and migratory animals ate the foods that grew near that river's bottomlands and thousands of people settled along it and its feeder streams. As the climate became warmer, people fanned farther up that giant river into the mountains. Various tribes gathered to form villages to protect themselves from others and wild animals. Some of them fished, others hunted, some made blankets and clothes from plants and animals, while others gathered wild fruits and vegetables. Pottery was made from clay and seeds were planted in fertile places along the rivers. Houses were made with wood and covered to keep them dry. Fireplaces were built and used to smoke fish and meat for the winter. Crops were gathered and stored in dry places. Villages united into networks bordered by natural barriers. Dugout canoes were invented and networks enlarged into nations of people who shared certain customs and gestures. Culture grew rapidly with the exchange of news, foods, clothing, metals and art. The Cherokee Indians, the upper Tennessee River people, became one of the nations residing along the Great River system - the Mississippi and all of its giant tributaries. Other nations were forming along the Great River's other tributaries: the Ohio, the Missouri, the Arkansas and the Red Rivers. Trade was conducted along the Great River from the Rocky
Mountains to the Appalachians and down to the Gulf of Mexico. Large cities grew where the big tributaries merged. Indian economy focused into the heartland of the continent, with Illinois at the center of trade, not outward across the seas, as was the habit of European nations at the time Columbus discovered America. The Cherokee Indians lived along the Tennessee River in the Appalachian Mountains. They thrived in the bottomlands from Virginia southward. They built their houses in villages, much like early American settlers did. Villages were separated by day-long walks, houses were built of w ood and stone, fields were planted, nuts and berries were gathered, game was cured and tobacco was smoked. The Cherokee people adhered to high ethical standards. "Fire," the center of life, became the Cherokee word for "home." Rivers between the Cherokees Smoky Mountains were fed by creeks running from all directions, but flowed north and west into the Great River. A network of roads followed those rivers and streams to connect Cherokee villages. Steep mountain gaps limited routing choices so Cherokee roads converged at certain gaps, just as roads do today in those mountains. Village chieftains lead and represented their people to the tribe as a whole. They and their people used the

roads to trade and compete with other villages. They continued to grow and flourish well after Columbus discovered America, but when Hernando DeSoto followed their roads into their villages in 1540, everything changed. DeSoto brought foreign diseases, horses, whips, swords and vicious dogs to America; he took women, food and slaves as he went. Interior North America withstood the onslaught to become the only place in the New World that Spain never colonized. Spain reacted by blaming American Indians for DeSotos defeat. They conceived a prejudice against Indians that others acquired. Our image of the Devil, a "Red Man with a Spear," was born when DeSoto died in America. It differs substantially from all previous Old World "Devil" concepts. It was used to symbolize the American Indians who resisted European settlement of North America. DeSoto devastated America's Indians with foreign diseases; his people crippled the survivors with an enduring prejudice. The Cherokee, one of the only tribes still living where DeSoto found them in 1540, remember his legacy all too well.
Jeremiah Wolfe, a full-blooded Cherokee, lives in Cherokee, North Carolina. Donald E. Sheppard, a fifth generation Floridian living near Tampa, Florida, wrote and published the remainder of this book on www.FloridaHistory.com.
The Spaniards We had news that we were going in search of a land that an Indian boy had told us was on another sea.He said that he was from another land.and that a woman ruled it. Her town was of wonderful size.and she collected gold in abundance from her Chiefs. The King of Spain had given "Governor" DeSoto only four years to colonize and hold America from the Port of Havana, Cuba. DeSotos long journey through America, searching for riches in order to entice more Spanish settlers to his new colony, was well documented in candid, personal diaries by members of his all-volunteer "army." They stayed longer and traveled farther than any other army of European Explorers. People caught up in something they had little understanding of and no control over wrote their accounts of Native America, as in the above quotation. Their works, misunderstood for centuries, are the only spoils of Spain's "Conquest of America." Our land and Indians would never be the same again; theirs is the only account of what it was like when Europeans first sighted Native Americans. What follows is their story, sketchy in places, incredible in others. It is the story of Spain's failed conquest of this continent.
What They Did Here DeSotos people sighted this continent in the spring of 1539, at a port first discovered by Ponce de Leon, one of Columbus' captains. Leon had named this continent "The Island of Florida" but died trying to settle it. Panfilo de Narvez, another Spanish captain, had aimed for that same Florida port but missed it just twelve years before DeSoto sailed. Narvez ships were blown further up Florida's Gulf Coast where he died when he was deliberately misled by Indians. DeSoto would massacre those Indians for what they did shortly after his arrival. Six hundred and forty handpicked volunteers from Spain and Portugal landed with DeSoto in south Florida. Two hundred of them brought their own horses; many brought their dogs; all brought their own equipment for hiking, camping and fighting. DeSoto brought tons of supplies--cannon, gun powder and ammunition, crossbows, shields, lances, armor, helmets, bloodhounds, seeds, nails, axes, saws and pigs--to start a Spanish colony somewhere near the Great River, preferably at a place much like Mexico City, with plenty of gold and silver to plunder. Others had made similar attempts, none this big. All had failed. Along for the riches of conquest were carpenters, priests, navigators, lords,

