Title: Soto, Hernando de | Encyclopedia.com
Headings: Soto, Hernando de
Soto, Hernando de
Hernando de Soto
Goes to the Americas
Longs for adventure
Enslaves Native Americans
Follows visions of gold

Content: They camped along its banks for a month, building barges in order to cross it. Still searching for gold, de Soto pushed his men westward through present-day Arkansas. The only treasures they found were buffalo hides. Many soldiers were killed in fighting with Native Americans or died of hunger and illness as they worked their way south along the Mississippi River. In the spring of 1542 de Soto himself fell ill, probably of malaria (a fever spread by mosquitoes), and died at the age of forty-two. So that the Native Americans would not find de Soto's body, his soldiers weighted it with sand and cast it into the Mississippi River. The surviving soldiers (about half of de Soto's original army) eventually made their way to Mexico and to Spain. The information they took back about the present-day southeastern United States later proved valuable to Europeans who colonized the area. De Soto's expedition had demonstrated to the Spanish that North America did not have great treasures and that the natives were difficult to conquer. Spanish authorities lost interest in Florida for several decades.