After an engraving to be found in the works of the great Spanish historian, Herrera
The Spanish settlers of Cuba gave a joyful welcome to De Soto and to the brave men from the homeland. After many festivals and solemn religious ceremonies, nine vessels, carrying many soldiers, twelve priests, six hundred horses, and a herd of swine, sailed for Florida (1539).
The settlers of Cuba welcome De Soto
What a grand sight to the Indians as the men and horses clad in steel armor landed! There were richly colored banners, beautiful crucifixes, and many things never before seen by the Indians. But this was by far the most cruel expedition yet planned.
The Spaniards' cruelty to the Indians
Wherever the Spaniards marched Indians were seized as slaves and made to carry the baggage and do the hard work. If the Indian guides were false, they were burned at the stake or were torn to pieces by bloodhounds. Hence the Indians feared the Spaniards, and Indian guides often misled the Spanish soldiers on purpose to save the guides' own tribes from harm.
De Soto fought his way through forests and swamps to the head of Apalachee Bay, where he spent the winter. In the spring a guide led the army into what is now Georgia, in search of a country supposed to be rich in gold and ruled by a woman. The soldiers suffered and grumbled, but De Soto only turned the march farther northward.
Attacked by Indians
The Appalachian Mountains caused them to turn south again until they reached the village of Mavilla (Mobile), where the Indians rushed on them in great numbers and tried to crush the army. But Spanish swords and Spanish guns won the day against Indian arrows and Indian clubs. De Soto lost a number of men, at least a dozen horses, and the baggage of his entire army, yet he boldly refused to send to the coast for the men and supplies waiting for him there.
19. The Discovery of the Mississippi. Again De Soto's men followed him northward, this time into what we know as northern Mississippi, where the adventuring army spent the second winter in a deserted Indian village. In the spring, in 1541, De Soto demanded two hundred Indians to carry baggage, but the chief and his men one night stole into camp, set fire to their own rude houses, gave the war whoop, frightened many horses into running away, and killed a number of the Spaniards.