Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve episode two hundred and fifty nine. Hernando
de Soto. Last time I did one of these super biographical deep dives,
it was on Leonardo da Vinci, And the reason I chose da Vinci,
well, apart from the obvious the inherent genius, is he's really kind of
emblematic of the time period. Every once in a while someone comes along and
you can just say, that's Renaissance, Oh Richard, the lion Heart,
that's High Middaly is right there, like here is somebody who just stands for
an era. Hernando de Soto might not seem like the obvious choice for the
age of the Conquistador. And the reason I say that is because at the
end of the day, he's unsuccessful. He never finds a mythical Golden civilization
in the American Southeast because there isn't one and there never was one. Of
course, he didn't know that, nor did anybody else in Europe know that
at the time. As I'll mention a couple of times during this deep dive
episode, it is amazing to think about how little Europeans, even thirty years
after Columbus, how little they still knew about this new world. Frankly,
much of what separates Cortez and Soto from Hernando de Soto is luck. Pisato
and Cortez both happen to stumble upon legitimate, advanced Mesoamerican civilizations. Both of
those civilizations had peasants who paid taxes, and that taxes could be turned into
luxury goods, and that's what they're essentially looking for. I just want a
system that they can co opt. They don't want to build one. De
Soto tries to find one, and he fails. But the spirit with which
he engages this enterprise is so telling when you look at this period of let's
say fifty years and the sorts of people who are willing to cross the Atlantic,
who are willing to murder, who are willing to rape in a pillage
to try to become super wealthy, but not just that famous, because inherent
to Soto's quest through the Americas is a desire to be ILSI. It is
a desire to be this mythical reconquista like figure. That he fails in this
enterprise, I don't think that necessarily makes him any less of a symbol of
what it means to be a kunquistador. We know very little about Hernan lud
Soto's youth. We know next to nothing about his upbringing, family life,
for really anything about the fourteen ish years he spent in Spain, which for
Soto amounts to about a third of his life. We're not even sure when
he was born. In fifteen thirty five, he testified that he was quote
thirty five years old more or less end quote, which suggests he was born
somewhere between fourteen ninety six and fifteen hundred. Garcilasco de Vega, a sixteenth
century biographer of Sodo, firmly states that he was forty two when he died
on May the twenty first, fifteen forty two. Thus, if we believe
him, and I really don't have any reason not to, Sodo was born
in the year fifteen hundred. He was born the son of a Spanish hidalgo,
a sort of cross between a medieval night and a country squire. Sodo
was most likely born in Heires Delos Gabayleros, a fortified market town with in
the early sixteenth century a population of around eight thousand Hides. Was then situated
about seventy miles northwest of Seville, very close to the Portuguese border. As
to his family, we know a little more than the names of his parents,
siblings, and a rough genealogy. Soto had at least three siblings,
including an older brother. After leaving home at the age of fourteen, Sodo
spent no more than a few weeks in Heades de los Caballeros for the balance
of his life. Yet, like many conquistadors, Soto always held a strong
attachment to his hometown. In fifteen thirty nine, Sodo ordered in his will
that two thousand ducats be spent constructing a lavish chapel in Heades. First and
foremost, Hernando de Soto was influenced by the region he grew up in X
three Madura, called the cradle of the Kunquistadors in tourist brochures, This desolate
province in southwest Spain produced not only to Soto, Barrenan Cortez, Vasco,
Nunez, Marboa, Francisco Pisaro and his brothers, and many many others.
One in all six Spaniards who sailed to the Indies in the sixteenth century came
from extru Madura, including half of Sodos six hundred to seven hundred men who
would go to La Florida. Survival of the fittest, and Soto's world began
at birth. Half of all children born and Renaissance Europe died before the age
of five, most within minutes or hours of leaving the womb. Millions more
denied of disease, cholera, typhoid, dysentery, diphtheria, measles, moms,
smallpox, and plague, aided and sometimes caused by the filth and crammed
conditions, Soto and nearly other child in Europe grew uppeth during the sixteenth century.
Indeed, it is the Kulos Caballeros was not a pleasant town of whitewashed
houses and scrub clean streets that you would see today if you go there.
It was a barely tolerable place where eight thousand people squeezed inside a walled area
less than a tenth of one square mile. Here, Soto and the citizens
of Heades lived amongst a maze of narrow streets reeking of garbage and excrement,
where one sometimes had to step carefully to avoid sewage running down in the troughs
in the lanes and alleys left open in part so that edible refuse could be
thrown in and eaten by dogs, chickens, and goats. Houses were also
tiny and cramped, with all but the very rich, leaving in small cave
like townhouses where bedrooms were barely big enough for beds and dining rooms were not
much larger, leading most of the people to spend their time in small gardens
or in one of the city's three open plazas. Why the people of head
Is tolerated such extreme discomfort was simple. It was far more dangerous to be
outside the city walls. In Soto's day, the countryside of Spain and most
of Europe was virtually lawless, a place where uninhibited thickets and forests predominated over
pastures and cultivated fields, and where bandits, renegade bands of soldiers, and
wild animals made even daylight travel hazardous. During the era of Soto's birth and
early life, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel were making significant inroads towards mitigating this
anarchy, yet nearly every person in Spain remained instinctively fearful of the countryside,
making sure that they were safe within the walls of any town or city.
By the time the sun fell below the horizon. This meant that peasants ventured
out to work their fields only during daylight hours, and wealthier people left towns
and cities only when properly armed. The rest of the time, the Sotos,
like most Hildagos, stayed in town, sleeping in their tiny house insteade
jurez is cocoon of stone and mortar, hiring an overseer and perhaps armed watchmen
and guard to manage their pastures, wineries, olive groves, or whatever else
they owned. Making matters worse, the late fifteenth century saw a series of
droughts hit Spain. Spain was then and to an extent is now, overwhelmingly
rural, so drought led to famine. Famine led to death. In other
words, it would have been clear to a young Soto that there was no
future for him in Extramadura. The other question that gets asked about every conquies
the door, and so it always exception. So I'll talk about it now,
is were they religious? Was Hernando de Soto a religious man? For
Sodo, I guess it's impossible for me to say. Sure, he writes
about God in his letters, but that was to a large extent just a
given in sixteenth century Europe. He brought at least eight priests with him to
La Florida, but they never appear in the narrative. He did talk about
religion with the natives of La Florida and beyond, but always within the context
of power and authority. If pressed, I would say that Sodo probably used
religion more as justification for his actions than religion was the driving force behind those
actions. But again I'm guessing at that the last ingredient in Sodo's formative years
would have to have been his formal education. He was a Hildago, so
he would have gotten some formal edition. Unlike piece Outo, he was certainly
a literate man. Book learning, however, would have been only considered a
small part of any hildago's education. Given Soto's later reputentation as a horseman and
fighter, he clearly received some significant instruction on riding and fighting at an early
age. More than anything, being a Hidalgo was abiding by a set of
beliefs, a set of ideals. Soto still would have seen himself as an
extension of El sid, the mythical knight of the ri Conquistan. He was
to be chivalrous, adventurous and fiercely loyal to Castile. As to that final
piece, he would have seen any actions he took to further Castile's interest as
justified. There was no separation between what was best for her Nanode Soto and
what was best for Castile. They were one and the same, hence his
never ending quest for another empire of gold, the quest that will, as
we will see, consume Soto's entire life. Of course, by Soto's day,
Lori coon Quista was over. Hidalgos were not local fighters anymore, so
much as they were becoming Spain's professional military class, a class that now was
to fight Spain's enemies in foreign wars, think less Moore's and more the French
in northern Italy. For these men, these Hidalgos, the new world meant
a lot more than just a chance to get rich. It was a chance
to capture some of this adventurous spirit, to be elsid one last time,
to make their fortunes, and of course to kill the unbelievers of Christ.
These were now Indians and not Moors, and that change seemingly made very little
difference to these men. So it was that sometime in his early teens,
Hernando de Soto packed up with few belongings he had and left for home.
Chances are that he was not traveling alone, but likely alongside a local captain
responding to a recruitment call. Unfortunately, we have no record of when and
how Sodo left home. All we know is that he went to Seville,
Spain's only legal point of disembarkation for what was then called the Indies. From
the time Sodo left home until our next mention of him in fifteen seventeen in
Panama, we have no information directly about the young man. Thus we have
around three years that we cannot account for. It is likely, though not
certain, that Soto sailed with a major Spanish fleet under the command of Pedro
Addius de Villa, Balboa's partner in the conquest of Panama. There were rumors
of gold and Panama at the time and an easy life, and that probably
explains why Soto and so many others wound up going there, But of course
we can't be sure. This expedition was a bit of a mess from the
get go. King Ferdinand planned to be the first really major colonialization effort of
the New World. Two thousand colonists were supposed to make their way to Panama
and set up the first major Spanish colony on the mainland. There were some
colonies in Hispaniola, but nothing really in what was today Central or South America.
But it was a disaster. The people who signed up to go were
by and large well dressed Europeans, unprepared for the challenges of the New World.
