map of 1997.
Historiography Historians have worked to trace the route of de Soto's expedition in North America, a controversial process over the years. Local politicians vied to have their localities associated with the expedition. The most widely used version of "De Soto's Trail" comes from a study commissioned by the United States Congress. 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 that event. In the early 21st century, the first part of the expedition's course, up to de Soto's battle at
Mabila (a small fortress town in present-day central Alabama), is disputed only in minor details. His route beyond Mabila is contested. Swanton reported the de Soto trail ran from there through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. Historians have more recently considered archeological reconstructions and the
oral history of the various Native American peoples who recount the expedition. Most historical places have been overbuilt and much evidence has been lost. More than 450 years have passed between the events and current history tellers, but some oral histories have been found to be accurate about historic events that have been otherwise documented. The Governor Martin Site at the former
Apalachee village of
Anhaica, located about a mile east of the present-day Florida state capitol in
Tallahassee, has been documented as definitively associated with de Soto's expedition. The Governor Martin Site was discovered by archaeologist
B. Calvin Jones in March 1987. It has been preserved as the
DeSoto Site Historic State Park. The Hutto/Martin Site, 8MR3447, in southeastern
Marion County, Florida, on the
Ocklawaha River, is the most likely site of the principal town of
Acuera referred to in the accounts of the
entrada, as well as the site of the seventeenth-century mission of Santa Lucia de Acuera. As of 2016, the Richardson/UF Village site (8AL100) in
Alachua County, west of
Orange Lake, appears to have been accepted by archaeologists as the site of the town of Potano visited by the de Soto expedition. The 17th-century mission of
San Buenaventura de Potano is believed to have been founded here. Many archaeologists believe the
Parkin Archeological State Park in northeast
Arkansas was the main town for the indigenous province of
Casqui, which de Soto had recorded. They base 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. Theories of de Soto's route are based on the accounts of four chroniclers of the expedition. • The first account of the expedition to be published was by the Gentleman of Elvas, an otherwise unidentified
Portuguese knight who was a member of the expedition. His chronicle was first published in 1557. An English translation by
Richard Hakluyt was published in 1609. • Luys Hernández de Biedma, the King's factor (the agent responsible for the royal property) with the expedition, wrote a report which still exists. The report was filed in the royal archives in Spain in 1544. The manuscript was translated into English by Buckingham Smith and published in 1851. • De Soto's secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel, kept a diary, which has been lost. It was apparently used by
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés in writing his
La historia general y natural de las Indias. Oviedo died in 1557. The part of his work containing Ranjel's diary was not published until 1851. An English translation of Ranjel's report was first published in 1904. • The fourth chronicle is by
Garcilaso de la Vega, known as
El Inca (the Inca). Garcilaso de la Vega did not participate in the expedition. He wrote his account,
Historia de la Florida (often shortened to
La Florida), known in English as
The Florida of the Inca, decades after the expedition, based on interviews with some survivors of the expedition. The book was first published in 1605. Historians have identified problems with using
La Florida as a historical account.
Milanich and
Hudson warn against relying on Garcilaso, noting serious problems with the sequence and location of towns and events in his narrative. They say, "some historians regard Garcilaso's
La Florida to be more a work of literature than a work of history." Lankford characterizes Garcilaso's
La Florida as a collection of "
legend narratives", derived from a much-retold oral tradition of the survivors of the expedition. Milanich and Hudson warn that older translations of the chronicles are often "relatively free translations in which the translators took considerable liberty with the Spanish and Portuguese text." The chronicles describe de Soto's trail in relation to
Havana, from which they sailed; the
Gulf of Mexico, which they skirted while traveling inland then turned back to later; 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, such as large rivers and swamps, at recorded intervals. Given that the natural geography has not changed much since de Soto's time, scholars have analyzed those journals with modern
topographic intelligence, to develop a more precise account of the De Soto Trail.