engineers,

shipbuilders,

blacksmiths,

farmers,

herdsmen,

merchants
prospectors. Some had sold their houses and farms to be with the famous conquistador but most had never been trained as soldiers. Many had never been outside their own villages, much less in a land so vast that even the worldly DeSoto misjudged its size. Spain and Portugal could be walked from one end to the other in less than one month. This "army" would walk North America for four years without seeing an ocean, not one of them ever knowing what they were up against. Southeastern Trails Before it was over, DeSotos expedition would trudge Florida's swamps from Charlotte Harbor to the Apalachicola River and beyond, spend the winter among hostile Indians in rich vegetable fields near Panama City (where they heard about gold from the above-mentioned Indian boy), then enter Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas. Their initial contact with North America's numerous Indian nations, and the diseases they unknowingly introduced to them, would be destructive of Indian life and habitat. The expedition's descriptions of America's Indians in their natural setting, and the Spanish actions toward them, however, were well recorded

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and have been translated into English. Those writings are available at most public libraries. Unfortunately, America's scholars, who have persistently attempted to locate DeSotos trail using Indian place-names recorded by DeSotos people, have never understood their writings. Most Indians, and their placenames, were scattered westward, for the most part, by the diseases that DeSoto introduced to this continent. DeSotos long-lasting effect on America could not have been appreciated until his route was located. From their port in South Florida, DeSotos army journeyed for four years and 4000 miles through America before abandoning their effort to conquer this enormous continent. In the process of exploring, particularly the Mississippi River basin including Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, DeSotos army encountered hundreds of thousands of Indians living in organized provinces. His people recorded their journey in order to return to desirable places and homestead once DeSoto founded his colony. Many Indian villages were pillaged in the process of feeding and clothing the army while DeSoto moved overland exploring and collecting valuables. Indians were a marketable resource for the Spaniards. They were chained around the neck and forced to harvest and carry food for the army. Indian women were

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raped. Indian children were abused. The world's diseases infected all. Indians had never seen horses ridden before, and vicious dogs, the likes of which they also had never seen, became their worst enemies. The Spaniards had honed their Indian-gathering skills in Mexico and South America; North American Indians, with primitive spears and arrows, never stood a chance of stopping them. Perhaps we have not understood this episode in history because we have never given credence to what DeSotos people wrote. DeSoto died before founding his colony, and his army never found what they needed to lure additional colonists from Spain or Mexico. The Spaniards failed, but other European emigrants would be influenced by the Spanish accounts of our land, resources and primitive Indians. But the Spaniards used terms in their accounts that were unfamiliar to many, given that Spanish lifestyle and terminology varied so greatly from those of the French and English. To make matters worse, the places DeSotos people had described in America changed so dramatically in the decade following DeSotos expedition that Frenchmen and Englishmen never recognized the places described in the Spanish accounts. It had become almost impossible to visualize what DeSotos people described in America given the total abandonment of Indian villages after the

