Spanish Florida (Spanish: La Florida) refers to the Spanish colony of Florida, which formed
part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Captaincy General of Cuba, and the Spanish Empire.
Originally extending over what is now the southeastern United States, but with no defined
boundaries, la Florida was a minor component of the Spanish colonization of the Americas expanding the Spanish Empire.
Wide-ranging expeditions were mounted into the hinterland during the 16th century, but Spain
never exercised effective control over la Florida outside of a band across what is now
southeastern Georgia and northern Florida, and around a few ports on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
Hernando de Soto had been one of Francisco Pizarro's chief lieutenants in the Spanish conquest
of the Inca Empire, and had returned to Spain a very wealthy man. He was appointed adelanto of
\ la Florida and governor of Cuba, and assembled a large expedition to 'conquer' la Florida.
On May 30, 1539, de Soto and his companions landed in Tampa Bay, where they found Juan Ortiz,
who had been captured by the local Indians a decade earlier when he was sent ashore from a ship
searching for Narváez. Ortiz passed on the Indian reports of riches, including gold, to be found in
Apalachee, and de Soto set off with 550 soldiers, 200 horses, and a few priests and friars. De Soto's
expedition lived off the land as it marched.
De Soto followed a route further inland than that of Narváez's expedition, but the Indians remembered
the earlier disruptions caused by the Spanish, and were wary when not outright hostile. De Soto seized
Indian men to serve as guides and porters, and Indian women to serve as consorts for his men.
The expedition reached Apalachee in October, and settled into the chief Apalachee town of Anhaica for
the winter, where they found large quantities of stored food, but little gold or other riches. In the spring
de Soto set out to the northeast, crossing what is now Georgia and South Carolina into North Carolina,
then turned westward, crossed the Great Smoky Mountains into Tennessee, then marched south into
Georgia. Turning westward again, the expedition crossed Alabama. They lost all of their baggage in a
fight with Indians near Choctaw Bluff on the Alabama River, and spent the winter in Mississippi.
In May 1541 the expedition crossed the Mississippi River and wandered through present-day Arkansas,
Missouri and possibly Kansas before spending the winter in Oklahoma. In 1542 the expedition headed
back to the Mississippi River, where de Soto died. Three hundred and ten survivors returned from the expedition in 1543.