by Hugh Thomas
Soto had an outstanding gathering of commanders: His infantry would be commanded by Francisco Maldonado, the cavalry by Pedro Calderón. Soto had a personal guard of sixty halberdiers, led by Cristóbal de Espíndola, a future official of the Inquisition in New Spain. (The halberdiers carried two-handed pole weapons.) Probably Soto expected to conquer all the lands to the north in America.
The expedition sailed from Sanlúcar in April 1538, leaving in great style. As usual in expeditions like this, they stopped for a few days in the Canaries, where they were greeted by the governor, who was dressed in white, and where the governor’s daughter, Leonor de Bobadilla, joined them. She traveled as lady-in-waiting to her cousin, Isabel, the wife of Soto. (Leonor was soon seduced by Nuño de Tovar, one of Soto’s senior captains, who later married her and was rather curiously dismissed by Soto in consequence.)
Soto reached his Cuban governorship in June 1538, making landfall at Santiago. There the flagship, the San Cristóbal, hit the shoals of Smith’s Key, and it was supposed that all was lost. Many left precipitately in small boats, some distinguished men in panic, thinking that “it was no time for gallantry.” But only the wine was lost.
Soto landed in Santiago on June 7, amid much celebration. He and his friends were pleased by what they saw, for the Spaniards lived in well-built houses, of which some were of stone and some roofed with tiles. Most had walls of board and dried-grass roofs. The many country houses nearby often boasted fig trees, pines, guava, bananas, and sweet potato, from which bread was made. Some had groves of orange trees, and there were wild cattle. Already Santiago and Havana (in the west of the island) had seventy or eighty Spanish households each; another six towns had thirty to forty dwellings in each. All had not only a church but a priest. In Santiago, there was a small Franciscan convent. While Soto was in Cuba, a tax was introduced for “defence against rebels, wild Indians and the French.”3 This demand was much resented.
In Santiago, then the capital city of Cuba, Soto presented his credentials as governor to the city council, and so there were the usual celebrations: balls and masquerades, horse races, and bull-running. A new bishop, Diego Sarmiento, reached Santiago at much the same time as Soto. He had previously been rector of the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas, in Seville. He, too, was fêted. After some weeks, the new governor rode to Bayamo, eighty or so miles to the west, on a new roan horse, a present from the people of Santiago. Then he rode on to Puerto Príncipe, another 150 miles farther west, where Vasco de Porcallo de Figueroa, an unprincipled adventurer who had been in Narváez’s expedition to New Spain, joined him as captain-general. Soto went on by land to Havana, which would later be his point of departure and which had already been established for ten years on the north coast of the island (not the south, where it had originally been founded). Las Casas recalled that at that time, the forest was so intense that one could ride from one end of the island to the other without leaving the shade.4 At Havana, Soto’s wife, Isabel, joined him after a rough journey by sea from Santiago.
Soto was convinced that the expedition was going to make him the richest man in the world. He left nothing to chance. Thus he sent ahead Juan de Añasco, his accountant, who was a good geographer and from one of the good families of Trujillo, in Extremadura, to explore the coast of Florida. Añasco went with fifty men in two pinnaces. Avoiding the swamps on the southern tip of Florida, Añasco made for places on the Gulf of Mexico such as Charlotte Harbor (then referred to as La Bahía de Juan Ponce de León) or Tampa Bay (Bahía Honda). In the second of these, Añasco kidnapped four Indians, who were later to serve as interpreters. They assured their eager and gullible captors that “much gold existed in Florida.”5
Meantime, Soto was shown something of the reality of the Caribbean by a rising of Indians near Baracoa, in eastern Cuba, some African slaves joining them. Bartolomé Ortiz, the chief magistrate of Santiago, dispatched a small force to crush the revolt, but these men were murdered by their Indian guides. It took some time for the rebellion to be reduced.6
Soto was busy in Havana organizing the details of his expedition. He was short of ready money, and in consequence he sent a request for 10,000 ducats to an old friend in Panama, Hernán Ponce de León, who had done so much to assist the conquest of Peru. Alonso de Ayala sold a ranch in Panama belonging to Isabel de Bobadilla for 7,000 pesos. Ponce de León took ship to Havana, where he remained for a time as the virtual prisoner of Soto, who extracted 8,000 castellanos from him as well as a pair of silver stirrups. Ponce de León then left for Seville, where he concealed what remained of his treasure to avoid tax, and bought a large house. Soto also was investing in land, in Cuba, where he established plantations in Cojímar and Mayabeque, both close to Havana.