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introduction of foreign diseases by the Spaniards. Indian survivors sought refuge in the hills. Today it is even more difficult to visualize what the Spaniards described here our forests have been harvested, animals destroyed, plants enhanced, rivers dammed and swamps drained - but our basic geography has withstood the onslaught with enough resilience to allow us to use detailed geographic maps to track DeSotos army from Florida to Chicago and on to Texas. Midwestern Trails A serious problem hindering the understanding of DeSoto arises from a common misconception of his motives. His primary mission was not to find gold and riches here, as has been suggested for centuries. He was already incredibly rich from Incan gold. Rather, he wanted to claim and colonize North America. He sought to control all of it. DeSoto believed that this continent was an island. He planned to control it by controlling its central river, the Mississippi; from its mouth northward to what he believed was the Pacific Ocean. Vasco Nuez de Balboa had discovered that ocean beyond Panama, DeSotos boyhood home. Ferdinand Magellan had sailed that ocean to the Orient when DeSoto was twenty-one years old.

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The Orient, the greatest market in the world, was waiting for Spain's New World riches. The prospects of opening a trade route through this new colony and to the Orient lured DeSoto into America. DeSoto had observed that a great circle of Earth drawn from Havana, Spain's strongest outpost in the New World, to the Orient went up America's Great River and crossed the Indians' legendary northern sea. Spanish immigrants, first attracted by riches, would surely settle the banks of America's Great River and all of its tributaries once the natives were removed to the mines of Mexico and Peru. Once Spanish settlers were enticed to his new colony, DeSoto could direct them to build a port on the northern sea, then sail that sea to China, thereby opening an East-West world trade route through his new colony. Americas Indians and DeSotos people called the Mississippi River and its giant tributaries, collectively, the Great River. It served as the network for commerce between large Indian Provinces and discharged into Spain's Gulf Coast shipping lanes. The Great River was well known to the early Spaniards who sailed between Cuba and Mexico, Spain's New World population centers. The Mississippi River was the largest freshwater discharge in Spain's New World and the primary source of drinking water for coastal seamen. However, its mouth, with dozens

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of tangled rivulets flowing over broad, shifting flats, was difficult to locate. A deep-water port near its mouth, Mobile Bay, was selected by DeSoto to fortify in order to mark the mouth of the Great River and protect it from pirates and foreign invaders. Mobile Bay, according to DeSotos thinking, would become his home and Spain's mainland headquarters in North America. DeSotos march from South Florida, where he landed in order to protect his horses from injury at sea on his way from Havana to the Great River, was interrupted, however, at Panama City by the young Indian boy's report that gold could be found to the northeast. DeSotos biggest mistakes in America were believing what Indian boy said and underestimating the size of this "Island of Florida" and Native American tenacity. The pearls DeSoto would pillage from Carolina Indian tombs would be lost in a ferocious battle during his second year in America while approaching his awaiting supply ships at Mobile Bay. Indians, captured at that harbor months before while DeSoto wintered in North Florida, led him from the Carolinas into an ambush in lower Alabama. DeSoto would force march his army away from his ships at Mobile Bay in order to preclude news of his defeat from reaching Spain. After wintering in Tennessee, DeSotos people headed north, down the Tennessee River toward the

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Northern Sea, searching for plunder during the summer of 1541. DeSoto believed the north shore of this "Island of Florida" lay just over the next horizon. He halted his army for one full month before crossing the Ohio River at Henderson, Kentucky, a place he called "Quisquis." That name came from the Incan warrior DeSoto defeated just before entering Peru's City of Gold. Victory over Quisquis had won great fortune and fame for DeSoto throughout Europe; all of his people knew that name; it inspired them across the worst obstacle they would find in America Chicago Once beyond the Great River, DeSoto camped at Terre Haute, Indiana. His scouts discovered Lake Michigan, under the full moon, at today's Chicago on July 8, 1541, at the end of their trail. Lake Michigan, which had been described as an ocean by coastal Indians, had no ocean tides or salt in it. Perceiving that at once, DeSotos scouts reported that they could find "no road to traverse to the other sea" across it, meaning that no sea-level passage to China could exist across that giant sea into the world's oceans. The Spaniards found nothing to further their interest in North America and, thus, never returned to explore the interior

