseman, fighter, and tactician, but was known for extreme brutality and ruthlessness when dealing with
Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In a conflict for supremacy in Nicaragua, de Soto fought for Davila against
Gil Dávida Gonzales; Gonzales, an ex-officer of Davila, had tried to break away from him. De Soto denounced the treason and defeated Gonzales's army. As a result, Davila's leadership was secured and De Soto gained his favour.
In
1528 de Soto led his own expedition along the coast of
Yucatan, hoping to find direct connection by sea between the
Atlantic and the
Pacific Ocean.
To that end, he accompanied
Francisco Pizarro as a direct representative to him on his venture in
Peru and explored the country. De Soto discovered the city of
Cajas, where his men
raped and married the sacred
virgins in the Temple of the Sun.
With a group of fifty men, he discovered an
Inca road to
Cuzco, the capital of the
Inca Empire, and became the first
European to talk to the
Sapa Inca Atahualpa when he preceded Pizarro to
Cajamarca on their invasion march. After Atahualpa had been arrested during the
Battle of Cajamarca in
1532, de Soto often visited him in confinement, and a friendship between the two men emerged.
He broke with Pizarro when the
Andes were to be redistributed among the conquistadors, and when Atahualpa was executed despite fulfilling his promise of filling a
ransom room with gold and two with silver.
He returned to Spain in
1536, taking with him approximately 100,000 golden
pesos — his share of the conquest of the Inca Empire. At this time, De Soto was famous for being the
hero of the battle of Cuzco. He settled in
Seville, where he married, in
1537,
Inés de Bobadilla, the daughter of Davila. She came from one of the most respectable families of
Castile, with good connections to the Spanish court under
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. This period was the apex of de Soto's reputation and wealth.
De Soto, having seen the legendary resources in Peru and read a report written by
Cabeza de Vaca, suspected a similar wealth in
Florida. Vaca was one out of four survivors of the disastrous attempt of
Pánfilo de Narváez to conquer Florida. The ill-fated expedition had started with 400 men (In Narváez's ill-fated expedition, only four men survived out of 400.
De Soto saw his chance to second the famous conquests of Pizarro and Cortés. He was declared the
governor of
Cuba y adelantado de La Florida (meaning: all lands north of
Mexico) by Charles V. De Soto sold all of his goods and equipped an expedition into the unexplored lands. His mission was to conquer, to settle, and to "pacify" the unknown territories.
1539 – Landing in Florida
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Library of Congress' image of Hernando de Soto |
In May
1539, he landed with approximately 600 to 700 men, twenty-four priests, nine ships, and 220 horses on the western coast of Florida, in what would become
Bradenton, Florida, south of
Tampa, Florida. He named the place
Espíritu Santo after the
Holy Spirit.
De Soto's aim was to colonize the area, preferably from the center of a city like
Cuzco or
Mexico City. Therefore, he brought several tons of equipment, tools, arms, cannons, dogs, and pigs. The dogs — mostly
Irish Wolfhounds — became notorious weapons and instruments of punishment for the army. In addition to the sailors, the ships brought priests, blacksmiths, craftsmen, engineers, farmers, and merchants. Few of them had ever traveled outside of Spain, or even their home villages.
Around the same time, the Mexican viceroy,
Antonio de Méndez, sent an expedition under
Francisco Vásquez de Coronado into the territories explored by De Vaca to search for what came to be known as the
Seven Cities of Cíbola, a gold-rich land of legend. De Soto feared for his claims on
La Florida. During the whole of his travels, de Soto felt pressure to be the first to discover the legendary treasures and appropriate settling grounds.
The exact course of de Soto's expedition is subject to discussions and controversy among
historians and local politicians. The primary historical sources are journals left by the Spaniards, including de Soto's own secretary. Aside from the usual precaution that has to be applied to such sources, particular problems have to be considered in regards to de Soto's expedition. The natives often had to pass through a chain of interpreters, so that names and
toponyms may have been written down incorrectly. Additionally, many leaders and contacts had their own interests in leading the expedition in the wrong directions.
Archeological reconstructions and the
oral history of the natives have only lately been considered. However, this bears the handicap that most historical places have been overbuilt and more than 450 years of history have passed between the incidence and its narration.
The most widespread version, which is also taught in
United States schools, recurs in a report of the
Congress of the United States, under the lead management of
anthropologist John R. Swanton, from the year
1939. While the first part of the expedition's course, until the battle at
Mabila, is only disputed in details, the meandering route of the later voyage remains largely unclear. The Spaniards were disoriented and had almost no equipment left which could have served as indications for the archeologists. The commonly assumed
De Soto Trail runs in a west-northwest direction across the US states
Mississippi,
Arkansas and
Oklahoma until
Texas. Other opinions argue for a northern route across
Kentucky and
Indiana to the
Great Lakes.
