Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes

By the late 1530s, countless atrocities had been committed in the New World as conquistadors frantically searched for riches. One such invader was the Spaniard Hernando De Soto, who had participated in the conquests of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, enriched himself with Pizarro in Peru, and in 1537 was appointed governor of Cuba and given the right to conquer "La Florida," a vast and indefinite territory comprising what is now the southern United States.

His expedition into North America included approximately 600 men and lasted four years. De Soto and his army wandered from native settlement to native settlement, occasionally forging alliances but more often fighting running battles and seizing what was needed to avoid starvation. The peoples encountered by De Soto suffered greatly from this contact, ravaged not only through war but also by exposure to European germs...