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Lasting Effect on the Natives The aftereffects of DeSotos invasion are obvious once his history is placed into perspective. DeSoto accounts were published throughout Europe and served to entice others to America. Those accounts were the only source of written intelligence about America until French and English explorations much later. The DeSoto accounts of the splendor of America were celebrated in Europe for centuries. Most significant, however, is that DeSotos peoples' accounts established the precedent for all European relations with America's Indians. That is, DeSotos people interacted with Native Americans in such a manner as to place them in a role subordinate to humanity. European doctrine would, thereafter, place America's Indians in the same category that DeSotos people had - as pagan Devil's - nonhumans incapable of ownership. Beginning with news of Hernando DeSotos death in the 1540's, today's image of the Devil arose throughout Europe: our tall, red-skinned, body-hairless, dark-eyed, spear-carrying Native Americans were immortalized. European settlers usually called American Indians "Red Devils. That image, born in Spanish Conquest, survives to this day. It varies so much from all previous "Devil"

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concepts that its use immediately following DeSotos death seems indisputable. Why has it taken so long for us to realize the profound effect DeSoto had on America? The answer is simple. We could not believe the stories about DeSoto, even shortly after the fact, because things had changed so much and so quickly just after DeSoto arrived in America. Indians became itinerants to avoid diseases in population centers; their great nations, their cities and their giant farms, all described by DeSotos people, no longer existed. Indian cities were abandoned: the people fled for refuge. French and English pioneers, given the tremendous shortterm changes in the North America he visited, eventually dismissed DeSotos accounts. His landing place in southwestern Florida was not even correctly identified until 1994. Only by following his peoples precise directions between landmarks, starting at his landfall, could DeSotos trail through America be located. To make matters worse, their directions were described in terms unfamiliar not only to post-DeSoto, English-speaking, non-seafaring, nonequestrian, and non-military pioneers but to later scholars as well. But DeSoto actually did port at the best possible place he could to preserve his horses from the ravages of a long sea passage from Havana to the Great River and he did follow Indian trails between Indian villages most of the

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time he was here. He was a military strategist, not the wandering fool portrayed by many scholars. After all, he had honed his skills in Peru, where he had fought his way straight to a City of Gold. Locating Conquest Trails The route taken by Hernando DeSoto through America in the 16th Century continues to attract the attention of scholars and laymen alike. New archaeological evidence has been added to the ancient chronicles, and nearly "definitive" routes have been proposed. However, the archaeological evidence is very thin, and, if anything, scant findings have only added to the confusion and controversy surrounding DeSotos route. On the other hand, many trailseekers have misinterpreted early 16th Century terms, neglected consideration of once bountiful mineral fields as native population centers, and overlooked important tactical concepts of mariners and mounted expeditionaries altogether. Perhaps a fresh start is in order, beginning with an examination of Spanish terms and concepts. Moons and Coasts Moon phases and coasts were important during the Spanish Conquest. The King's agent, traveling with

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judicial league or "legua legal". All of Florida's land, even today, is titled in reference to a grid similar to the one DeSoto planned, with statute miles our units of "legal" measure. That land-titling concept was inherited from the Romans. DeSotos people knew that he could claim only lands inland of two hundred leagues of coast for his colony and that they could claim homesteads only within the boundaries of that colony. Accordingly, they kept track of desirable locations, some in their personal journals, and described the army's movements in the process. Modern detailed maps allow us to follow their directions with precision. Hungry Horses DeSotos army had over 200 horses, each requiring adequate food every day. Horses were so important to his mission that pasturelands or Indian villages with stored food were always his intermediate destinations. But American Indians had no horses or cattle, so their lifestyles were not accommodating to DeSotos. To make allowance for this, DeSoto marched his army in six divisions; each camped separately on Florida's small fields and at Indian villages. DeSotos army was strewn across the landscape as it advanced, its divisions campsites often at great intervals. Horsemen provided DeSoto with

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intelligence for selecting desirable campsites for each, then "posted" his marching orders accordingly. Horses were kept fit and Captains were kept aware of the proximity of other divisions in case of attack. Accurate distance measure was DeSotos key to these ends, and would serve as the foundation of land title once his planned colony was selected. DeSoto trailseekers have tended to ignore precedent land title, equestrian lifestyle, nautical terminology and colonial lunar concept. Rich Fields Florida's 130,000-acre rock phosphate ridge and its giant pebble phosphate fields are almost forgotten today. Most were mined out well before many of us were born. The phosphate from them was ground into fertilizer for America's crops. In DeSotos time, however, Florida's phosphate ridges and fields were the centers of life on peninsular Florida's west side and afforded large enough pastures and sufficient maize to support his entire army and its livestock. DeSotos army rested on them until the food ran out due to consumption or packing for the road ahead. Unfortunately, archaeologists will never get to study most of them as surface mining has destroyed most.

