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convinced the party to try a sea route to
speed their progress. Drinking water quickly
began to run out, forcing the group to spend
several desperate days rowing back to land.
Storms and mosquitoes tormented them as
they followed the coastline, drifting through
the bays of Matagorda and Corpus Christi
along the gulf coast of Texas. In September
1543, 52 days after leaving the Mississippi,
the survivors reached the mouth of the Río
Pánuco, near the future site of Tampico, Mex-
ico. After four days of trying to sail upriver
against the current, they deserted their brig-
antines and walked the rest of the way to the
nearest Spanish settlement. “In their clothing
of deerskin,” the Gentleman of Elvas wrote,
“they all went directly to the church, to pray
and return thanks for their miraculous
preservation.”LEGACY OF A FAILURE
The appearance of 311 survivors was a shock
to Spanish authorities, who had long assumed
that the entire group was dead. Published
chronicles by survivors slowly became avail-
able. The Spanish Crown’s representative, Luis
Hernández de Biedma, filed his brief report in- The diary of de Soto’s secretary Rodrigo
Ranjel revealed far more about the incredible
hardships and violence of the adventure. Ran-
jel’s diary was edited and included in La Histo-
ria General y Natural de las Indiasin 1548 by
historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y
(^104) B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Atrocities against American Indians abounded throughout many Spanish explorers’ expeditions in the
Americas, including killing, torturing, and enslaving them, as shown in this mid-19th-century engraving
in which Spanish soldiers use bloodhounds to kill an American Indian.(Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-104367])
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