Hernando de Soto Discovers the Mississippi River
Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer who became the first European to discover the Mississippi River on May 8, 1541, during his expedition through what is now the southern United States. Born around 1500 in Barcarrota, Spain, de Soto was part of the wave of conquistadors drawn to the New World after Columbus's arrival in 1492. He initially gained fame as a member of Francisco Pizarro's expedition that conquered the Inca Empire. Motivated by rumors of riches in Florida, he led a large expedition of over 600 men, landing on the west coast of Florida in 1539.
Despite their hopes for wealth, de Soto and his men encountered a challenging landscape and engaged in conflicts with various Indigenous tribes. They traveled extensively, reaching as far north as the Carolinas and into Tennessee, ultimately coming upon the Mississippi River near Memphis. De Soto died in 1542, and his expedition, while failing to find treasures, covered about 4,000 miles, marking an important exploratory venture in the North American interior. The expedition had significant impacts on indigenous populations, introducing diseases that devastated many tribes while also leaving behind horses that would later influence the Plains Indians.
Hernando de Soto Discovers the Mississippi River
Hernando de Soto Discovers the Mississippi River
The Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto became the first European to discover the Mississippi River on May 8, 1541, during his travels across what is now the southern United States.
De Soto was born in Barcarrota, Spain, most likely in 1500, although the exact details are not clear. He joined the rush of explorers, adventurers, and conquerors— often referred to collectively as conquistadors—to the New World after Columbus's discovery of 1492. Many impoverished Spanish gentlemen sought to make their fortunes in this manner, including Hernán Cortés, who conquered the Aztecs of Mexico in the 1520s, and Francisco Pizarro, who conquered the Incas of Peru in the early 1530s. De Soto had been a member of Pizarro's expedition, and afterwards he was rewarded with the governorship of the Spanish colony of Cuba and the additional right to make conquests in Florida. De Soto had heard rumors of great riches to be found in Florida and the mysterious lands beyond. He organized an expedition of over 600 men, complete with armor, firearms, and several hundred horses, and landed on the west coast of Florida somewhere near Tampa Bay in late May 1539.
De Soto's men disembarked with high hopes of finding gold, silver, precious stones, and other wonders. Instead, they found a swampy wilderness and some poor, mistrustful American Indians. As De Soto's party advanced, they pressed American Indians into service and slaughtered those who stood in their way. Soon they were engaged in almost constant conflict with one tribe after another. Skirmishing as they went, De Soto and his men proceeded as far north as the Carolinas and then into Tennessee, where, near the site of Memphis, they became the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River. They crossed it, followed its course downstream, and then explored the Arkansas River as far west as Oklahoma. Nowhere did they find the gold and silver they were looking for, and finally they decided to turn back before they all succumbed to hardship, disease, and Indian attacks.
De Soto died of fever on the banks of the Mississippi somewhere in Louisiana, on May 21, 1542. His men lowered his body into the river by night, so that the Indians would not know he was dead. Then the remnants of the expedition struggled on as best they could, reaching the Gulf, and at last, in September 1543, the Spanish settlements on the eastern coast of Mexico. They had covered approximately 4,000 miles in the first significant European exploration of the North American interior. Behind them they left a string of graves and a number of horses, the foundation of the wild herds that would range across the plains in later times.
Although De Soto's expedition was a complete failure from a conquistador's point of view (the 300 or so men who returned were poorer than they had been when they set out), it had long-lasting consequences for American Indians. The explorers brought not only horses but also unfamiliar diseases to the interior of the continent, and those diseases spread like wildfire through the American Indian population. Tribes in the southeast and in the Mississippi basin were weakened by the epidemics the explorers had inadvertently introduced. Farther west, however, the Plains Indians would become more formidable as they learned to capture and ride wild horses.