Soto finally set off on the last stage of his great journey to Florida in May 1539. He had nine ships (five naos, two caravels, two pinnaces), in which he carried six hundred men as well as about 130 sailors. Among the six hundred, there were about 240 horsemen. Vasco de Porcallo de Figueroa, who had first gone to the Indies with Pedrarias and who had been a close friend of Diego Velázquez as well as a companion of Cortés with Narváez, became deputy leader. The supplies seem considerable: three thousand loads of cassava, 2,500 shoulders of bacon, and 2,500 fanegas of maize. Soto left his wife, Isabel, as deputy governor in Cuba, with the experienced, if elderly, Juan de Rojas as her deputy. It was this Juan de Rojas who, years before, had glimpsed the treasure that Cortés’s friends Francisco de Montejo and Hernández Portocarrero were taking back from Veracruz to Spain and who told Diego Velázquez of its quality. Rojas had also invested in Cortés’s expedition in 1519 and had been largely responsible for moving the town of Havana from the south to the north coast of Cuba in the late 1520s. These Spaniards and Bartolomé Ortiz, the chief magistrate of Santiago, found themselves in a bitter dispute with the settlers of Cuba, for the Crown wanted to set all the Indians free, while the latter tried to prevent it.
On May 25, Soto’s fleet saw the land of North America, and on May 30, they reached what seems to have been Tampa Bay, which they named Bahía Honda.7 This was not uninhabited land. It was only two leagues (six miles) from Espíritu Santo, the town of the Indian chief Ucita, established where there is now the town of Ruskin, Florida. All the horses were safely disembarked.
Soto’s deputy, Vasco de Porcallo de Figueroa set off immediately on a reconnoiter. Finding six Indians who sought to resist him with bows and arrows, he killed two of them, but the others fled into marshes in which the horses could not survive. Soto set off himself in a pinnace and established himself in another small town, Ocoto, whose inhabitants had fled. At the same time, the Indians who had been captured by Añasco to be guides or interpreters fled, too. Ocoto was characterized by seven or eight houses made of timber but covered with palm leaves, all built on a rise, apparently to facilitate defense. There was a temple, from whose summit a wooden chicken gazed out through golden eyes. Within the building, there were rough pearls. Soto and Porcallo, with Luis de Moscoso, slept in the chief’s house. To ensure defense, the rest of the Spanish force cut down the nearby wood within a crossbow shot. They began to build a palisade of earth and timber.
The natives who had fled from Soto’s first settlement and who had earlier attacked were Timúcan Indians. They worshipped the sun, they built their chief’s palaces on high earth mounds, they tattooed their bodies with pictures of birds and snakes as well as geometric designs, and they were led by chiefs who ruled clusters of townships. Most had black hair, brown skin, strong arms, and black, cheerful eyes. They were excellent runners. They fought with six-foot longbows, with which they fired deadly arrows of cane or reed tipped with sharp stones or even fish bones capable of penetrating chain mail and shields.
In June 1539, the expedition had an unnerving experience. Baltasar Gallegos, the chief constable of the expedition, set out with about forty horse and eighty foot to explore the land to the north of Ocoto. They encountered twenty red-painted Indians wearing plumes and carrying longbow
s. These warriors the Spaniards began to cut down. But one of them suddenly proclaimed himself to be Juan Ortiz, of Seville, a veteran of Narváez’s expedition, who had returned to Cuba but then returned to Florida. There he was captured by Indians, who placed him on a grill and started to roast him. But he had then been saved by the daughter of the chief. Ortiz had lived with the princess for nine years, becoming Indianized. He wore a grass skirt and a breechcloth. He had had himself tattooed, and he carried a longbow.
Ortiz successfully reestablished himself as a Spaniard and became Soto’s chief interpreter. He begged Soto and his colleagues not to pursue his Indian friends as if they were deer, since they had “given me my life.” He also gave the unexpected news that there was no gold, so far as he knew, in Florida. This disquieting information had a predictable effect on Porcallo’s commitment to Soto, and he soon returned to Cuba.8 His first aim had probably been to find slaves for his plantations in Cuba, but he left his son Lorenzo Suárez to continue with the expedition.
