Hernando De Soto

Hernando De Soto , c.1500-1542, Spanish explorer. After serving under Pedrarias in Central America and under Francisco Pizarro in Peru, the dashing young conquistador was made governor of Cuba by Emperor Charles V, with the right to conquer Florida (meaning the North American mainland). He led an expedition that left Spain in 1538 and landed on the Florida coast, probably near Tampa Bay, in 1539. That was the start of an adventure that took him and his band nearly halfway across the continent in search of gold, silver, and jewels, which they never found. After wintering near Tallahassee they went N through Georgia and the Carolinas into Tennessee, then turned S into Alabama, where De Soto was wounded in a battle with Native Americans. He was so determined to continue his treasure hunt that he refused to inform his men that Spanish vessels were off the coast. In the spring of 1541 they again set forth and were probably the first white men to see and cross the Mississippi. A journey up the Arkansas River and into Oklahoma disclosed no treasures, and, discouraged, they turned back to the banks of the Mississippi. There De Soto died; he was buried in the river, so that the Native Americans, whom he had intimidated and ill-used, would not learn of his death. His men went west again across the Red River into N Texas, then returned to the Mississippi and followed it to the sea. A remnant of the expedition made its way down the coast to arrive at Veracruz in 1543. The chief chronicle of the expedition is by a Portuguese called the Gentleman of Elvas,

Bibliography: See biographies by R. B. C. Graham (1924), T. Maynard (1930, repr. 1969), B. Shipp (1831, repr. 1971), and M. Albornoz (1986); studies by R. F. Schell (1966) and P. Lily (1983).

Soto, Hernando de (ca. 1500–1542), Spanish conquistador. Hernando De Soto is best known in American history as the leader of the first major Spanish expedition into the present‐day southeastern United States. He landed with an army of more than six hundred men near Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico in present‐day Florida in May 1539, and died along the Mississippi River three years later. It was a march of death and devastation that marked the beginning of the end of major American Indian civilizations that flourished during this age of European exploration and conquest.

De Soto was a veteran conquistador by the time he reached North America. His exploits in the conquest of the Inca in Peru had made him rich, and he sought more fortune and fame in North America, hoping to discover native empires as rich as those found by the Spanish in Mexico (the Aztec) and Peru. He was bitterly disappointed as his army of soldiers, horses, Indian captives, equipment, and even a herd of pigs drove across the future states of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, and thence across the Mississippi River to Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas.

Influenza, smallpox, and other diseases introduced by De Soto's army decimated the Native Americans already shocked by the ferocity and calculated terror of the Spanish. A century later, other European explorers would find little remnant of the impressive Woodland cultures described by the chroniclers of the De Soto expedition.
See also Columbian Exchange; Exploration, Conquest, and Settlement, Era of European; Indian History and Culture: Distribution of Major Groups, Circa 1500; Indian History and Culture: From 1500 to 1800; Spanish Settlements in North America.

Bibliography

Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight Jr., and Edward C. Moore, eds., The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando De Soto to North America in 1539–1543, 2 vols., 1993.
David Ewing Duncan , Hernando De Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas, 1996.
Charles Hudson , Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando De Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms, 1997.

Lawrence A. Clayton

De Soto, Hernando (1500–42) Spanish explorer. After taking part in the conquest of the Incas under Francisco Pizarro, he was appointed governor of Cuba (1537) with permission to conquer North America. His expedition landed in Florida (1539), and advanced as far n as the Carolinas and as w as the Mississippi. The search for treasure and the extreme brutality towards the native inhabitants led to a costly battle at Maubilia (1540). They returned to the Mississippi, where De Soto died.