Plus, when the captains went to load their ships, they discovered there
was not enough room for everyone, something they should have already known. They
got some extra ships, not an easy task given the initial effort had already
strained Ferdinand's treasury to such a point that two years later he would die in
debt. But they got them and cut back on enough personnel that there was
room for everyone. The fleet finally set sail on April eleventh, fifteen fourteen,
and cited today what is the Dominican Republic. On June second of that
same year. From the Dominican Republic, the fleet's next stop was the Gulf
of Santa Marta on the north coast of Columbia. For three days, they
harassed local natives, burning huts, plundering gold trinkets, capturing slaves, and
twice fighting pitch battles that quickly dissolved in a massas one Indian captured was a
princess found hiding in a thicket by an African slave belonging to another young Spaniard,
a future historian actually named Gonzalo Fernandez de Ovier, though he had actually
come along as a minor official to serve in the government. He says this
girl was quote sixteen or seventeen years old and as fair skinned as a Castilian.
She was quite naked, but held herself with such grave pride that she
gave an impression of dignity end quote. Later the same man, Oviedo would
criticize Soto and others of gross mistreatment of the Indians, though in this case
his behavior is hardly better. Spiriting away his quote unquote princess from Santa Marta,
he reports that she soon after died in the town of Darien. He
says, of heartbreak. I say probably not. Nearly two weeks after departing
Santa Marta, on June the twenty six, most of the armada finally dropped
Anchor in the Gulf of Uraba off the Daarian region of Panama. If anyone
was on hand to greet them. There is no record the settlement itself stood
three to four miles at a height above the fetid coast swamps and out of
the sight of the beach and the mosquitoes. Nor do we know the colonist's
reaction as they crowded onto the decks to stare at what amounted to a nondescript
stretch of sand, bordered by palms and topped off by the Ceriana the darien
A Mountain range, It's six thousand foot peaks, undoubtedly obscured by wisps of
fog. Sold on the notion that this was a paradise on Earth, or
at least a reasonable copy of the same, most of the settlers must have
been stunned by what they saw. Where, they asked, was the great
capital of gold? Where were the docks, the houses, the ships?
Where was the tray fold to the brim? Even more distressing was the intense
superheated humidity settling over the ships. On a map, if you look at
the Gulf of Raba, it looks like a long finger of water which between
the northwest coast of South America and the narrow isthmus of Panama, trapped between
two mountain rages, with low steamy swamps on either side, the murky Atrato
River disgorging mud and water to the south. This region draws heat to it
like a sponge. For those used to a drier and more temperate climate i
e. Spain, sudden immersion is miserable. You can become nauseas without difficulty.
Your fingers swell headaches are an easy side effect. And if the heat
were not enough. The settlers that first might discovered another prominent feature of theology
of this region of the world. The mosquito. Swarms of them, no
doubt, feasted happily on the sweat, filth, and blood of so many
people crammed aboard two dozen wooden vessels awaiting their orders to disembark. In fifteen
fourteen, the Spanish were convinced that Darien was overflowing with gold. This mistake
and mistake it was actually originated with Christopher Columbus in fifteen o two. He
explored the coast of Central America on his fourth and final expedition, the one
where he ends up shipwrecked, and he claimed that there was a quote vast
quantity of gold and quote in the interior of the Isthmus with absolutely no evidence
whatsoever. Upon arrival Pedro the Vila. He's also called Pertraius in some of
these sources, so the names are interchangeable. But I'm going to try to
use da Vilia and most commonly from here on out, just to be consistent.
But just know that he is referred to by more than one name in
the historical sources if you look him up. So upon arrival, he is
intent on finding Balboa, who is the present governor at Panama, because the
villa is supposed to take over for him. Bartolome de las Casas, who
was with Davila, recorded what happened next. He asked, quote, where
is Vasco Nunez de Balboa? A man said, quote, there he is
pointing to a man dressed in a cotton blouse over a linen shirt, wearing
hemp sandals and coarse breeches, who was looking on and simultaneously helping his slaves
thatch a house. A messenger was taken aback by such a plainly dressed man.
You could not believe that this was Vasco Nunez, whose exploits and riches
were so famous and castile that he had expected to see him seated on a
majestic throne. This scene in meeting is often played up in a lot of
the histories that I read to use usual literary tropes to play Vasco the Nunez
de Balboa as sort of the foil to Davila. Davila is the stiff shirted,
he is the bureaucrat. He has no experience in the new world.
He doesn't want to get his hands. It's dirty. Balboa is the salt
of the earth man who's come to try to make this settlement function. There's
elements of truth to the way that this is portrayed, but just understand that
in many of the historical sources it's played up dramatically. Now, in fifteen
fourteen, Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a man who was going to have a
huge influence on a young Soto, was about forty years old. According to
one he was quote handsome of face and figure, very tall and well built,
clean limbed and strong end quote. He was always famous for his fair
skin and his bright red hair and beard, which was of course unusual in
Spain. He was born and raised in Sodo's own hometown. It is de
los Caballeros. Apparently in Sodo's own home parish of San Miguel. Balboa departed
Spain in fifteen hundred, the year that Sodo was born, to explore the
coast of Columbia. Eventually, he ended up Bonni, Espaniola, where he
bought a plantation and tried to settle down. His efforts to raise pigs,
however, not only led to mounting debts, but also to a fever and
desire to get away from pigs. In fifteen ten, hounded by creditors and
legally unable to depart the island without first paying off his loans, Balboa escaped
by hiding in a barrel as a stowaway aboard a ship headed for Panama.
Firm, energetic, and cunning, Balboa shared the King Ferdinand's belief in ruing
through a shrewd mix of benevolence and cruelty, reward and punishment. That first
night, Balboa made a room in his own home for da Villa and his
wife, Isabella de Bobadilla. A few days later, the governor returned his
favor by turning out his host and appropriating most of the former acting governor's property.
That is to say, once Davila was welcomed into Balboa's home, he
simply took it as his own. Meanwhile, Davila assigned quarters to officials and
nobles in the homes of Balboa's chief men, while common soldiers seized Indian homes
in the town, forcing many of the natives out into the bush. The
remaining colonists probably slept on the ground, wrapping themselves and their expensive cloaks,
until tens and other supplies could be unloaded from the ships. Among them,
De Soto undoubtedly spent his first night in Darien sleeping under the stars, if
that is, he slept at all. Most of the men who had reached
Darien had to sleep on the ground. As I said, Soto most certainly
slept outside. Balboa had to make room for Devilla in his own house.
In other words, land of Golden Pleasure Darien was not. De Villa was
to be the governor of this fledgling colony, whose boundaries were extremely vaguely defined
on the map. Armed with about two thousand settlers, he was supposed to
transform it into New Spain. It didn't take long for things to go sideways.
The resources of this small colony of a few hundred were already stretched thin,
so the arrival of two thousand settlers who had no idea how to support
themselves, was not a benefit. In fact, it was perhaps the final
nail in the coffin. The newcomers were able to eat the ship's provisions at
first, but these ran out after a month. The colony was then hit
hard by sickness, probably typhoid, maybe bubonic plague. By Midsummer fifteen to
twenty, settlers were dying her day. And what did Davila do in the
early days of this crisis, Well, nothing. Then, after a freak
fire burned down the shack containing the king's provisions, leaving even him and his
cronies without food. The old governor panicked, responding to the gathering disaster with
a hastily arranged strategy of dispatching fighting men to fan out in all directions in
search of food, which they were ordered to steal from the Indians, along
with whatever gold they found. This remedy, however, merely added to the
catastrophe, as the poorly disciplined soldiers sent off to strip bear the countryside unleashed
a bloodbath of looting, killing, slave taking and destruction, attacking what would
have been Balboa's native friends and utterly ignoring the requirements of the Requiremiento and other
finely crafted documents. Overnight, this wanton destruction transformed a region that had hitherto
been very peaceful into one dominated by terror, kidnapping, skirmish's chaos, blood,
and incessant Indian tacks. One Spanish chronicler described that first year in Darien
as quote hellish hunting end quote. Within a decade, the predominant native culture
in the region was essentially eliminated Throughout this first year. There is nothing we
can say about Soto. In fifteen seventeen, we could at last place him
on a specific expedition. Assuming he was born in fifteen hundred, he would
have been seventeen years old. We have no details about Soto's role and what
was a disaster. Most likely he was a common soldier doing his best to
follow orders, and especially with the difficulty that after incessant native attacks, the
floods started. The floods effectively ended the expedition that Soto was on, which
we assume was one of the ones Da Villa ordered to go out and get
food. He seemingly was trapped on what had been a very Tranquil River.
But when the monsoon reigns hit, river flooded turned fast, canoes capsized,
and many Spaniards were killed. So, of course was not the debacle meant
that this particular expedition was finished, the imperative being for everyone who was still
alive to just escape back to the main town. It wasn't easy, as
they coasted down the flooded river, lacking food and attacked repeatedly by Indians who
badly quote knocked them about end quote. According to Soto's friend, several more
Spaniards died in these battles, and to lead the men home, the men
chose a dour, thirty nine year old veteran of the Conquistador region who no
one had ever heard of up till now. His name was Francisco Pizarrow.
We know him, and Soto is going to very soon. He just doesn't
know that yet. In the end, the total take and plunder in this
incredibly ridiculous and stupid fiasco was about fifty two paces worth of gold and no
food. Other than this one expedition, the slate for SODA's participation in the
Darian settlement is effectively blank. Only one chronicler even mentions Hernando de Soto in
Darien, all certainly because he was just too young and too insignificant. But
that doesn't mean that the time in Darien wasn't important to Hernando de Soto.