1539 – Exploration of Florida
Beginning at the Espíritu Santo, de Soto explored
Florida and large parts of the
Southern United States. Already in
Florida, his misfortune began. Instead of being full of gold, the country was full of
swamps and
mosquitos, and was extremely hot and humid. Also, the indios he brought with him angered the native tribes.
The natives had had bad experiences with the earlier expedition of
Pánfilo de Narváez. De Soto's troops were no less brutal. They captured Indians to use as workers and guides, raped women, and looted villages in their search for food for their men and horses. Most often, de Soto let the villages burn down and set up a
Christian cross on the sacred places of the Indians. In addition to slaves and guides, the Spaniards often captured the tribes' chieftains in order to gain safe passage.
The most important helper of the troops was
Juan Ortiz, who came to Florida in search of the Narvaez expedition and was captured by the
Uzica, a
Calusa tribe. The daughter of Chief Hirrihigua of the Uzica arguably served as a precursor to
Pocahontas by begging for Ortiz's life, as her father had ordered Ortiz to be roasted alive. Ortiz survived captivity and torture, and joined, at the first opportunity, the new de Soto Spanish expedition.
Ortiz knew the countryside and also helped as an interpreter. As a lead guide for the de Soto expedition, Ortiz established a unique method for guiding the expedition and communicating with various tribal dialects. The "Paracoxi" guides were recruited from 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, his motives and council to de Soto were held in suspicion by other officers. But Don Hernando remained loyal to Ortiz, thus allowing him freedom to dress and live among his tribal Paracoxi friends.
Another important guide was the seventeen-year-old boy
Perico, or Pedro, from modern-day
Georgia, who spoke several of the local tribes' languages and could communicate with Ortiz. Perico was engaged as a guide in
1540 and treated better than the rest of the slaves, due to his value to the Spaniards.
The first winter encampment of the expedition took place in
Anhaica, the capital of the
Apalachee, close to
Lake Tallahas. The site is also near "Bahia de Caballos" where the members of the Narváez expedition were forced to eat valued horseflesh for survival. This is the only place on the entire route where the archeologists agree that de Soto's expedition effectively had been.
1540 – To the North, The Battle of Mauvila
The expedition ventured along the eastern
Appalachian Mountains and left a trail of destruction. Sometimes the members of the expedition traded the pigs they brought along to obtain food, sometimes they tried to get what they needed by force. They crossed modern-day
Georgia,
South Carolina,
North Carolina and
Tennessee.
Having heard of the famous gold treasure of the
Cofitachequi, and accompanied by their enemies, the
Ocute, the expedition continued on to the
Carolinas. During weeks of marches, through hunger and thirst, they realised that neither Perico nor the Ocute knew their way through the territories of the Cofitachequi. Nonetheless, in the middle of May, the expedition discovered the capital of the tribe, situated at the site of today's
Columbia, South Carolina.
The Spaniards were received in a relatively friendly manner — especially considering that they looted and pillaged several villages of the Cofitachequi on their way. The Cofitachequi princess seemingly turned over her tribe's sacred burial sites, pearls, and anything the Spaniards valued to Don Hernando. However, the Spaniards demanded to see the city's gold at once. Upon closer examination, the "gold" emerged as simple
copper. The Spaniards raided the city's burial temples, looting ancient treasures. They found some pearls and weapons in the city, took the young and charismatic female leader as a hostage, and ventured on in their search for wealth, across the Carolinas, Georgia, and
Alabama.
On their further erratic travels, they were led by wrong promises of giant gold reserves in the east. In northern Alabama, they stumbled upon the city of
Mauvila (or
Mabila). The
Choctaw tribe, under chieftain
Tascalusa, ambushed them on the central place of the strongly-fortified city. The Spaniards managed to fight their way out, then attacked the city over and over again. In a battle of nine hours, twenty Spaniards died, almost all were wounded, and twenty more died during the next few days. All Choctaw warriors in the area — between 2,000 and 6,000 in number — died fighting, in the fires, by executions, or by
suicide. Mauvila was burned down.
Even though the Spaniards won the battle, they lost most of their possessions and forty horses. They were wounded, sickened, and almost without equipment in an unknown territory, surrounded by enemies. With the battle of Mauvila, the natives' respect for the expedition also decreased. The Spaniards were attacked more and more often by
guerrillas and in the open.
While his men had lost their hopes and now only wanted to reach the coast to meet ships that were expected to come from Cuba, de Soto still strived for new discoveries. The expedition wintered in Chicasa in modern-day
Mississippi.
