unloaded, eager conquistadores rode into the
surrounding marshland. They encountered
impassable swamps and elusive Indians. Cav-
alrymen chasing a group of Indians were
shocked when one of the fleeing men began
pleading for his life in Spanish.
The man was Juan Ortiz, who had been
sent by Narváez’s wife a decade earlier to find
her husband. When Ortiz’s shore party landed
in Florida in 1528, he and another Spaniard
were captured by Indians, whose chief had
been disfigured upon Narváez’s orders. Ortiz’s
companion was killed immediately. The tribe
began to roast Ortiz alive over a coal fire, but
the chief’s daughter convinced her father to
spare the young Spaniard’s life. Soon there-
after, she saved Ortiz’s life a second time,
warning him to flee before he was to be killed
as asacrifice. Ortiz escaped to the protection
of a nearby tribe and had been living with
them for years when news arrived that ships
were sailing along the coast.
De Soto’s expedition was thrilled to find
Ortiz, for they now had a translator. Yet they
were disappointed to learnthat there was no
gold nearby. De Soto made a peace alliance
with the cacique, or chief, with whom Ortiz
lived and began to send military scouts
inland. Instead of finding treasure or land
hospitable enough to settle upon, the con-
quistadores bogged down in swamps, where
they were easy targets for hostile Indians.
When the furious de Soto suspected one
Indian guide of leading the Europeans in cir-
cles, the guide was thrown to the dogs, which
tore him to pieces. As morale sank, de Soto
ordered his cavalry leader to send ambigu-
ously written reports back from the advance
party to encourage the fortune seekers. By
mid-July, however, the Europeans were starv-
ing in the humid, insect-ridden Florida sum-
mer. Instead of gold, fertile land, or exportable
slave labor, they found only poor villages,
whose inhabitants frequently burned their
dwellings and fled with food stores before the
Europeans arrived. De Soto decided to station
100 men on the coast and sent most of the
ships back to Havana for more supplies. He
ordered the rest of his party to break camp
and march into the marshland and pine
forests. The expedition was committed—there
was no turning back.
De Soto’s hungry army devoured everything
in its path as it struggled northward. Indians
along the way who were defiant enough to
refuse to supply food or information were tor-
tured, raped, or killed. Others were chained
and used as slaves to carry the Europeans’
equipment. Starving soldiers often ate maize
(corn) raw as soon as they discovered it, along
with chestnuts and whatever else they found.Hernando de Soto and “La Florida” B 95
Many American Indians living along the coastal
United States, such as the Timucua in what is now
Florida, supplemented their diets with fish. In this
engraving by Theodor de Bry, some American
Indians in Virginia fish from a dugout canoe at
night.(Library of Congress)