It was during these years in the quote school of the Villa end Quote that
Soto first learned the brutal mechanics of conquest in the Indies, the basics of
how to design a camp designed not to colonize, not to settle a place,
but how to comb it efficiently and ruthlessly for slaves and treasure. He
also learned how to equip an expedition, to organize a marching column of vanguard
outriders, native porters, servants, and rear guard, to select the best
men for his captains and scouts, to keep his soldiers, horses and war
dogs healthy by living off food plunder from the Indians, to gather intelligence properly
on his intended victims, and to act pragmatically in almost any situation. But
even more important was Soto's continuing education in the morays of this era, a
culture in which men like these conquistadors never doubted their right to lay waste to
entire nations and peoples in their native homes, all in the name of profit,
conquest, salvation, and glory. Indeed, Devia's conquests by pillage and
violence is essentially the story of El sid and of knights Errant throughout Europe,
the point being that the wise men served in equal measure the King, God,
his companeros, and his own ambitions. Often those things were meant to
be one and the same. We'll never know how many Indians died in Panama
during Soto's teenage years. Ovie, though, that historian from before with the
Princess, he says about two million died between fifteen fourteen and fifteen twenty six.
This is a number that is impossibly high and is in no way supported
by the archaeological record. On the other hand, eyewitness accounts all claimed that
Panama in fifteen fourteen was mostly under cultivation or cleared for hunting, and that
a sizable population lived in the interior of the Darien region during these years.
What we can say is that that population that cleared in that land, that
hunted that game, vanished. Pedro de Villa, or says he's oftentimes called
in the records, who was a spiteful man. He hated Balboa. Because
Balboa had discovered the quote unquote south Sea the Pacific, which Davia had expected
to do, so in anger, the Via confiscated all of Balboa's property.
Frankly, nothing that's surprising about this part of the story is how long Balboa
lasted after the villa arrived. Balboa weathered these attacks as he could, sending
letters to the king insisting that the Villa was a terrible governor, someone who
lacked the skills needed to make darian a success, accusations which were almost certainly
true. I do understand the Villa's feelings to an extent. He must have
felt continuously upstaged by the more dashing, younger Balboa, and when news arrived
in fifteen fifteen that King Ferdinand was dying, Davia knew he could start to
press his advantage. He realized that once Ferdinand died, the edges of the
Empire, which certainly Panama was, would not be anyone's concern. Davia would
be able to do what he wanted. So when Balboa came to the villa
and requested permission to found essentially a new colony, Via denied his request without
so much as a second glance. Balboa made preparations to leave anyway, which
infuriated d Villa. At this point. Then di Via throw caution to the
wind and accused Balbo of treason, placing him in chains. This was too
much for Balboa's followers, who threatened to storm the prison. The Villa,
however, moved too quickly for Balboa's unorganized supporters to act, moving his prisoner
to the patio of his own mansion, where under heavy guard, he incarcerated
the governor of the South Sea in a cage like some sort of wild animal.
Here Balboa remained for several weeks as da Via tried to contain what loomed
as a full scale insurrection. As the crisis deepened, however, even a
man as stubborn as de Villa realized that he had gone too far. This
is particularly true aft or the intervention of his wife, who insisted he not
only backed down but offer a gesture of reconciliation. Loss One day in late
fifteen fift or early fifteen sixteen, the Via stunned the colony again, not
only releasing Vasco Nunes de Balboa from his cage, but also announcing that he
and his rival had made peace. Sealing the deal with a surprise announcement that
Balbo would be betrothed to one of the Villa's five daughters, a teenager who
happened to then be back in Spain. The colonists greeted this announcement first with
astonishment and then relief, though at least some must have realized that a quarrel
as bitter as this could never be fully resolved, and frankly they were right.
It was only a matter of time for these two men clashed again.
Which side and all of this Soto supported, we don't know sure he probably
would have gravitated toward the young and dashing Balboa, but we do know that
later in life Soto's attachments were rarely ironclad. He is likely to have supported
whichever side he thought would best serve his ambitions. What we do know is
that Sodo was then involved in joining Balboa's South Sea expedition. This was the
expedition to Via originally rejected, but upon Balboa's release, he had no choice
but to assent. Certainly, Balboa's project had been made possible by his rap
approachment with his now father in law, but de Villa could not help himself
from making life difficult for his son in law, continuing to make it hard
for him to acquire supplies and men, and giving him an almost impossibly short
timeline of eighteen months to set up a new functioning colony. Showing his usual
pragmatism, Balboa didn't move immediately to the other sea. For several months,
he had been building and organizing Akala, a settlement on the Caribbean side,
eighty miles to the west of Santa Maria, selected for a protected harbor in
its location below the mountain passes leading south, Akala was ideal as a base
of operation and would serve as a link with the outside world as soon as
he set up a colony on the Pacific side. By delaying in Alcala,
Balboa was also playing his cards wisely. He gave him a chance to see
if the villa would actually stick to his policy of reconciliation, something he needed
to be reasonably sure of before moving to the Pacific. There, he would
be heavily dependent in the first few months on supplies and goodwill from the colonists
back and Darien. Furthermore, Balboa may have lingered in Alcala, hoping to
hear from Spain where he was convinced that Ferdinand's eventual successor would remove the villa
from his post and put someone there more to their personal liking. By late
autumn fifteen seventeen, when Sodo returned from his original expedition, Colla was already
a small but reasonably prosperous community quote, settled in the same manner as that
of Darien End quote. According to one eyewitness, who said that the town
was about several small huts in a church, arranged around a central square and
flanked by terraced foothills where settlers and indigenous servants could grow corn, beans,
yams, pineapples, and spices. Late November of that year fifteen seventeen is
probably the earliest that Soto could have reached a Colla. By then, Balboa
was finished with the city and preparing to launch a second stage of his colonial
strategy. This was a policy of harvesting timber in the local hills. The
idea was to build four brigantines and use those to explore a mysterious land of
the south people were also talking about. Apparently it was called Peru, where
people quote eat and drink out of gold vessels and gold is as cheap as
iron is with you end quote. This is an early reference, of course
to Peru, and if Balboa would have lived, there is all likelihood that
he would have made the discovery ahead of Francisco Pisaro. Again, Soto's role
in this expedition is unknown, but there's evidence that it was during this time
that Soto first formed a pact of brotherhood with two men who are going to
be really important in the story going forward. One is Francisco Compagnon and the
other was Hernan Ponce de Leon. These would launch who would become one of
the most successful partnerships during the period of early Conquista. Compagnon was Balboa's second
in command. He was a steady, competent cavalryman who would seldom be away
from Soto's side throughout the next decade. Her Nan Ponce was quiet, but
highly efficient young man who was good at organizing supply as he was kind of
like the Diego de Almagro to Sodo the way that that man had been to
Francisco Pizzato later on when we talk about Nicaragua, Sodo would be the one
who would earn distinction of these three men, but it was Compagnan, who
was actually the most important at this point because he efficiently set to building the
boats. The problem with building the boats is that then you have to get
the boats to the Pacific, and portaging four relatively large vessels isn't easy.
By all accounts, this was a painstaking, horrific operation, loading their Indian
porters down with long, unwieldy planks weighing over one hundred pounds apiece. Balboa
and Campaignan forced hundreds of Natives to walk in chain gangs until they dropped dead
from exhausted, all for a boat building project in which the wood from the
South coast would have worked just as well. Frankly, according to de las
Casas, at least five hundred Indians died and possibly quote in excess of two
thousand end quote, a carnage he blames both on Balboa and Kompagnan, who
he vilifies in his historia as a chief executioner of the Indians. Soto didn't
get mentioned, probably because he was just too insignificant at this time, Yet
he was certainly there, participating in a project that reels a lot about Spanish
attitudes and their assumption that it was normal to work hundreds of human beings to
death, purposely valuing them as worth no more than a few days of hard
labor before they expired and had to be replaced. That Soto shared, this
attitude is going to become abundant, clear when we get to Luftloda, where
several times he's going to overwork native porters, caring only about their demise because
it means he's going to have to find more. That being said, for
once, the Indians were not entirely alone in their suffering here. This is
because Balboa, probably realizing his native porters were going to die before all the
planks were transported over the mountains, ordered the Spaniards themselves to join in the
expedition transporting as well. In fact, Balboa himself picked up the first plank,
hoisted it on his back, and began carrying it across. Normally,
it would have been anathema for such a mundane task to have fallen to Spaniards.
Remember, going to the New World was all about figuring out how to
avoid physical labor for the rest of your life, not perform physical labor.
As spring turned to summer, the hardships of this bloody portage across the Isthmus
merely became the first of several calamities that bedeviled this boat building project for starters.
Once the wood was delivered, Balboa found himself with only enough to build
two brigantines, not four. Next came the stunning revelation that the timber was
honeycombed with worms and rot from seawater, and therefore useless. Then, just
as Balboa was rallying his men to cut fresh planks on the south Sea coast,
which they could have done initially, the river nearby abruptly flooded, washing
away all the newly cut wood and also the entire camp and all their provisions.
For Soto, this must have seemed familiar, as the last expedition that
he went on, probably the first real expedition that he went on, ended
with a flooding river washing away most of the supplies and half of the men.