1541 – To the West, Demoralised
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De Soto discovering the Mississippi (Painting by William H. Powell, in the US Capitol Rotunda) |
The expedition returned upcountry to the north, where they met the
Chickasaw tribe. De Soto demanded 200 men as porters from the Chickasaw. They denied his claim 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 go, intimidated by their own success.
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, he is the first to document this fact in official reports.
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 and continued their travels westwards through modern-day Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. They wintered in Autiamique, on the
Arkansas River.
1542 – de Soto's Death
After a harsh winter, the Spanish expedition decamped and moved on more and more erratically. By then, the last Spaniard who was remotely familiar with the area, Juan Ortiz, had died. The
expedition went as far inward as the
Caddo River, where it is recorded that they clashed with a
Native American tribe called the
Tula. This event allegedly happened in the area of the present
Arkansas community of
Caddo Gap, Arkansas (a
monument to this
battle event stands in that community). Eventually, the
Spaniards returned to the
Mississippi River.
On the banks of this river, de Soto died on
May 21,
1542 allegedly after contracting a fever. It is contested that possibly it was from an infected wound inflicted during the
battle fought with the local Native Americans.
Either way, since he had propagated among the natives the myth that
Christians were
immortal, his men had to conceal his death. They hid his corpse in blankets weighted with sand and sank it in the river. (However, both
Lake Providence, Louisiana and
Lake Village, Arkansas claim that de Soto is buried in their respective lakes.) While Spain and
Portugal could have been crossed by a trained wanderer in less than one month, de Soto's expedition roamed through
La Florida for three years without finding the expected treasures or a place to begin with their colonisation. His men aborted the expedition.
After one more year of wandering, they finally reached Spanish territory in Mexico, via the Mississippi River and the
Gulf of Mexico. On their return journey, they were heavily attacked by the
Natchez and other tribes, who had united against the Spaniards. Out of the initial 700 participants, 311 found their way home.
De Soto's excursion to Florida was, from his view and the view of his men, a deadly disaster. 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 Quixote than that of
Hernándo Cortés. Nonetheless, it had several consequences.
On one hand, the expedition left its traces in the travelled areas themselves. Some of the horses that escaped or were stolen helped establish the first populations of
mustangs in western North America. De Soto was instrumental in forming the aggressive and hostile relationship between the Natives and Europeans. On several occasions they encountered hostile Natives to the new lands, and more times than not his expedition instigated the clashes. More devastating than the gory battles, however, were the diseases carried by the members of the expedition. Several areas the expedition crossed were basically depopulated. Many of the natives fled the cities struck by the illnesses towards the surrounding hills and swamps. The social structures of the population at the time were fundamentally changed.
On the other hand, the records of the expedition contributed in large part to geographic, biological, and ethnologic knowledge in Europe. The de Soto expedition's descriptions of the North American natives are the earliest known source of knowledge on the societies in the southeastern North Americas. They are, in fact, the only European description of North American native habits before the natives encountered other Europeans. De Soto's men were, at the same time, the first and the last Europeans to experience the prime of the
Mississippian culture.
De Soto's expedition also led the Spanish crown to reconsider Spain's attitude towards its colonies north of
Mexico. He created a claim on large parts of the North Americas for the Spaniards, with their missions concentrated mainly on the state of
Florida and the Pacific coast.
De Soto County,
Mississippi (where he allegedly died),
De Soto Parish,
Louisiana, and
Hernando County,
Florida are named after Hernando de Soto. The place of his disembarkation,
Espiritu Santo,
Florida, is located in Hernando County. Since 1948, the
De Soto National Memorial has existed near the city of
St. Petersburg,
Florida. Several other cities and a
car model are named after him.
*
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Historia del
adelantado H. de S. (Madr. 1723).
* Young, Gloria A. and Michael Hoffmann:
The Expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi, 1541-1543: Proceedings of the de Soto Symposia, 1988 and 1990 University of Arkansas Press 1999 ISBN 1557285802
* Duncan, David Ewing:
Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas; University of Oklahoma Press 1997. ISBN 0806129778
* Milanich, Jeralt T., Charles R. Ewen and John H. Hann:
Hernando de Soto Among the Apalachee: The Archaeology of the First Winter Encampment; University Press of Florida, 1998. ISBN 081301557X
* 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 0817308245
*
De Soto Memorial in Florida *
Map of the expedition route *
De Sotos youth *
Report on the research to reconstruct the route of the expedition *
Detailed justification of an alternate expedition route to the Great Lakes *
Map of the alternate expedition route Not to be confused with
Hernando de Soto the Peruvian economist and writer, still active as of
2006.