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Today's Tracking Technology Detailed satellite photographs, accurate lunar tables and laser-defined topography did not exist until recently. For that matter, neither did effective mosquito repellant, reliable all-terrain vehicles, snakebite antivenins or deepprobe metal detectors to use in locating sites. Today we have the benefit of these tools plus newly annotated translations of the DeSotos chronicles available at most public libraries. Chronicles of the Expedition The DeSoto chronicles were written as personal journals by three officers of his expedition; Luis Fernndez de Biedma, a factor of the Crown; The Gentleman of Elvas, an unnamed Portuguese Officer who wrote in his native language; and Rodrigo Rangel, DeSotos private secretary. Garcilaso de la Vega, more properly Gmez Surez de Figueroa, is also included. He published a narrative based on extensive interviews with survivors of the expedition, primarily one of DeSotos Thirty Lancers. Garcilaso is called Inca here because he was born in Peru of an Incan mother and preferred that name. He wrote to honor Americas natives. In this book, Inca's narration, despite his occasional confusion and exaggeration, and those of the three officers

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are collectively called the Chroniclers and their writings the Chronicles. One other fragment of testimony, written by Fray Sabastian de Caete, has recently been found in the Archives of Spain, but only serves to reinforce the writings of the three officers. All of these works, plus other DeSoto documents and biographies, were recently published in a two-volume set, The DeSoto Chronicles, the Expedition of Hernando DeSoto to North America 15391543, edited by Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, Jr. and Edward C. Moore. Their interpretations are used here for ease of reader reference. None of DeSotos maps or field notes is known to exist today. The Chroniclers frequently described him and his work, however, calling him "Governor". He is called "DeSoto" throughout this paper, that being common vernacular in the United States, although Soto is proper. I believe that each Chronicler reported some of what he saw or understood, but that each saw and heard things from different vantage points, especially when the army was on the move. In the confusion of unexplored wilderness, they and their informants were among people who spoke languages so alien to their own that recording it in print was almost impossible. To add to the difficulty of understanding what the Chroniclers wrote, the natives frequently told them about villages using the village chief's

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name instead of the village name, or vice versa, and provinces were often referred to in a similar manner. Inca, never having been in Florida, confused place-names occasionally and never understood what the others called provinces (he names ten provinces in Florida, the others agree on four). I attempt to clarify this by qualifying each native name I use here, and I use the name assigned by the Chronicler who, in my opinion, best describes specific people and places. Forgotten activity and lost notes during conquest probably account for certain aberrations. The Chroniclers scattered locations during various events could likewise account for discrepancies in ranging, timing and sequencing reports. If we are to find DeSotos trail and learn more about the sites he visited, then surely we must begin by understanding and applying what these people wrote. This work is an attempt to do just that; it varies substantially from previously published works, however. What follows is my version of the events, circumstances, and geographic locations involved in the DeSoto landing and trail through North America. Explorations and conquests of America's Gulf Coast, immediately preceding DeSotos, are also included. I have done my best to use all of the DeSoto chronicles, without bias from other published route reconstructions. I have attempted to match the geographic

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smaller scale than DeSoto. A storm kept him from first stopping at Havana to procure needed provisions, however. Narvez' fleet was blown into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving one ship behind. He found Florida several days later, but with a critical food shortage, Narvez was forced to disembark his army and horses. He dispatched his ships to Havana for food and supplies with orders to meet him further up the coast where they all surmised Juan Ponce's good harbor to be located. They had been blown further north than they realized, however, and the captains of the vessels reported finding that harbor just five leagues (13 miles) south of the disembarkation point. Stump Pass, at Englewood on Lemon Bay, was exactly that distance from the mouth of Charlotte Harbor on the Florida Township survey of 1896: Narvez had disembarked there. Since on their return Narvez and his army could not be found, the captains of the vessels searched the shoreline for him, but to no avail. The next year, rescuers sent to find Narvez also found Charlotte Harbor, thinking he would have settled there by that time. He had been there but had skirmished with that harbor's chief, Hirrihigua, and led his army away. The rescuers noticed a sheet of paper on a stick at the head of the harbor which they thought Narvez had left for them. When some of the

