Hernando de Soto was born c. 1496/97 in Jerez de los Caballeros, Badajoz, Spain, and died May 21, 1542 along the Mississippi River [in present-day Louisiana, U.S.]. In 1514, while still in his teens, he told his father of his desire to go to the Indies, and he left for Seville. Despite his youth, De Soto’s zeal and his prowess as a horseman helped gain him a place on the 1514 expedition of Pedro Arias de Ávila to the West Indies. In Panama, De Soto quickly made his mark as a trader and expeditioner. By 1520 he had accumulated considerable capital through his slave trading in Nicaragua and Panama.
In 1530, Francisco Pizarro called on Hernando de Soto to lend horse cavalry and ships for an expedition to Peru. In exchange for his services, De Soto would be named second-in-command of the expedition and receive a lion's share of the spoils of conquest. As the expedition’s captain of horse, De Soto was the driving force in the Spaniards’ defeat of the Incas at Cajamarca, and he was the first European to make contact with the Inca emperor Atahuallpa. Dissatisfied with Pizarro’s leadership and coveting a governorship of his own, De Soto returned to Spain in 1536.
He grew restless in Spain, however, and in 1537 sought permission to conquer Ecuador, with special rights to the Amazon River basin. Instead, he was commissioned by the Spanish crown to conquer "La Florida". In addition, he was made governor of Cuba. De Soto departed Spain in September 1537 to travel to Cuba where he would claim his title of governor and begin forming his expedition. De Soto selected over 600 Spanish and Portuguese soldiers and volunteers to accompany him to colonize North America. To feed and shelter these men was an entourage of "blacks of African and Moorish descent", and an unknown number of servant women of young age. In total, the expedition numbered around 1,000 people. They embarked from Havana on seven of the King's ships and two caravels of De Soto's with supplies for their planned four-year continental expedition. This included tons of heavy armour and weaponry equipment, including several hundred "dogs of war" to be used in hunting and controlling the indigenous peoples. They travelled with several hundred horses, and also carried more than 600 livestock animals, like nearly 300 pigs, which was their first introduction into North America. By late May 1539, Hernando de Soto landed somewhere along the central Gulf of Mexico coast of La Florida, near present day Tampa Bay, and began the expedition that would cost him his fortune and his life.