Now they were in a flooded valley with nothing to eat and no boats
to make their escape, a situation that drove even the perennially optimistic Balboa to
despair and considered abandoning his project. According to Las Casas, Balboa was forced
to feed on roots, whence maybe concluded how his men lived, not to
mention the Indians. It was in the midst of this crisis that Companion volunteered
to take a small squadron and comb the surrounding country for food. Ultimately,
it was Francisco Companion who saved the entire expedition. He was able to locate
an Native American settlement not far away after devising the means to cross a river
by creating a small rudimentary bridge, and he was able to loot all of
the food that they had, thus saving the expedition. It didn't take long
then for Balbo to recover his composure, rebuild his camp, and began cutting
new timber. By the summer of fifteen eighteen, he had launched two brigantines
and was sailing with a hundred men down the coast. We know he went
up and down the gulf. We know that he sailed to what are called
the Pearl Islands. Today it's referred to as Isla del Ray, and that
he launched several more brigantines and found out a whole bunch of new information about
the Panama coast. That being said, did he find any gold, No,
did he find Peru? No? If he would have probably would have
conquered it almost certainly. And then, though De Soto participated in some or
even potentially all of these expeditions, in late fifteen eighteen, the new king,
Charles the First soon to be Charles the Fifth, finally named a replacement
for Pedro de Villa. De Villa was furious. He fired off a message
to Balboa and insisted that he returned to Darien. Balboa, who thought that
he was back in de Villa's good favor, complied he was wrong. The
moment Balbo arrived, an officer placed him under arrest. You may remember this
from the Peru episodes, but that officer was Francisco Pisato. It's interesting how
all these connections come about. Remember, those two guys are from basically the
same town. The charge was as before, treason. This time Divia had
Balbo imprisoned far from his supporters so he could do with the man as he
wished. The Chief Justice, firmly in Divilla's pocket, found Balboa guilty.
Devia did not attend Balboa's execution. Meanwhile, along the South Sea, Soto
and the rest of Balboa's expedition waited anxiously for news. When it arrived,
it was not the news they had been expecting. Balboa's death was certainly a
blow, but it was also an important lesson for the young Soto. This
was a wild world where power was local. If you could get away with
something, then you could do it. The king was, after all,
an ocean away. By fifteen nineteen, Darien had become a prosperous town,
but Soto spent little time there during this period. Instead, he was involved
in the founding of a new capital, Panama City. Darien was more advantageous
than Panama City in really all ways, but one. Panama City was located
on the narrowest part of the Isthmus, where the Pacific Ocean is only thirty
three miles from the Caribbean Sea, and that advantage was decisive. Even today,
about a fifth of Panama's population lives in this one city. On August
the fifteenth, fifteen nineteen, the Villa named Panama City the new capital of
Panama, but Sodo was not there for the ceremony. By then, restless
as ever, he was gone, he was about one hundred miles to the
west, trying to organize resources around what was the best agricultural region in Panama.
The man who he was with would also prove foundational for Sodo. Gosparre
the Espinosa, the chief justice of the colony, and the man who had
previously ordered the execution of Balboa. Not only did Espinosa assigned Sodo to his
first known command as a field captain, he was also the most systematic and
efficient expedition leader Soto had yet served under. It was really a no nonsense
style of conquest that closely resembled the Sodos, especially his mature methods of finally
balancing friendship and cruelty, patience and sudden, unremitting violence in dealing with local
Indian leaders. Ortolomadalas Casas describes Espinosa in terms that sound a lot like Ovado's
description of Sodo in Florida two decades later, quote the lawyer Espinosa systematically killed
Indians by setting some to the dogs, ordering others hung, and having others
have their noses hacked off and quote. Espinosa and Sodo, though, were
very different when it comes to temperament. Espinosa was cool, dispassionate. He
was a conqueror lawyer. Soda was hot headed on a reckless warrior. Yet
both showed an uncommon mastery of the classic conquisador strategy against the Indians. Moreover,
Sodo's style was always more methodical and calculated than most who grew up under
Pedro de Villa. As we'll see, he's going to make a name for
himself not only a virtuoso of the quick charge, I mean cavalry charge,
but also a master negotiator, frequently called up in Nicaragua and Peru to parlay
with the Native Americans. In fifteen nineteen, Espinoza's and Tarrada returned to Panama
City, that was in October, after securing the fealty of several local tribes
and organizing food shipments from the regions of the capital. Soto, however,
didn't stay in de Villa's new city for long. In fifteen twenty, he
departed again for that same region, which was referred to as the Petit that
region accompanying Espinosa's third and final campaign in western Panama. This time, the
Chief Justice headed north into the mountains above the flat lands. He planned not
only to extend Spanish authority in the area, but also to chase down a
rumor of copious amounts of gold hidden in the region. It was on this
expedition that Sodo suddenly becomes more than a name in an obscure archival document and
bursts forth from the pages of at least one Conquista history in an incident where
he not only proved himself a daunting fighter, but also managed to save Espinoza
and his entire army from almost certain annihilation during an ambush deep in the interior.
The expedition began in Panama City, with Espinoza dividing his army into two
sections. The main group traveled by ship under his own command, while a
smaller contingent of one hundred men trekked overland, led by Captain Francisco Pisaro.
This smaller unit was further divided into a main army and a vanguard, later
commanded by Sodo, a position he would repeatedly hold for much of his career,
most notably in Peru. Bartolomy de les Classas tells us the story of
what happened several days out from Panama City when Soda was leading the vanguard of
thirty men. These were composed of a handful of horsemen, all the rest
on foot. They were marching across wild open foothills around the Tavasara Mountains for
about fifteen to twenty miles north of the Gulf of Pirata, which in and
of itself as the crow Flies, is probably about eighty miles from Panama City.
Apparently, Soda was reconnoitering this rugged country, which probably looked a lot
like the hills around his hometown, when suddenly he heard the quote shouts and
noise of battle end quote up ahead. Knowing that Espinoza's main force might be
in the area, he gave the order for his men to rush forward.
Las Casas says Soda, then rode up to height overlooking the valley, where
he saw, to his horror, hundreds of Native American warriors, perhaps a
thousand, and they had already down Espinoza's forces trapped in a gully. One
eyewitness says, quote. The Spaniards could make no use of their horses,
which was a great disadvantage because the Indians lacked neither courage nor strength, and
quote. Soto had several choices. The safest and most prudent would have been
to ride back to Pisoto and summon the entire overland force as reinforcements, but
Soto making the kind of snap decision for which he would later become famous,
chose instead the most dramatic, the most reckless option available. A witness tells
us that he led his entire tiny force to bring unexpected help to Espinosa's forces,
attacking directly into the rear of an army that outnumbered him as much as
thirty to one, a move foolhardy enough that it should have ended Sodo's career
right then and there, but skill and luck prevailed. Somehow, Sodo caused
an of confusion to force the Indians to pull back momentarily from their assault.
Apparently they believed themselves to be under the attack of a much larger contingent of
Spaniards. This gave Espinosa's men time to erupt out of the valley and face
down the warriors with their own horses, though the native army, once they
realized their error, quickly re engaged the Spaniards in a country still too rugged
for the effective use of cavalry, forcing them to retreat. The Indians harassed
them quote with great vigor end quote. As Espinosa's army withdrew to their ships
after being driven out of the mountains, Espinosa sailed a few miles down the
coast, where he deposited Soto and around fifty men. The idea was for
them to establish a tiny settlement, but no sooner had they done so that
native warriors descended upon them. So too, escaped and with his men,
rode hard to Panama City. Later, the VAT would return to that same
area with a larger force, which once again contained Hernando de Soto. After
clearing out the locals, once in verall, Sodo and several other men settled
down to live in the fertile region at the base of the Tapasana Mountains,
around one hundred miles southwest of Panama City on the Pacific Ocean. Soda would
live there for the next three years. Then, one day in early fifteen
twenty, word reached Panama of a startling discovery quote they call it Mexico end
quote. Further news ruled in from there about Cortez's arrival in fifteen nineteen,
his capture of Montezuma, his flight from Tinostklan, and his return. All
of this filled everyone Soto included, with wonder and desire. On June fifth,
fifteen twenty three, another explorer showed up in Panama with another tale.
His name, confusingly was also Davia Gonzalez Davia. He claimed to have discovered
a new Mexico, a new land of gold. At this time to the
south, it was the land of nick alt Nahawak, which he mispronounced as
Nicaragua. Sodo seems to have decided at once to join this expedition, being
outfitted to return to and conquer this Nicaragua, this new kingdom full of gold.
Now I want to pause here because it is important to recognize at this
point in history. Remember we're not yet twenty five years into the sixteenth century
yet, so you know, we're about thirty years removed from Columbus's first voyage
of discovery. European understanding of the geography of the New World is still very,
very rudimentary. And I want to point out that it isn't going to
be until Lewis and Clark's expedition across North America in what is going to be
the early nineteenth century, so almost four hundred or three hundred excuse me,
years from now, that modern Americans are going to have a full and complete
understanding of the American West. So the fact that Europeans think that there are
all these civilizations of gold. Isn't surprising No one knew about Mexico and Cortez
stumbled upon that. Who's to say they can't stumble upon another advanced civilization.
In fact, it stands to reason that there should be more. And so
as we start to criticize Soto later on this episode for foolishly following these dreams
of cities of gold, remember that on several occasions those rumors had turned out
to be true. And if the upshot is that you become a multi millionaire
overnight by finding one of these civilizations, maybe it is worth looking. Regardless,
Soto had lived in the same region for about four years now. His
time there had been very profitable, but as I mentioned, he wanted the
big payday, not just the safe life. He wanted an empire to conquer.
By royal decree, Gonzalez Divia held the concession from the crown to conquer
Nicoagua. By the fall of fifteen twenty three. However, several rideals were
also organizing expeditions to invade Nicaragua and several other territories in Central America. This,
of course, should go without saying because I've talked about it a lot
when we talked about the issue between piece Auto and Almagro in Peru. But
let's just say that nobody exactly knew where the boundaries of Nicaragua began and ended.
