Hernando de Soto
Hernando de Soto (c. 1496/1497[1]–May 21, 1542) was a Spanish navigator and conquistador, born in the Extremadura region of 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 15th century and the 16th 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.
Early career
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In 1514, de Soto accompanied Pedro Arias de Ávila to the Spanish colonies, landing doba (founder of Nicaragua)|Francisco Hernández de Córdoba]] 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. In a conflict for supremacy in Nicaragua, de Soto fought for Dávila against Gil Dávida Gonzales; Gonzales, an ex-officer of Dávila, had tried to break away from him. De Soto denounced the treason and defeated Gonzales's army.
First expedition – South America
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. 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 one "Ransom Room" with gold and two with silver.
Return to Spain
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 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, suspected a similar wealth in Florida. Cabeza de Vaca was one of four survivors of the disastrous attempt of Pánfilo de Narváez to conquer Florida. 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, settle, and "pacify" the unknown territories.
Expedition to Florida 1538-1542
Landing in Florida
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 Gold, 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.
The only site definitively associated with de Soto's expedition is the Governor Martin Site at the Apalachee village of Anhaica, located about a half-mile west of the present Florida Capitol building in Tallahassee, FL. It was found by archaeologist B. Calvin Jones in March of 1987.
Exploration
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 Indians he brought with him angered the native tribes.
The natives 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 Narváez 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, described as being close to Lake Tallahas. The village is now known to have been located near downtown Tallahassee, Florida. The site was also described as being is 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 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
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.
After a harsh winter, the Spanish expedition decamped and moved on more and more erratically. Their faithful interpreter, Juan Ortiz, had died, making it more difficult to find directions, food sources and communicate with the Indians in general. The expedition went as far inward as the Caddo River, where they clashed with a militant Native American tribe called the Tula, who the Spaniards considered to be the most skilled and dangerous warriors they had ever encountered. This 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
De Soto's death
On the western banks of the Mississippi, in the Indian village of Guachoya (near present-day McArthur, Arkansas )[2] de Soto died on May 21, 1542 of a fever. Since de Soto had propagated among the local natives that he was an immortal 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 (although the Indians were clever enough to see through the ploy).[3][4]
Return of the expedition to Mexico City
De Soto's expedition had explored La Florida for three years without finding the expected treasures or a hospitable site for their colonization efforts. They had lost nearly half their men, most of the horses had been killed (their main tactical fighting advantage), they were wearing animal skins for clothes and many were injured and in poor health. Upon consensus (although not total) it was decided 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.
It was 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 south-west. Eventually they reached a region in present-day Texas that was dry and the native populations thinned out to subsistence hunger-gatherers - this 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 civilized regions along the Mississippi, and there began building boats. 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 2 weeks to make the journey, they encountered hostile tribes along the whole course who would follow the boats in canoes harassing with arrows sometimes for days on end as they drifted through their territory - the Spanish had no effective offensive weapons on the water as their cross-bows had long ceased working, and so they could only rely 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 the boats stayed close to the Gulf shore heading south and west, and after about 50 days they made it to the Pánuco 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 on reflection of their accomplishments, discontented factions arose believing they had left La Florida too soon without founding a settlement, 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 Florida, few volunteered. Out of the initial 700 participants, somewhere between 300-350 survived (311 a commonly accepted figure) - most eventually stayed in the New World settling in Mexico, Peru, Cuba and other Spanish colonies.
After Effects
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 Hernán 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), the county seat Hernando, 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 in northwest Bradenton, Florida. Several other cities and a car model are named after him.
Sources
- Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Historia del adelantado H. de S. (Madr. 1723).
- 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 0-8061-2977-8
- 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
- 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 0-8130-1557-X
- 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 1-55728-580-2
Notes
- ^ "Hernando de Soto", from Encyclopedia Britannica, Online edition. Full article freely available (see "Next page" link).
- ^ Charles Hudson (1997). Page 349-52 "Death of de Soto"
- ^ Charles Hudson (1997). Page 349-52 "Death of de Soto".
- ^ Both Lake Providence, Louisiana and Lake Village, Arkansas claim that de Soto is buried in their respective lakes.[citation needed]