With Ortiz’s bad news in the forefront of his mind, Soto now left on a new journey of investigation. His aim was still to find a good place for a settlement of Spaniards that would also be rich in, above all, gold. Espíritu Santo did not seem the ideal candidate for that destiny. But the chief of a nearby town, Urriparacuxci, assured Soto that at Ocala, some way to the north, the Spaniards would find all the treasure that they could carry. The chief added that at Ocala, the Indians even wore hats of gold when they made war. Baltasar Gallegos was skeptical, but Soto, a simpler soul, became enthusiastic. Spaniards in the New World were always being deluded by such aureate dreams.
Soto left half his men with Pedro Calderón in Espíritu Santo and set off through Florida in a northwesterly direction. Ocala turned out to have maize but no gold. Eventually, Soto and his friends found themselves in the territory of the Apalachee Indians, whose main settlement lay in what is now Tallahassee. The Apalachee, like most of the native Indians in the New World before the Christians came, worshipped the sun, grew maize, ate shellfish, built cities with pyramids on which they placed temples, and lived in round houses. There may have been one hundred thousand Apalachees. They played a kind of pelota with a hard buckskin ball, the purpose of which was to secure entry to a goal on top of which a stuffed eagle was placed. If a player hit the eagle, he scored two points; if he hit the post, one. Here Soto reassembled his forces. Calderón came up from Espíritu Santo. The Spaniards were delighted with the fertility of the Apalachee territory, even if the promised gold was not to be seen. So Soto sent back a message to Havana with orders to restock him with supplies and then come back the next year to meet him in the vicinity of Tallahassee. If they found nothing, Soto made evident that he would keep cruising as far as the Mississippi, of which he knew from previous journeys of discovery.9
On March 3, 1540, Soto and his little army turned their backs on the known world of the Gulf of Mexico and set off for a newly described magic Kingdom named Cofitachequi. This was a long way to the northeast, across the rivers Ochlockonee and Flint, in what is now south Georgia. The Spaniards crossed these waterways with difficulty, using chains of Indians to haul them over rivers on rafts. They stopped at Capachequi, where the Indians attacked stragglers. Then they met Lower Creek Indians living in large and quite comfortable towns built along the rivers and surrounded by palisades. They had a well-developed agriculture and made good pottery, baskets, jewelry, and even statuary. These Indians often lived in good houses constructed from trunks of cedar or pine wood. The women wore blankets woven from fine thread; jeweled necklaces, earrings, pendants, and amulets; and beads made from shells, bone, and wood.10
The apparently civilized town of Toa was deserted when Soto arrived. The king of the place ordered his men to offer the Spaniards lodging as well as food. Soto now found some complaints among his men. Some were restless at the endless journeys. Where were they going? Soto would explain that he had come to teach the Indians “to understand the sacred faith of Christ … that they should know Him and be saved.”11 He also asked the Indians to give obedience to the Emperor and King of Castile and to the pope, the supreme pontiff and vicar of Christ. Soto added comfortingly that he was himself the Son of the Sun.12
Brightly dressed Ichisis Indians led Soto’s expedition toward their capital, probably Lasmar, near what is now Macon, Georgia. Rodrigo Rangel, Soto’s secretary, recalled that here they were greeted by innumerable women in white who gave the Spaniards omelets made of maize and spring onions. Several hundred Indians, Mississippians, seem to have lived here in a town encircled by a log palisade about 1,200 feet long. On this, Soto raised a large wooden cross.
Soto moved on to the river Oconcee, where he was met by some Indians from Atamaha. A ruler named Camumo received the adventurers in his capital, which seems to have been close to what is today Milledgeville, Georgia. Soto gave him a feather that had been colored silver. Camumo said: “You are from heaven, and with this feather that you give me I will eat, I will go to war, I shall sleep with my wife.” Camumo then asked to whom he should give tribute, to Soto or to Ocute, who was a king on the river of that name to the north. Soto rather surprisingly said that Camumo should pay tribute to Ocute. Then he went on to the town of Ocute, where the chief there gave the Spaniards rabbit, partridge, maize bread, hens, and many small dogs. He also provided several hundred porters, who were loaded with food. Then they moved on to Cofitachequi, guided by an Indian who claimed to be taking them to a new El Dorado in the north. They soon reached the river Savannah, “broader than the shot of an arquebus.” The army crossed, the men tied to one another. It is astonishing that Soto was able to maintain discipline and order. Not only that, he asked four of his captains to lead eight horsemen each to go in different directions, to establish exactly where they were. In their absence, Soto killed his pigs, which enabled him to allow each man half a pound of pork every day for a short spell.