So who conquers what is again really a question of who gets there first.
Now, the other rivals included not only Davia Pedro Davilla back in Panama,
but two captains of Hernan Corteses sent out late in fifteen twenty three and
early fifteen twenty four by Cortes himself on probing expeditions south of Mexico City.
The first of these was Pedro de Alvarado, who we probably remember from those
episodes, marching southeast near the Pacific coast with five hundred men headed towards what
is Guatemala and El Salvador. Cristobald de Olid, the second of the rivals,
led another five hundred men as he marched across the Yucatan toward what would
become Honduras. Soto joined another expedition, this one led by Hernandez de Cordoba
and his business partner Hernan Ponce, who was probably the one who negotiated Soto's
participation. The country Cordoba planned to invade comprises one of the most fertile valleys
in Latin America, a wide corridor of rich black soil, dark blue lakes,
and a string of smoldering volcanoes stretching two hundred and fifty miles along a
major fault line just inside the Pacific coast. A few landscapes in Latin America
impressed the Spaniards more the dramatic sweep of abrupt, steaming cones of volcanoes some
five or six thousand feet high, the deep lagoons filling collapsed volcanoes, and
an inland sea the size of Chesapeake Bay, which some of the Indians called
Coco Boloca and which the Spanish renamed elmar LuSE. The freshwater sea Las Casas,
during a visit to Nicaragua in the late fifteen twenties, called Nicaragua quote
a paradise of God endquote. Oviedo our historian called it quote the most beautiful
and satisfying country to be found in the Indies end quote. Late in fifteen
twenty three, Cordoba and his two hundred and thirty man army boarded ships for
Costa Rica just south of Nicaragua. Sadly, what happens next is a bit
of a mystery. There is no record of Corboba's invasion of Nicaragua, but
it's possible to at least construct a broad outline of what happened. He almost
certainly encountered arm resistance from the moment he left his ships and marched inland.
Sodo was a quick and talented commander, and I have little doubt that Cordoba
placed him in command of the lead of Italian Esodo stormed across the Great Valley,
entering each new kingdom in turn. He first would have found himself on
a dirt road, sneaking through the wild, overgrown bands of forest and scrub
that served as a buffer between new neighboring polities. Next, he would have
entered partially burned and cleared land used for hunting, which gave way to farmsteads,
small villages, and expansive fields of maize, beans, sweet potatoes,
pineapple, papaya, avocado, and of course cash crops things like cotton,
cacao, tobacco. Finally, Sodo would have reached the chief city of the
kingdom, where he and the army probably fought a decisive battle, crushing their
native counterparts before marching down the narrow streets lined by the city's various homes,
all constructed of whitewashed adobe and thatch. Eventually, these streets led to the
invaders city central Plaza, edged by small earth and stone pyramids and palaces.
The powerful armies in the area of Nicaragua apparently succumbed quickly to the Spanish onslaught,
though not without a fight. According to Gonzales Davilla, the largest city
states were capable of fielding armies of several thousand men, used to fighting and
ordered ranks and battle formations, and armed with a formidable arsenal of clubs,
stone topped maces, slings, javelins, small bows and arrows, and swords
carved out of wood and stone. The Nicaraguans also used armor, the rank
and file dressing themselves in quilted cotton jerkins and heavy wooden helmets, the kings
and generals wearing breast arm and leg plates made of gold. Given this formidable
array of weaponry, it's surprising how quickly the highly disciplined armies of Nicaragua collapsed,
apparently in just the matter of weeks. The explanation for this, however,
lies not so much with gaps in technology, but with the Nicodaguan's style
of warfare. Over the centuries, it had evolved into an almost ceremonial exercise.
Fought less to conquer or kill an enemy than score some minor victories on
matters of territorial disputes, and even more importened to capture prisoners, the major
source of victims for sacrificial blades. This, as you'll remember, is what
held back the Mexica when they first encountered Cortez. A desire to capture rather
than kill. Nicodaguan's conducted battle and war according to a set of rules that
began with elaborate ceremonies to prepare for battle, offering gifts and invitation to feasts,
and then progressed to skirmishes. Fought more to get close enough to ones
opponent to knock him senseless or otherwise grab him and haul him away than to
kill him. This mode of fighting explains why Gonzalis the Villas one hundred poorly
armed men escaped all these surprise attacks without a single man killed one was captured
that we know of, and why Cordoba lost few if any men during his
invasion. Yet the Indians were still capable of fighting with great ferocity, as
indicated by a grizzly story. Ovier, though, tells us about what happened
when Cordoba's army approached a chief city of the Maribillos, one of the Native
American bands. He writes, quote, when the Indians saw the daring and
vigor of the Spaniards, they devised a new stratagem of war. And for
this the Indian soldiers killed many old Indians, male and female, their parents
and neighbors, and they flayed them. Afterwards, they killed them and ate
the meat and kept their skins, and the live Indians wore them outside with
only the eyes removed. Thinking. It is said with this innovation that the
site would scare away the Christians and frighten their horses. So when the Christians
left their camp, the Indians refused to engage them in battle. Before they
had formed their forward line, those Indians cloaked in the skins of others.
With their bows and arrows, they started the battle in spirited fashion, with
many terrifying shouts. The Christians marveled at their audacity and even felt some fear
under the circumstances, but falling into place, they commenced to attack the enemy
and wound and killed those who had lined themselves with the flayed skins of the
dead. By late spring fifteen twenty four, the conquest of the Great Valley
was complete. Cordoba settled layon the main city in the region, naming Soto
as one of its founders. Leon would from now be the capital of this
new colony. And here Cordoba got some bad news. Two other Spanish expeditions
were presently making their way through Nicaragua. One was only about one hundred miles
off, so Cordoba dispatched Soda with messages for both groups. Nicaragua was already
conquered, go home, and thus began the wars of the Captains. It
is important here to pause and consider the ramifications of Cortes's conquest of Mexico.
Up to fifteen nineteen, the exploration and conquest of New Spain was very much
tough heavy. It was directed from Spain, mostly King Ferdinand and his court.
Cortez changed everything. He did not have permission to conquer Mexico, at
least not initially, but he took the initiative, and that in the end
was rewarded because he became one of the richest man in the world, and
so the lid came off of Pandora's box. Now men realized they could just
take whatever they wanted and then get post facto authorization. In other words,
don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness, and if you have enough gold,
you're probably going to get it. After all, the new king,
Charles the Fifth, was far too concerned with affairs in Europe to micro manage
these men, and as a result anarchy, or at least near anarchy.
Initially, Sodo was going to take his force and confront one of the approaching
captains, in this case Gonzales de Vila, the man who had first given
Sodo the idea to go to Nicaragua. But then when Cordoba heard that Cortes's
old lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado was headed toward the Great Valley with five hundred men,
he ordered Sodo to reconnoiter that army. Instead, Sodo left that summer
fifteen twenty four at the head of a force of eighty men, but the
expected showdown never happened. Alvarado pulled back to Guatemala, and so Sodo wrote
off in the direction of Gonzales de Villa instead. It would be this event
that would officially launch the War of the Captains. Sodo approached to Villa's position,
making as much noise as he could. He wanted to Vila to think
he had the larger force. The Villa was more cautious. Soto knew this
land better than he did, and so best to make discretion the better part
of valor. When the two forces finally did meet, and again, sadly,
we don't have a ton of information for all of this, so it's
kind of peace together from recollections after the fact. But what we do know
is when the two forces did meet. At first, Soto, even though
he was badly outnumbered, had the better of it. But that night Davila's
secretly sent for reinforcements. They fell upon Soto's men in the night, overwhelmed
them, and took Soto captive. For Hernando. To Soto, this was
a humiliation unlike anything he had ever experienced, but Cordoba still appreciated Soto's efforts.
He ransom the young man back immediately, and that was because despite his
defeat in battle, Soto's aggressiveness convinced the Villa that Nicaragua wasn't worth it,
and so he, like Alvarado, turned around and retreated. But the Villa's
retreat did not end this game of conquistador whac a mole. Instead, new
faces kept showing up, men like cristobald Olid, another of Cortes's commanders.
Making things worse, The governor of Panama, Pedro Tha Villa, walked back
into a fray, sending an army to punish Cordoba. Pedroda Villa believed that
Nicaragua fell under the auspices of his governorship in Panama. He wasn't happy that
Cordoba thought he could create his own little kingdom within his territory, so true
to his unforgiving form, he promptly had Cortoba executed. Things were now getting
out of hand, so Charles the Fifth tried to step in. Taking a
break from his interminable European wars, he issued orders in fifteen twenty five that
Spaniards in the New World were forbidden to fight one another, though in hindsight
he may as well have ordered the wind to stop blowing. The crown as
usual was just too far away. Plus, Charles never did the one thing
that would have made this all better. He didn't delineate clear lines of authority.
He continued to just give different governors and conquistadors vague descriptions of where they
might go, whom they might conquer, so on and so forth, never
mind the fact that many of these vague descriptions overlapped because nobody really knew where
anything was anyway. Certainly, Sodo was disappointed at this turn of events.
