But these failures only stirred the cavaliers of Spain to new thirst for adventure and gain. They had been told of fertile plains, of splendid tropical forests, of the beauty of the Indian maidens, of romantic incidents and hair-breadth escapes, of the wonderful influence exercised by a white man on tribes of dusky warriors, and who knew what fairy marvels or unimagined wealth might be found in the deep interior of this land of hope and mystery. Thus when Hernando de Soto, who had been with Pizarro in Peru and seen its gold-plated temples, called for volunteers to explore and conquer the unknown northland, hundreds of aspiring warriors flocked to his standard, burning with love of adventure and filled with thirst for gold.
On the 30th of May, 1539, De Soto, with nine vessels and six or seven hundred well-armed followers, sailed into Tampa Bay, on the Gulf coast of Florida. Here they at once landed and marched inland, greedy to reach and grasp the spectral image of gold which floated before their eyes. A daring but a cruel man was this new adventurer. He brought with him blood-hounds to hunt the Indians and chains to fetter them. A drove of hogs was brought to supply the soldiers with fresh meat. They were provided with horses, with fire-arms, with cannon, with steel armor, with everything to overawe and overcome the woodland savages. Yet two things they needed; these were judgment and discretion. It would have been wise to make friends of the Indians. Instead, by their cruelty, they turned them into bitter and relentless enemies. So wherever they went they had bold and fierce foes to fight, and wounds and death marked their pathway across the land.
Let us follow De Soto and his men into the realm of the unknown. They had not gone far before a strange thing happened. Out of a crowd of dusky Indians a white man rode on horseback to join them, making gestures of delight. He was a Spaniard, Juan Ortiz by name, one of the Narvaez band, who had been held in captivity among the Indians for ten years. He knew the Indian language well and offered himself as an interpreter and guide. Heaven seemed to have sent him, for he was worth a regiment to the Spaniards.
Juan Ortiz had a strange story to tell. Once his captors had sought to burn him alive by a slow fire as a sacrifice to the evil spirit. Bound hand and foot, he was laid on a wooden stage and a fire kindled under him. But at this moment of frightful peril the daughter of the chieftain begged for his life, and her father listened to her prayer. Three years later the savage captors again decided to burn him, and again the dusky maiden saved his life. She warned him of his danger and led him to the camp of another chief. Here he stayed till the Spaniards came. What became of the warm-hearted maiden we are not told. She did not win the fame of the Pocahontas of a later day.
Many and strange were the adventures of the Spaniards as they went deeper and deeper into the new land of promise. Misfortune tracked their footsteps and there was no glitter of gold to cheer their hearts. A year passed over their heads and still the land of gold lay far away. An Indian offered to lead them to a distant country, governed by a woman, telling them that there they would find abundance of a yellow metal. Inspired by hope, they now pushed eagerly forward, but the yellow metal proved to be copper instead of gold, and their high hopes were followed by the gloom of disappointment and despair. But wherever they went their trail was marked by blood and pillage, and the story of their ruthless deeds stirred up the Indians in advance to bitter hostility.
Fear alone made any of the natives meet them with a show of peace, and this they repaid by brutal deeds. One of their visitors was an Indian queen—as they called her—the woman chief of a tribe of the South. When the Spaniards came near her domain she hastened to welcome them, hoping by this means to make friends of her dreaded visitors. Borne in a litter by four of her subjects, the dusky princess alighted before De Soto and came forward with gestures of pleasure, as if delighted to welcome her guests. Taking from her neck a heavy double string of pearls, she hung it on that of the Spanish leader. De Soto accepted it with the courtly grace of a cavalier, and pretended friendship while he questioned his hostess.
But he no sooner obtained the information he wanted than he made her a prisoner, and at once began to rob her and her people of all the valuables they possessed. Chief among these were large numbers of pearls, most of them found in the graves of the distinguished men of the tribe. But the plunderers did not gain all they hoped for by their act of vandalism, for the poor queen managed to escape from her guards, and in her flight took with her a box of the most valuable of the pearls. They were those which De Soto had most prized and he was bitterly stung by their loss.
The adventurers were now near the Atlantic, on ground which had been trodden by whites before, and they decided to turn inland and explore the country to the west. After months more of wandering, and the loss of many men through their battles with the Indians, they found themselves in the autumn of 1540 at a large village called Mavilla. It stood where stands to-day the city of Mobile. Here a large force of Indians was gathered.
The Indian chief or cacique met De Soto with a show of friendship, and induced him and a few of his men to follow him within the palisades which surrounded the village. No sooner had they got there than the chief shouted some words of insult in his own tongue and darted into one of the houses. A minor chief got into a dispute with a Spanish soldier, who, in the usual Spanish fashion, carried forward the argument with a blow from his sword. This served as a signal for hostilities. In an instant clouds of arrows poured from the houses, and before the Spaniards could escape nearly the whole of them were slain. Only De Soto and a few others got out with their lives from the trap into which they had been beguiled.
Filled with revengeful rage, the Spanish forces now invested and assailed the town, and a furious conflict began, lasting for nine hours. In the end the whites, from their superior weapons and organization, won the victory. But theirs was a costly triumph, for many of them had fallen and nearly all their property had been destroyed. Mavilla was burned and hosts of the Indians were killed, but the Spaniards were in a terrible situation, far from their ships, without medicine or food, and surrounded by brave and furious enemies.