1539: Florida ' engraving.The Spanish caption reads:"HERNANDO DE SOTO: Extremaduran, one of the discoverers and conquerors of Peru: he travelled across all of Florida and defeated its previously invincible natives, he died on his expedition in the year 1542 at the age of 42". In May 1539, de Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men and 220 horses in an area of
La Florida generally identified as the current location of south
Tampa Bay. Historian Robert S. Weddle has suggested that he landed at either
Charlotte Harbor or
San Carlos Bay. He named the land as
Espíritu Santo, after the
Holy Spirit. The ships carried priests, craftsmen, engineers, farmers, and merchants; some with their families, some from Cuba, most from Europe and Africa. Few of the men had traveled before outside of Spain, or even away from their home villages. Near de Soto's port, the party found
Juan Ortiz, a Spaniard living with the Mocoso people. Ortiz had been captured by the
Uzita while searching for the lost
Narváez expedition; he later escaped to
Mocoso. When Ortiz was found, he was naked and in his hand he had a bow and arrows, accompanied by nine Indians who scattered once they were spotted by the party. He was saved from being killed due to yelling "the Virgin Mary" and made signs that he was a Christian, since he had almost forgot the Spanish language. Ortiz had learned the
Timucua language and served as an interpreter to de Soto as he traversed the Timucuan-speaking areas on his way to
Apalachee. Ortiz developed a method for guiding the expedition and communicating with the various tribes, who spoke many dialects and languages. He recruited guides 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 as a
hidalgo Spaniard, other officers questioned his motives. De Soto remained loyal to Ortiz, allowing him the freedom to dress and live among his native friends. Another important guide was the seventeen-year-old boy
Perico, or Pedro, from what is now
Georgia. He spoke several of the local tribes' languages and could communicate with Ortiz. Perico was taken as a guide in 1540. The Spanish had also captured other Indians, whom they used as slave labor. Perico was treated better due to his value to the Spaniards. The expedition traveled north, exploring Florida's West Coast, and encountering native ambushes and conflicts along the way. Hernando de Soto's army seized the food stored in the villages, captured women to be used as slaves for the soldiers' sexual gratification, and forced men and boys to serve as guides and bearers. The army fought two battles with Timucua groups, resulting in heavy Timucua casualties. After defeating the resisting
Timucuan warriors, Hernando de Soto had 200 executed, in what was to be called the Napituca Massacre, the first large-scale massacre by Europeans in the current United States. One of Soto's most important battles with the natives, along his conquest of Florida, was a 1539 battle with Chief Vitachuco. Unlike other native chiefs who entered into peace with the Spanish, Vitachuco did not trust them and had secretly plotted to kill Soto and his army, but he was betrayed by interpreters who told Soto the plan. So, Soto struck first and, in the process, killed thousands of natives. Those that survived were surrounded and cornered by woods and water. Thousands were killed during the 3 hours battle and 900 survivors took refuge in the pond, specifically Two-mile Pond in Melrose, where they continued to fight, while swimming. Due to De Narvaez mutilating an Indian chief, when Hernando de Soto was then met by that same chief, he was forced to fight with them despite attempts to not pursue a fight. This came to be common with many other Indian tribes who had previously encountered Narvaez. Most eventually surrendered, but after 30 hours in the water, 7 men remained and had to be dragged out of the water by the Spanish. De Soto's first winter encampment was at
Anhaica, the capital of the
Apalachee people. It is one of the few places on the route where archaeologists have found physical traces of the expedition. The chroniclers described this settlement as being near the
"Bay of Horses". The bay was named for events of the 1527
Narváez expedition, the members of which, dying of starvation, killed and ate their horses while building boats for escape by the Gulf of Mexico.