He had hoped to carve out his own kingdom in Nicoagua. Now that wasn't
going to happen. Sodo's best hope at this point was that Pedro Davilla might
be replaced, and Charles the fifth did recall him. Many expected that the
old man would be forced into retirement, but court intrigue saved the man,
increasingly known as the Wrath of God. Charles the fifth believed that Tavilla was
the only man able to bring some form of stability to the region, so
he chastised him for allowing all this chaos in the first place and executing Cordoba,
and then sent him back to Nicaragua. Still, I do want you
to recognize that at this point, Pedro de Villa is ninety years old,
or maybe even older. Many you certainly were wondering how much longer you could
possibly last. So for now, Sodo was content to live and enrich himself
in Nicaragua. In the spring of fifteen twenty eight, he was twenty eight
years old and would spend the next four years in Nicaragua consolidating his wealth and
power. They weren't all good times. In fifteen twenty eight, one of
Sodo's closest friends died during many of the waves of plague that swept the New
World during this period. Moreover, for the natives of Nicaragua and the surrounding
areas, the decade of Hernando de Soto's ascendency was basically an apocalypse. In
an astonishingly short period, proud Indian city states were obliterated, their cultures were
destroyed, and their peoples implacably pushed towards extinction that would be all but complete
by the end of the century. Before the conquest of Nicaragua, Bartolome de
las Casas suggested that over a million Indians lived in the Great Valley, a
number that he said dwindled to apps two hundred thousand by fifteen thirty seven.
Even if exaggerated, this indicates a spectacular level of decline. Las Casas,
who visited the Great Valley in the mid fifteen twenties, blames this sudden depopulation
on familiar combination of warfare, forced labor, disease, and despair leading to
suicide. The scope of the killing, however, staggered even he is considerable
imagination, as he reported murders and robberies on a skill so vast quote,
it is not possible for the pen to relate upon the slightest pretext. The
soldiers massacred the inhabitants without regard to age, sex, or condition. They
exacted from certain measures of corn and certain numbers of slaves, and if these
were not rendered, they hesitated not to kill the delinquents end quote. While
Sodo was consolidating his power in nico Agua, somewhere to the south, the
chance encounter would change his life forever. In fifteen twenty seven, off the
coast of what today is Peru, Francisco Pizaro stumbled upon the Inca Empire.
He did not know it yet, but he had found the other great Mesoamerican
Empire. Word of Pisaro's discovery reached Nicaragua as Pissaro himself sailed back to Spain
to get permission to conquer this new kingdom. Obviously, to men like Soto,
this news hit like a bombshell, but for the moment, there was
nothing Soto could do about it. Pedro Davilla, now over ninety, had
sold out his interest in Peru and was determined that no one who lived in
his colony would be allowed to take part in any conquest. The Villa did
not die until fifteen thirty one, so until then there was nothing Soto could
do but cool his heels. But no one lives forever, and as I
mentioned, on March the sixth, fifteen thirty one, Pedro de Villa finally
died. Sodo was elated. He was now free to join up with Pisardo
and make his fortune conquering a new land. Later that same month, Sodo
and his partner Hernan Pons da Leone got a bump in the direction of Peru
from Pisardo himself. Pizaro sent three thousand pacos worth of gold to encourage potential
conquistadors in Nicaragua to travel to Peru. Coupled with rumors of vast quantities of
riches, which this case turned out to be true. Sodo had no issue
recruiting men to join him on this new expedition. Francisco Pizaro now became the
man who would dominate Sodo's life for the next half a decade. Pisardo lacked
the reckless ambition of Hernan Cortes or even Sodo himself, but he started.
He wanted a kingdom of his own, and he was willing to do what
it took to secure one. Sodo's time with Pisaro would continue training the young
man for his own expedition to Florida. Now, look, we've already covered
the conquest of the Inca Empire in great detail. I'm not going to repeat
that at all here from Soto's perspective, because to a large extent it isn't
much different. So I'm going to go through Soto's time in Peru pretty quickly,
even though to a large extent, this is where Sodo would accumulate the
only riches he would ever find. It took a while, but Soto and
his men finally were able to link up with Pisodo's force. They were expected
to see piles of gold simply sitting by the shore, waiting to be loaded
onto the ships, and so on and so forth. What they found instead
was Pisaro's one hundred and eighty miserable Spaniards, ill and pinned down by hostile
natives. The newcomers were stunned. Pedro Pissaro would write quote Francisco Pisaro and
those who were with him received much pleasuring contentment, although those would come did
not feel the same way, because as they had left the paradise which Nicaragua
was, and had found an island in revolt, lacking in food, and
the greater part of the troops sick, and neither gold nor silver. So
him and all wish to return whence they had come. And the Captain Soto
shamefully did not prevent the talk, nor did the principal soldiers, not being
able to do so. End quote. Far more distressing for Soto was the
discovery that Francisco Pisaro had already named his brother Hernando to the post of lieutenant
general or second in command. A sixteenth century historian reported that Soto was quote
not pleased end quote. But Soto, at the end of the day decided
to stick it out with the Pizarro expedition. He knew he could out hustle
most of Francisco's brothers, as their leadership skills were not good, and very
shortly, as we'll see from his perspective, things one turned around. That
being said, as the army prepared to leave Puna, which was the local
town that they were hold up in late in fifteen thirty one, Sodo remained
furious over Henan Pisato's elevation to lieutenant general, but this didn't stop him from
quickly distinguishing himself as Pisato's most reliable captain in the field. Sodo departed Muna
for the mainland with fifteen men, traveling forty miles across the choppy streets on
a raft until he reached Toombez. Sodo expected a routine crossing to a friendly
territory, and he didn't get it. In fact, he walked directly into
a surprise attack. Luckily for Sodo, for once, he actually wasn't the
first one off the boats. If he had been, his life story probably
ended right there with a sudden assault by native soldiers and along excruciating death by
torture. Instead, this fate befell three young soldiers who beat their captain to
the mainland. According to Pedro c As de Lyon, the men were attacked
by fighters, likely Inca, as they came ashore. Hiding in the nearby
bush. The natives burst out onto the beach, overwhelmed the men, and
dragged them into a nearby forest. According to the same source quote, these
wretches went to shore without suspecting anything, and they cried out as the Indians
with great cruelty removed their eyes, and the barbarians hacked off their penises,
and having kettles put over great fires, they put them inside and finished them
off, killing them in great torment end quote. Accounts differ slightly about what
happened next, as other rafts and SODA's party came ashore. According to the
same man, Soda was near enough the three captured men to attempt a rescue,
but was turned back by a ferocious native assault. From there, Soda
journeyed onward until he linked up his forces with Pissaro in kashemar well I already
covered events there several episodes ago. It's worth remembering that Soto, not Pizarro,
was the first European to exchange words with Atahualpa. Atahualpa was roughly Soto's
same age. He was, also, according to his reputation, intelligent and
ruthless. Again, we talked about this part in terms of the Inca Atahualpa
saga before, but just to summarize from the Soto's standpoint, I think it's
interesting to remember that Soto was the one who went to see Atahualpa at his
camp in order to lure him within Kaja Marca. When Soto arrived at the
gate to the Inca palace, he found outa Walpa seated in a courtyard outside
a small palace, surrounded by brilliantly clad nobles, servants, and aids.
The Inca's throne was not one of the massive, imposing types that you've seen
all the images in medieval Europe and so on and so forth. It was
a quote small stool, very low to the ground end quote, as if
to say that Otto Wallpa's very person was awe inspiring enough he didn't need the
throne. Likewise, his crown was a simple circlet of colorful beads and chords
hung in a tassel. I tend to imagine this meeting of worlds, because
here you have, on the one hand, really this sort of paragon,
this example of the heights of Mesoamerican civilization seated and they're on horseback, is
the height of I would say, Renaissance Europe conquistadore culture. Staring down at
them. He's there in polished armor, plumes, weapons, so on and
so forth, things that Ottawappa would have no idea what they are. And
to an extent, Soto doesn't know the way this is going to go either,
and at first the effort to impress Atahua but just falls totally flat.
The Inca simply continues to just stare straightforward, as if Soto isn't even there.
An awkward silence ensued, broken only when Soto brodded his mount forward so
close to the Inca quote that the horses nostrils stirred the fringe that the Inca
had placed on his forehead end quote. But Attahuallpa never moved, he never
even reacted to the horse in any sort of way. At some point,
maybe tired of this, Atahualpa tells a servant to go ahead and accept a
large gold ring that Soto took quote from his finger as a token of piece
and friendship on behalf of the Christians end quote. So interestingly enough, this
relationship actually begins with Soto the European giving gold to the Inca. It's going
to reverse itself very soon here, as you already know. Sodo then delivers
a speech, and then Hernando Pizzaro, who's also there, gets his part
in, and he gets to explain who they are, what they're doing there,
so on and so forth. Not that Atahuapa would have had any idea
what's going on, but Soto, in so many ways remains sort of the
front man in all of this, and he to a large extent may not
have understood Pisaro's full intentions as he was doing this. Still Atahuapa quote gave
no answer, nor did he even raise his eyes to look at the captain
that means Soto quote. Instead, a nearby chief answered for him. He
told Soto that Atahuapa was in the midst of religious ceremony, he was fasting,
that he would tell the governor and he means Pizzaro, that he would
visit him the next day in Kasha Marca, which is all that Soto really
had come out for in the first place. Now in mind that the Spaniard
situation, still by anyone's standard, was hopeless. There were only one hundred
and sixty eight of them surrounded by tens of thousands of Inca warriors. No
matter how brash and confident Soto might have been, even he must have felt
that they were all quite likely to die. And of course we know what
happens next, and I'm not going to rehash it. Against all odds,
Pisaro managed to capture the Inca Emperor. Now, later in life, one
of Soto's loyal lieutenants would dictate a brief memorandum claiming that it was Soto who
had been instrumental in the capture of Atahualpa. That may well be true,
but if it is, those claims are not substantiated elsewhere. One thing that
we do know is that Soto was intimately involved in the pillaging of the Inca
camp. The day after Atahualpa's I'm sure Hernando de Soto woke up early to
begin another round of marauding. He thundered out of the city gates, probably
still not realizing his life had been transformed forever by what had happened the day
prior. He'd gone from a successful but obscure frontiersman, soon to be a
sensation throughout the Hispanic world and Europe in general. In the coming weeks,
as words spread to the colonies and thence to Europe about the kidnapping of Atahualpa,
the exploits of the flamboyant and Anano de Soto would be told over and
over again throughout Spain and all its extremities. Sodo became the first European to
journey into the Andes. He was the first to meet Atahualpa, and he
was the first to entertain Antahualpa, in fact, with a display of Castilian
horsemanship, before leading one of the units of cavalry in a key attack at
Cajamarca. Upon arriving back in the Inca camp, Soto quickly got down to
the very serious business of looting Atahualpa's tent. Given the capture of the Emperor,
the Inca military structure was now totally paralyzed. The army would do nothing
to stop them. Just how much time Soto spent with Atahualpa from that point
until his death remains disputed. Soto claims they spent hours together in gosh I
wish we had a record of that, just talking or playing chess, a
game that Atahualpa enjoyed and he was apparently quite good at. During the following
months, the Spaniards increasingly found themselves on the defensive as rumors of an impending
INCA attack mounted. Soto spent the time administering the military affairs of the city,
organizing supplies, supervising the legal system, paying officials, etc. Etc.