Juan de Añasco returned to Soto’s headquarters to say that he had found a good town some thirty-six miles away. He brought back grain and some horns of cattle, as well as an Indian girl and boy. This town was Himahi, which may have been near Columbia, South Carolina. They found there fifty fanegas of maize, some mulberries, and other fruit, as well as roses. They then continued their way to the mysterious Cofitachequi, about twenty miles east of Himahi, near what is now Lugoff, South Carolina, where Soto met a Queenly ruler of the tribe. This lady is said to have come out to meet Soto in a canoe with an awning. She gave Soto some pearls as large as hazelnuts. Garcilaso characteristically insisted that she was a beauty. Soto gave her a ruby ring that he had the habit of wearing on his finger. In return, she offered food and lodging. The Spanish expedition, so quickly moving from pessimism to joy, became optimistic again.
It turned out that Cofitachequi had recently experienced a serious plague, which had much reduced the population (this seems not to have been the direct responsibility of European invaders). The Queen apparently controlled the land between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Atlantic. Her people wore “excellent hides which had been very well tanned” as well as “blankets of sable.” They also wore breeches and buskins with black garters, tied by laces of white hide. They were, wrote Elvas, “more well-mannered” than the other Indians whom the Spaniards had met in Florida. The soldiers of this principality are said to have worn breastplates made from raw and hairless hides, perhaps buffalo. Rodrigo Rangel recalled seeing a substantial temple on high ground at a town called Tamileco. This, Garcilaso commented, was well decorated with giant figures carved from wood. There was also, Rangel recorded, “a large, tall and broad palace.”13 The Queen gave Soto the town of Ilap, about fifty miles northeast of the modern town of Cheraw—a generous gesture, considering that she herself was short of food.
Alas, the “gold” in the Queen’s palace turned out to be copper, the emeralds were glass, and the “silver” was mica. The best treasure was some Castilian iron axes surviving from Vázquez de Ayllón’s expedition there.
Some Spaniards would have liked to have established a colony here in what one day would become South Carolina. But, Elvas commented, “the Governor’s purpose was to seek another treasure like that of Atahualpa” and “he insisted that they keep going.” For “he had no wish to content himself with good land and pearls.”14 Many wondered whether Soto had lost his senses. But his magnetic attraction as a leader remained, and no one would oppose him, even when he now insisted on going on to Chia, a territory that was either Hickory in North Carolina or Dandridge, Tennessee. They saw then the Appalachian Mountains, which seemed to Soto a sure sign that gold was close at hand. In these foothills, the expedition rested for three weeks. Soto asked the chief in Chia for women. The population fled. In the end, the chief supplied porters but not women.
At this point, the Spaniards still numbered about 550, with a large army of carriers, most of whom were treated more as slaves than as servants. During the summer of 1540, they slowly headed for what they believed to be the southern coast, in what is today the state of Alabama. The ruler of the Coosa also assisted them with porters, thinking—probably correctly—that that was the best way to rid himself of such demanding visitors, who for a while kidnapped him.15
How to treat Soto was also much on the mind of the next ruler whom they met, the giant Tuscaloosa of the Atahachi, in southwest Alabama. Tuscaloosa knew something of Spaniards from a Greek, Doroteo Teodoro, who had fled to him many years before from the expedition of Narváez. Soto’s tactic in these days was to insist on being received by a ruler; kidnap him; demand food, porters, and women; and then move on. The technique worked well across Alabama. But Tuscaloosa was of a different mold than other monarchs. He seemed to have hundreds of servants. A nobleman always stood in front of him with a sunshade on a pole as, in his vast headdress, he addressed large audiences from a balcony, almost as if he were a modern Mexican politician.