1540: The Southeast From their winter location in the western panhandle of Florida, having heard of gold being mined "toward the sun's rising", the expedition turned northeast through what is now the modern state of
Georgia toward
Ocute territory. Based on archaeological finds made in 2009 at a remote, privately owned site near the
Ocmulgee River, researchers believe that de Soto's expedition stopped in
Telfair County. Artifacts found here include nine glass
trade beads, some of which bear a
chevron pattern made in
Venice for a limited period of time and believed to be indicative of the de Soto expedition. Six metal objects were also found, including a silver pendant and some iron tools. The rarest items were found within what researchers believe was a large council house of the indigenous people whom de Soto was visiting. The expedition continued to present-day
South Carolina. There the expedition recorded being received by the
female chief of
Cofitachequi, who gave her tribe's pearls, food and other goods to the Spanish soldiers. The expedition found no gold, however, other than pieces from an earlier coastal expedition (presumably that of
Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón). , illustration by
Herb Roe De Soto headed north into the
Appalachian Mountains of present-day western North Carolina, where he spent a month resting the horses while his men searched for gold. De Soto next entered eastern Tennessee. At this point, de Soto either continued along the
Tennessee River to enter Alabama from the north (according to
John R. Swanton), or turned south and entered northern Georgia (according to
Charles M. Hudson). Swanton's final report, published by the Smithsonian, remains an important resource but Hudson's reconstruction of the route was conducted 40 years later and benefited from considerable advances in archaeological methods. De Soto's expedition spent another month in the
Coosa chiefdom a vassal to
Tuskaloosa, who was the
paramount chief, believed to have been connected to the large and complex
Mississippian culture, which extended throughout the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries. De Soto turned south toward the Gulf of Mexico to meet two ships bearing fresh supplies from
Havana. De Soto demanded women and servants, and when Tuskaloosa refused, the European explorers took him hostage. The expedition began making plans to leave the next day, and Tuskaloosa gave in to de Soto's demands, providing bearers for the Spaniards. He informed de Soto that they would have to go to his town of
Mabila (or
Mauvila), a fortified city in southern Alabama, to receive the women. De Soto gave the chief a pair of boots and a red cloak to reward him for his cooperation. The
Mobilian tribe, under chief Tuskaloosa, ambushed de Soto's army. The Spaniards fought their way out, and retaliated by burning the town to the ground. During the nine-hour encounter, about 200 Spaniards died, and 150 more were badly wounded, according to the chronicler Elvas. Twenty more died during the next few weeks. They killed an estimated 2,000–6,000 Native Americans at Mabila, making the battle one of the bloodiest in recorded North American history. The Spaniards won a
Pyrrhic victory, as they had lost most of their possessions and nearly one-quarter of their horses. The Spaniards were wounded and sickened, surrounded by enemies and without equipment in an unknown territory. They refused his demand and attacked the Spanish camp during the night. On 8 May 1541, de Soto's troops reached the
Mississippi River. De Soto had little interest in the river, which in his view was an obstacle to his mission. There has been considerable research into the exact location where de Soto crossed the Mississippi River. A commission appointed by
Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 determined that
Sunflower Landing, Mississippi, was the "most likely" crossing place. De Soto possibly traveled down
Charley's Trace, which had been used as a trail through the swamps of the
Mississippi Delta, to reach the Mississippi River. De Soto and his men spent a month building flatboats, and crossed the river at night to avoid the Native Americans who were patrolling the river. De Soto had hostile relations with the native people in this area. In the late 20th century, research suggests other locations may have been the site of de Soto's crossing, including three locations in Mississippi:
Commerce,
Friars Point, and
Walls, as well as
Memphis, Tennessee. Once across the river, the expedition continued traveling westward 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 erratically. Their interpreter Juan Ortiz had died, making it more difficult for them to get directions and food sources, and generally to communicate with the Natives. The expedition went as far inland as the
Caddo River, where they clashed with a Native American tribe called the
Tula in October 1541. The Spaniards characterized them as the most skilled and dangerous warriors they had encountered. This may have happened in the area of present-day
Caddo Gap, Arkansas (a monument to the de Soto expedition was erected in that community). Eventually, the Spaniards returned to the Mississippi River.
Death De Soto died of a fever on 21 May 1542, in the native village of
Guachoya. Historical sources disagree as to whether de Soto died near present-day
Lake Village, Arkansas Louisiana erected a historical marker at the conjectured site on the western bank of the Mississippi River. Before his death, de Soto chose
Luis de Moscoso Alvarado, his former
maestro de campo (or field commander), to assume command of the expedition. At the time of death, de Soto owned four Indian slaves, three horses, and 700 hogs. De Soto had deceived the local natives into believing that he was a deity, specifically an "immortal
Son of the Sun", to gain their submission without conflict. Some of the natives had already become skeptical of de Soto's deity claims, so his men were anxious to conceal his death. The actual site of his burial is not known. According to one source, de Soto's men hid his corpse in blankets weighted with sand and sank it in the middle of the Mississippi River during the night. Most of the men stayed in the New World, settling in Mexico, Peru, Cuba, and other Spanish colonies. == Effects of expedition in North America ==