Certainly, I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that Hernando
de Soto was the man friend Cisco Pizaro trusted the most outside his own family.
There is also some evidence during this time that Soto took part in the
torture of several high ranking INCA commanders. Now this is important because for centuries
historians argued that Soto was the most humanitarian of any conquistador. These incidents suggest
that wasn't the case. That's not to say that Sodo was any worse than
Pisardo or Cortez. The reality is he was probably about the same. And
as I mentioned before, no matter how important Sodo might have been to Pissaro,
he always came in second to his brothers. When Francisco Pisaro divided up
the initial spoils. Second place went to Hernando Pisaro, not Soto. This
wouldn't be the last time that Sodo would be slighted in favor of a Pisoto
brother. That being said, Sodo received truly a staggering amount of loot at
Kajamarca, even after Almago arrived with fresh reinforcements. Soto was Pisardo's most capable
subordinate, and Pissaro rewarded him as such. One of the more confusing incidents
surrounding Soto's time in Peru concerns Atahualpa's death. In the early summer fifteen thirty
three, rumors flew around Kajamarca that a massive Inca army was gathering around the
nearby valley of Rumi Navi. There are two accounts of what happened next.
In one, Pisardo dispatches Soto to investigate the rumors. While Soto was gone,
more information came in, seemingly confirming the rumors, and Pisodo relented to
Attahwalpa's death. But that's not the only account. In the other account,
Pisarto wanted to kill Atahualpa from the beginning, but he knew that Soto was
staunchly against the idea, so Pisaro lied to Hernando de Soto and sent him
on this errand, knowing the second Soto was gone, Antahualpa was a dead
man. I'm not sure which account is true, though it is bizarre that
Pisaro did not wait for Soto to return before killing Atahualpa. Soto got back
a few days after Atahualpa's death and dispelled immediately the rumors of a rebel army.
Why didn't Pizaro wait? Hence there might be something to version two.
But the point that I want to make here is that while Soto wanted to
keep Atahualpa alive, that wasn't out of compassion for the man. He might
have liked him. True, but Soto wanted to keep Altahualpa alive because he
thought a politically puppet emperor was good for business. This is important because it
offers us a glimpse into how Soto is going to operate in La Florida.
By and large, he is going to try to follow the Cortes playbook.
Unfortunately, as he is going to find out, there just is no northern
inca empire to conquer. Soon after Atahualpa's death, Pisoto dispatched the first treasure
fleet back to Spain, along with an accounting of what had transpired so far.
This is important in our or because for the first time Europeans would have
heard the name head An de Soto. While he never became the household name
Cortez did, the notoriety of being connected to a successful conquest is not something
that we should ignore. Soto would later parlay this connection into a royal license
to conquer La Florida without the personal capital the association brought him. I'm not
sure he dies in the wilderness of Arkansas. Back in Peru, Atahualpa's death
did more harm than good. As Soto said it would. When news reached
Pizarro, than one of Atahualpa's generals intended to burn Cuzco to the ground.
He immediately dispatched Soto and seventy horsemen to secure the city before it could be
destroyed. Soto raised an astonishing two hundred and fifty miles in just five days
and reached the city before it could be raised. On October the twenty ninth,
fifteen thirty three, He divided his men into three squadrons and launched them
at what he hoped would be a surprise attack on one of the outskirts.
Unfortunately, at vas outside Cusco, Soto found himself ambushed and was lucky to
survive. Sure, the resulting battle ended with six hundred Inca dead and only
two Spanish horses fallen, but Soto's men suffered many wounded, several gravely.
They couldn't continue playing with those kind of odds, not with only one hundred
and sixty eight men. Pissaro ordered Soto to wait for the rest of the
army before he continued his advance. But now we get another tantalizing glimpse into
Soto's personality. He wanted to be the first one into Cusco. This was
about money, sure, but it was also about honor. Soto ignored the
order, now aware that Almagro and half of the Spanish army was effectively chasing
him, and pressed on to Cusco. November eighth, he reached the last
barrier before the city. As they approached the summit outside the town, Soto
was the first to see a line of dark shapes suddenly rise up above them,
followed by an instant shout that boomed and echoed across the canyon, as
shapes abruptly poured out from the top of the summit, three oh four thousand
warriors quote, coming down with great propidity. Caught by utter surprise, Soto
shouted to his terrified men quote to form a line of battle, but it
was too late. The Indians were hurling a barrage of stone at them end
quote. Most of the Spaniards scattered and ran for cover, while Soto and
those immediately around him tried to rush upward to take the summit. But according
to one the horses quote were so tired that they could not get their breath
in order to attack with impetuosity such a multitude of enemies. Nor did the
latter cease to inconvenience and harass them, attacking them continually with lances, stones,
and arrows, which they hurled at them. So they were fatigued,
all to such an extent that the riders could hardly keep their horses at the
trot or even at a walking pace. As the Indians perceived the horse's exhaustion,
they began to attack with greater fury end quote. Five Spaniards died in
the initial crush and confusion, two on horseback, the others on foot.
Before they could climb into their saddles, one man was killed, and the
natives grabbed the tail of his horse and stopped him from reaching his companions.
Unable to draw his sword in the hail of missiles and swarm of maces and
clubs, he was overwhelmed, dragged off his saddle, and beaten to a
pulp. Another man reportedly had his head cleaved in half by the force of
a single blow from a stone mace. As this bloody afternoon wore on,
Soto, showing his usual presence of mind, in the midst of battle,
managed to muster his surviving horsemen on a flat spot near the mountain. Somehow
he held off the incas long enough to water his horses in a small stream.
This brief lull gave him the chance to rally his troops and propose a
strategy. According to one he said, quote, let us withdraw here,
step by step down this hillside in such a way that the enemy may think
that we are fleeing from them, in order that they may come in search
of us below. For if we can attract them to this plane, we
will attack them all in such a sudden matter that I hope not none of
them will escape from our hands. Our horses are already somewhat tired, and
if we put the enemy to the flight, we shall end by gaining the
summit of the mountain end quote. At first, the strategy worked, as
Soto's men backtrack and lured several hundred Incas onto a flat spot where the horses
could be used effectively, but the Incas quickly caught on and retreated after losing
twenty men. The battle then continued as before until twilight, with the Spaniards
being pummeled from above. If night had not fallen, the Inca might have
killed them all. When night fell, the two sides broke off, fighting.
The Inca position troops to seal off the trails and passes to the north,
south and east. On the west was the canyon and a large river.
Under the cover of darkness, however, Soto was able to lead his
weary men up to a nearby hill two crossbow shots away from the main position.
Here he quote cared for his wounded and posted patrols and sentinels for the
night, and ordered that all the horses remained saddled and bridled. Quote.
He then attempted to rally his soldiers, telling them quote, he thought the
day to come would not be so perilous as that it had just finished,
and that God, our Lord, who had delivered them from danger in the
past, would grant them victory in the future. And he reminded them that
even when their horses were weary on that day, they had attacked their enemy
from a great disadvantage, even though their own number did not exceed fifty and
the enemy numbered at least eight thousand. Given this, should they not hope
for victory? But Sodo and every other Spaniard knew the situation was desperate.
They were trapped on a frigid hillside at twelve thousand feet, battered and bleeding,
and hemmed in by thousands of enemy troops. As if this weren't enough,
Sodo received intelligence that an enormous army under another Inca general was advancing rapidly.
No one slept that night as the Spaniards prayed and watched nervously for movements
in the Inca camp. Then suddenly, about one in the morning, Sodo's
men heard the sound off in the distance, drifting up from the canyon below.
At first they must have thought that they were dreaming. Then the noise
became more distinct, and they all knew exactly what it was, a Spanish
trumpet. It was the force under Diego de Almagro. They were saved.