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men disembarked to read the note, Chief Hirrihigua, whose nose had been cut off by Narvez, captured them. Almost A Native One of the rescuers, a boy named Juan Ortiz, spent several years of captivity and torture by Chief Hirrihigua, who understandably had much enmity of Spaniards. Ortiz survived, however, and learned the chief's language in the process; the other captured men were killed. Ortiz would finally escape, with help from Chief Hirrihigua's daughter, to her fiance's nearby village. He was given safe refuge by her fiance, Chief Mococo, and learned that chief's language as well during years of hospitable captivity. DeSotos scouts, in the luckiest stroke of the entire campaign, would find Ortiz shortly after their landing. He would serve DeSotos army as guide and chief interpreter for the rest of his life. DeSotos people would reward the good Chief Mococo with excess Spanish armor when the port was finally abandoned. Florida's early pioneers would find some of that armor and call Chief Mococo's abandoned village site "Old Spanish Fields." DeSoto's Landfall The King's Comptroller, Juan de Aasco, was dispatched from Cuba to explore Florida's coast during the

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year before DeSoto s ailed from Havana. Aasco found Ponce de Len's Charlotte Harbor and took four Indians from among Chief Hirrihigua's people. Aasco was licensed by the King to barter with them. Those people trapped fish nearby and traded them with inland Indian villages. Aasco envisioned developing that trade with Havana. The captives knew the shoreline and could locate their homeport, Charlotte Harbor, on their return with the fleet. Their village, Ucita, at the head of that harbor, would ultimately become DeSotos base of operations. Narvez, with Cabeza de Vaca, had passed through the village, cut off Chief Hirrihigua's nose, then preceded inland. Juan Ortiz had been there and had fled for his life. Hirrihigua's gigantic stone fishing enclosure is still there, however, hooked southward into Muddy Cove at the head of Charlotte Harbor, and is clearly visible. It is, possibly, the oldest historic structure in the United States. Before his return to Cuba, Aasco carefully sounded the harbor, noted the tide's effect on it, then measured the distance back to Havana via Dry Tortuga, 75 or 80 leagues, as reported to his officers in Havana. He advised DeSoto to sail on May 25th to catch the full moon and, thereby, favorable Spring Tides upon his arrival, but DeSoto chose to sail on favorable winds from Havana instead, one week early. The men sighted Florida due north on May 25th, ten

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leagues west of the Bay of Juan Ponce, but the transport captains would go no closer than one or two leagues from land until sighting a safe harbor entrance. They reported the coast in four brazas water (22 feet deep) on a northern landfall, and dropped anchor four or five leagues below the port. That depth of water, that close to land, 75 or 80 leagues north of Havana, ten leagues west of the Bay of Juan Ponce, on a northern landfall, four or five leagues below a port, occurs at only one place in Florida: Sanibel Island. Landing the Troops DeSoto, his guard, Aasco and the captives were transferred into DeSotos smaller boats to find the harbor that evening, leaving the cumbersome transport ships at anchor. If the fleet overshot the harbor, the large ships could not tack back to it against the high southerly winds, which were reported, to enter the harbor's pass. To preclude that, DeSoto coasted downwind, northward, in his small, maneuverable boats, advancing to where he thought the harbor's entrance was located. He sailed out of sight of the fleet, however, which had moved out into deeper water for safe overnight anchorage. That evening DeSoto found Charlotte Harbor's entrance at Boca Grande Pass, but was kept from returning to the fleet by darkness and wind.