When the next day dawned, the Inca were expecting a great victory and quickly
massed for an attack, only to find to their astonishment that Soto's troop had
somehow doubled overnight and was dashing up the slope to attack them. Recognizing how
the tables had turned, the Inca quickly disappeared into the hills, continuing their
march to rendezvous with the approaching army. Almagro and Soto let them go under
orders for Pissaro. If Soto felt any remorse or embarrassment over the near debacle,
no one ever mentions it, nor is there any record a Pisarto's reaction
when he caught up with his renegade captain two or three days later. One
imagines that Pizzaro must have at least censured Hernando de Soto, whose insubordination in
this matter was serious enough that a less pragmatic general might have lopped off his
head, but once again Soto's indispensability as a fighter and leaders saved him.
For Francisco, Pisoto knew he could not advance against the combined armies before him
without one of his best captains. One senses from this moment, however,
Soto's days under Pisaro were definitely numbered. Even as he and others raced for
the final push to Cusco. On November the fourteenth, two combined INCA armies
made one last desperate effort to throw back the Spaniards in the hills surrounding Cusco.
Once again, Native soldiers fought fiercely, at one point, killing several
horses and forcing a Spanish tactical retreat, but by the time that darkness fell,
the Spaniards and their Indian auxiliaries had pushed the armies of the INCA into
their final defensive positions outside Cusco. That evening, the Inca erected their tents
and lit their fires, exhausted and feeling the intense despair of an army that
on four occasions had come tantalizingly close to victory, but each time had failed,
Battered, bloody, and eleven hundred miles away from their homes in Ecuador.
These Inca soldiers decided to give up the city they had fought so hard
to capture throughout their long preceding civil war, and had tried furiously to defend
against these bizarre and unexpected iron clad warriors. That evening, they slipped away
under cover of darkness, retreating into a mountainous region southwest of Cusco. At
first light, the Spaniards rushed the abandoned Inca position, expecting a renewal of
the previous day's fighting. Instead, they found an empty hillside of spouldering ashes,
yama dung, and hastily discarded baggage. The battle for Cousco was over.
Soto el Magro and the rest quickly entered the city and took up some
of the best lodgings that they could find. But Sodo had little time to
enjoy these new luxuries, as fresh reports came in from scouts that another army
had been sighted just twenty miles southwest of the city. This prompted Pisto to
dispatch Sodo to investigate and, if possible, to smash or at least drive
away the enemy. As usual for his personality, Sodo could hardly wait to
give up his luxurious new life to dash back to the wilds. In fact,
he moved so quickly out of Cusco that he overran a small contingent of
a retreating Inca army in a bad past just before a canyon. These men
were able to hold off Soto's advanced long enough for the Anka commander to burn
the bridge behind them, a strategic victory that forced Soto into a highly vulnerable
position, having to ford a river deep in a canyon, where the Inca
forces, perched on a high bluff, were able to hurl down a steady
barrage of rocks, spears, and arrows as the Spaniards attempted to cross the
river. This gave the Inca commander enough time to pull back into a region
of high, rugged valleys and bridges to the west. Once across the river,
Soto pursued the Inca army for ten more days before calling off the chase,
telling Pisarow when he returned to Cusco that this region was quote the wildest
and most inaccessible they had ever seen end quote, But he brought the good
news that the Inca general was decisively moving away from the capital and was no
longer close enough to threaten it. Soto arrived back in Cusco in late July
or early August, this time with manko Inca in tow, and quickly restored
order to the capital city. Immediately thereafter, Soto, as was planned,
was sworn in as lieutenant governor of Cusco. But we have little documents from
this period, so there's not many specifics when it comes to Soto's actions,
etc. My guess is he probably was dealing with the day to day business
of administering to a region and essentially establishing a kingdom while Pisaro, as we
know, was off building what would become Lima. The biggest issue we know
he dealt with was dividing up the property amongst the different factions present by property,
I mean that literally, by and large, we're talking about Ncomiendez here.
At first, Sodo seemed reluctant to divide up anything. When he did,
Sodo did a fair job of it. He didn't favor the piece Arto
faction, as they no doubt expected him to. And during this time Sodo
brought two men into his inner circle who are going to be instrumental in his
operations in North America. One was Juan Ruislibo, and the other was Luis
de mos Cosco. Both men would accompany him back to Spain and then to
La Florida, and mentioned them now because Sodo came close to them while both
were in Cusco. By the spring of fifteen thirty five, the odds of
Sodo doing what he really wanted, that is, conquering his own slice of
the inc Empire were in steep decline. There were already two unauthorized expeditions to
the north and to the south. Word reached Peru that spring that Charles the
fifth had decided to give it to Diego de Almangro, not that there was
anything worth having to the south anyway, but Almagro's arrival that spring in Cusco
complicated things for Soto. At the moment, no one knew that Almagro had
been awarded what is today Chile Instead. Pisaro now declared Almagro the new lord
of Cusco, but his brother, Hernando Pizzaro, was determined not to let
Almagro take up that position. Evidently, on one occasion, Hernando drew his
sword on Sodo, who was just kind of in the middle on this,
demanding that he sighed with him. Soto calmly told him to put the weapon
down and stop quote looking for scandals end quote. This was not the end
of the incident, however, For quote when Almagro heard about this, he
said that Juan and Gonzalo Pisaro were fickle and sniveling brats, and he set
many horsemen from among his allies to protect the messenger end quote. He also
demanded that Soto, as the chief magistrate of the city, returned to the
Pisarto's palace and place Juan Pisaro on their house arrest so that he could not
leave the city. This demand forced Soto to decide between the two camps,
since to arrest Juan Pisarto would make him an enemy of the Pizarro family and
not to arrest him would alienate Diego de Almagro. In the end, Sodo's
decision was easy. Pizzaro was obviously pushing him out as Almagro was becoming master
of the next phase of conquest in the south, where everyone assumed, again
this is before the march to the South, that there'd be more Kaja marcas,
more Cusco's, more rooms filled with gold. Thus, as a contemporary
historian notes, Soto at this point abandoned any semblance of impartiality and jumped quote
in bed with Almagro and supported his interests. Sodo must have realized that Juan
Pisardo wasn't going to give himself up to arrest easily. Still, he walked
across the hot, pebble strewn plaza to the Casana Palace, dressed in his
magistrate's clothes and accompanied by the city's constable and a small guard. He demanded
the young Pisoto and his men turn over their arms and remain under house arrest,
to which Juan responded with bitterness and pride, screaming more obscenities and insults
at Soto before once again grabbing a lamp to wave in SODA's direction. By
now her another De Soto had had enough of this, always preferring action to
talk, He grabbed a lance himself from one of his guards and challenged Juan
Pisaro to fight in the plaza. Ready to brawl, the two men strolled
out into the bright sunshine under the peaks that's around Cuzco. Here, Hernando
de Soto and Juan Pisaro threw off their capes as a crowd of visitors watched
the spectacle of two of their most senior leaders swinging heavy weapons at each other,
glancing off blows and attempting to knock each other to the ground. But
both men were stout and muscular and expert fighters, which meant the duel continued
for some time without either man getting the advantage. As the fight wore on,
words spread quickly to the followers of Pisarto, el Magro and Soto,
who armed themselves and rushed to the plaza, threatening to escalate the conflict.
What happens next is not clear. Our main historian wasn't present, but he
claims that Juan Pisardo abruptly broke off the duel and retired to his palace when
it became clear his followers were too few to defeat his enemies. Eyewitnesses claim
that a recently arrived royal treasurer, a guy by the name of Antonio de
Lez de Guzman, stopped the fight dramatically by grabbing a weapon of his own
and leaping between Sodo and Pissaro, holding up his lands and shout into the
combatants. Quote the Spaniards were too far in number or to battle against themselves,
and if the two sides started fighting, the Indians would kill those who
survived, and the city would be lost. End quote. Hearing these words
this version of the story, at least Sodo cooled down and realized that his
duty was to stop the fight, which he did, though he was unwilling
to excuse what had happened. Returning to his own house in a rage,
he issued orders forbidding the Pisardos to leave the city, and then he sent
his constable and presumably a large unit of armed deputies to arrest je Pisato,
who apparently surrendered without a fight and was taken to the city jail. Again,
our contemporary historian adds that neither party acted with impartiality or wisdom during this
whole affair, though he mostly blames the twenty four year old one Pisato,
whom he says was quote always turbulent and filled with envy for one another end
quote. Even in jail, according to this man, the young Pisaro threatened
to quote go out and kill everyone. End quote. Soon afterwards, Francisco
Pisato himself arrived in Cusco to diffuse the situation, bringing with him the king's
actual concession to al Magro. Now once things calmed down, Pisardo turned on
Sodo for openly siding with al Magro. But now Sodo realized he had no
future with the Pisatos, and so he made one last ditch effort to remain
in Peru. He offered his services to Diego de Almago, who was to
lead the expedition south. Certainly, Sodo was the best military man available and
probably the best for the job, but Almagro wanted loyalty, not skill,
and so chose Rodrigo de Orgonez instead as his second in command. Sodo,
watching Almagro depart south with his army on July fifth, fifteen thirty five,
realized his time in Peru was over. He would return to Spain and ask
the king for fresh lands to conquer. In late fifteen thirty five, he
left Peru for Spain, along with enough treasure to bribe court officials, pay
for the expedition and entice young recruits. He probably left before the winter storms
began in November. At this point, Sodo would have been thirty five years
old. He had become vastly wealthier than he could have ever dreamt of,
but it wasn't enough. Persoto was very much like Alexander the Great. He
just wanted to see what was over that next tale. He wanted greater glory,
fortune and success, and now his path led him back to Europe and
the court of Charles the Fifth,