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DeSoto spent the night at a deserted Indian village (probably on Useppa Island, the highest point of land and, thereby, the safest from native attack, in that region), much to the chagrin of his people. The next morning, DeSoto sailed back out the pass to explore the enormous sand bar at the harbor's entrance and to summon the fleet. He was spotted four leagues downwind of the fleet's anchorage as he tacked across the high winds. The fleet advanced downwind between boats which DeSoto stationed on either side of the narrow channel to guide the fleet into the harbor. Two of the fleet's ships scraped sandy bottom as they entered. Since they had left Havana a week earlier than Aasco had advised, DeSotos fleet could not cross the harbor's shallow channel south of Cape Haze, despite efforts to do so. They were forced to anchor two leagues inside the pass, in deep water, to wait for Full Moon and Spring Tides. Those tides were five days away, so while they waited the men comforted the horses with fresh foliage and berries from the islands and bays west of Cape Haze, just to the north of their anchorage. Twenty horses perished before they were landed, however, and Aasco was publicly scolded for the delay, which may have contributed to the horses' injuries. Aasco had warned DeSoto about the harbor's shallows before leaving Havana,

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however, thereby establishing May 25th as the proposed departure date to hit Spring Tides on arrival, a date formally acknowledged by DeSoto in a letter to Spain. The horses and other livestock were finally disembarked onto Cape Haze. On the night of May 30th (on the tides, as we now realize), DeSotos guards sailed up to the head of the harbor and Ucita was taken in a dawn raid. The Indians, having been aware of the ships for nearly a week, had fled, much to DeSotos disappointment. His style of capturing the village chief and enslaving the citizens had been thwarted by delay. Hostages were not taken en masse from Ucita, setting off a series of mishaps that would disrupt DeSoto's campaign for months. Without forced labor, the men would have to perform all the menial tasks associated with landing and carrying supplies overland on their departure and the transport captains would get but few captives to take with them to sell. The next day, on the Spring Tides, the fleet sailed up the harbor to within a mile of Locust Point, the closest mainland to the channel at the head of the bay, where the men were disembarked. They made their way through the marshes toward Ucita, two leagues (five miles) from where they landed. In the meantime, the horsemen driving the livestock made their way toward Ucita, a 12-league (thirty mile) trip, as it is today around the cape's swamps and

Manchester, William 1992 A World Lit Only by Fire, The Midieval Mind and the Renaissance, Portrait of an Age, Little, Brown and Company, N.Y. Morison, Samuel Eliot 1974 The European Discovery of America, The Southern Voyages AD 1492-1616, Oxford University Press, N.Y. Prescott, William H. 1847 History of the Conquest of Peru, The Modern Library (1936), N.Y. Russell, Jeffrey B. 1977 The Devil, Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y. Schell, Rolph F. 1966 DeSoto Didn't Land at Tampa, Island Press, Ft. MyersBeach, FL. Schoolcraft, Henry R. 1857 General History of the North American Indians, Philadelphia, 6 Parts; Plate XLIV pp 50, Volume III and pp 58-68 Volume VI. Shaffer, Lynda Norene 1992 Native America Before 1492, the Moundbuilding Centers of the Eastern Woodlands M.E. Sharp Press, Armonk, N.Y. Smith, Buckingham 1866 The Career of Hernando de Soto in the Conquest of Florida, from Theodore H. Lewis, Editor, Spanish Explorers in the United States,1528 - 1543, Barnes & Noble, Inc, Reprint 1965. Sprague, John T. 1964 The Origin, Progress and Conclusion of the Florida War, a reprint of the 1848 publication,introduction by John K. Mahon, University of Florida Press, Gainesville. Stone, George C. 1934 A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration and Use of Arms and Armor in All Countries and in All Times, Jack Brussel Publisher, N.Y. Swanton, John R. 1939 Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission, 76th. Congress, 1st Session, House Document, no. 71, Government Printing Office, Wash. DC 1946 The Indians of the Southeastern United States, U.S. Government Printing Office, Wash. DC - 46 -
Thomas, Hugh 1993 Conquest; Montezuma, Cortes and the Fall of Old Mexico, Simon & Schuster, N.Y. Wiecknieski, Jerome (Father Jerome) 1962 Juan Ponce de Leon, Abbey Press, Saint Leo, Fla. Wilkinson, Warren H. 1960 Opening the Case Against the U.S. DeSoto Commission's Report, Papers of the Alliance for the Preservation of Florida Antiquities, Vol. 1, no. 1, Jaxs Beach, Fla. Williams, Lindsey W. 1986 Boldly Onward, Precision Publications Co., Charlottee Harbor, FL.
An early draft of this article appeared in the Florida Anthropologist under different title