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Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was a Genoese trader, explorer, and navigator. He was born in Genoa, Italy, in the year 1451. "Christopher Columbus" is the English version of Columbus's name. His name in Italian was Cristoforo Colombo.

In 1492, Columbus sailed from Spain to find a faster route from Asia to Europe. He landed instead on an island of the Bahamas. He is credited with the discovery of the New World because Europeans began colonizing America shortly after his voyage. While Leif Erikson was the first European to land on the soils of America, it was not well documented and did not lead to the later contact between Europe and the New World.

Columbus died on May 20, 1506, in Valladolid, Spain.

Discovery of America

Columbus was not the first European person to have discovered America. At the time of his voyage, Europeans did not know that the Americas existed. However, Leif Erikson had landed in what is now Canada around AD 1000. Native Americans had lived there for thousands of years before he arrived. However, Native Americans did not record or add to the European record of history, so Columbus discovered America according to European history.

Voyage in 1492

However, Columbus did not have enough money to pay for this voyage on his own. He went to the rulers of Spain, Ferdinand II and Isabella I of Castile, to ask for help. He promised to bring back gold and spices for them, and they promised their help. After they defeated the Emirate of Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella paid for Columbus's voyage.

In August 1492, Columbus and his sailors left Spain in three ships: the Santa María (the Holy Mary), the (the Painted), and the Santa Clara ( nicknamed the : the Little Girl).

The three ships were very small. Historians think that the largest ship, the Santa María, was only about 60 ft (18 m) long, and about 16 to 19 feet (4.8 to 5.8 m) wide. Columbus's other ships were even smaller. Historians think they were about 50-60 ft (15-18 m) long.

On October 12, 1492, after sailing for about four months, Columbus landed on a small island in the Bahamas. The natives called it Guanahani; Columbus renamed it San Salvador Island ("Holy Savior"). He met Lucayan, Taíno, and Arawak Native Americans who lived on the island. They were friendly and peaceful toward Columbus and his crew. Because Columbus did not know where he was, and thought he had reached Asia, the "Indies," he called them "Indians." He claimed their land as Spain's.

Columbus then sailed to what is now Cuba, then to Hispaniola. On Hispaniola, Columbus built a fort. This was one of the first European military bases in the Western Hemisphere. He called it Navidad (Spanish for " Christmas"). He left thirty-nine crew members there and ordered them to find and store gold.

Treatment of native people

On the day he landed in the Bahamas, Columbus wrote about the Arawaks and Taíno. He thought they would make good servants. He planned to take six of them with him when he left. He noticed that some of the Arawaks had gold earrings. He took some of them as prisoners and ordered them to lead him to the gold. However, they could not.

Second voyage

Then he went back to the Navidad fort and found the fort burned down. Eleven of the 39 soldiers Columbus left at the fort were buried there. The rest had disappeared. Historians think this happened because of disease and fights with the Arawak people.

Treatment of native people

The soldiers that Columbus left at Navidad while he was exploring Jamaica and Cuba stopped working. They began stealing from the Arawaks. This made the Arawaks decide to fight back against the Spaniards. However, Spain had many weapons that the Arawaks had never seen, including steel swords, pikes, crossbows, dogs, and horses. It was easy for Spain to win fights against the Arawaks.

Columbus also took revenge against the Arawaks for killing his soldiers at Navidad. He made every native older than 14 give him a certain amount of gold every three months. If they could not pay the gold, people would be made into slaves.

There was not much gold on the parts of the island Columbus took over. Many Arawaks tried to run away from Columbus and his men. However, Columbus's soldiers used dogs to hunt them down.

Start of the transatlantic slave trade

In February 1495, Columbus started the transatlantic slave trade. He and his soldiers captured about 1,500 Taíno. 400 were let go, 600 were kept on the island as slaves to the soldiers, and 500 were sailed back to Spain. Of those 500, about 200 died during the trip, and half of the rest were very sick when they arrived. This was the first time people had ever been shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to be sold as slaves.

Third voyage

In 1498, Columbus set out to find a continent that King John II of Portugal believed was to the southwest of the Cape Verde islands. Columbus sent three ships straight to the West Indies (the Caribbean). He led another three ships: first to two Portuguese islands, then to the Canary Islands, then to Cape Verde. From Cape Verde, they sailed to the northern coast of South America and landed in Trinidad. He also explored part of South America and the islands now called Tobago and Grenada.

Treatment of native people

When he was trying to make the Spanish settlers happy, Columbus started the Encomienda system in Hispaniola. He "gave" land, or even a whole village, to a Spanish settler. Any natives that were living on the land were forced to work for that Spanish settler.

Arrest and the last voyage

On August 23, 1500, Columbus was arrested in Hispaniola, now called Santo Domingo, for cruelty to natives and Spaniards. He was sent to Spain in chains in October 1500. He was released on December 12, 1500, and taken to court. Columbus had important friends, and the King restored his freedom. He was allowed to lead another voyage.

Columbus made a fourth voyage in 1502- 1504. On this voyage, he explored the coast of Central America from Belize to Panama. In 1502, off the coast of what is now Honduras, a trading ship "as long as a galley" was encountered, filled with cargo. This was the first recorded encounter by the Spanish with the Native American civilization of Mesoamerica.

Later Columbus was stranded on Jamaica for a year; he sent two men by canoe to get help from Hispaniola. In the meantime, he impressed the local population by correctly predicting an eclipse of the moon. Help finally arrived, and he returned to Spain in 1504.

Later life and death

In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands, according to earlier agreements. His demands were rejected. His family later sued for part of the profits from trade with America, but ultimately lost about fifty years later.

On May 20, 1506, Columbus died of heart failure and arthritis in Valladolid, Spain, at the possible age of 54. He was still convinced that his discoveries were along the East Coast of Asia. Even after his death, his travels continued with his body first buried in Valladolid and then in Seville. The will of his son Diego, who was governor of Hispaniola, had the remains transferred to Santo Domingo in 1542. In 1795 the French took over, and the body was moved to Havana. After the war of 1898, Cuba became independent and Columbus's remains were moved back to Spain, to the cathedral of Seville. However, some claim that he is still buried in the cathedral of Santo Domingo.

Personal life

Columbus's relatives said that Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy. Today, no historian can say for sure where Columbus was born. Most experts think the best evidence says he was born in Genoa. However, other historians think Columbus was born somewhere else, like Spain or Portugal. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. His mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. He had three brothers - Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo (also called Diego) - and a sister named Bianchinetta. His brother Bartolomeo ran a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.

His native language is thought to have been a Genoese dialect. His name in the 16th-century Genoese language was Cristoffa Corombo. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.

Columbus wrote that he first went to sea when he was 14 years old. In 1470, the Colombo family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern.

In 1477, Columbus married Felipa Moniz Perestrelo. She was from a semi- noble family with connections to sailing. She died around 1479 or 1480 while giving birth to their son, Diego.

In 1485, while in Córdoba, Spain, Columbus met Beatriz Enríquez de Trasierra. They lived together for a while. They had one child named Fernando. Columbus's first son Diego did not take care of Beatriz as Columbus had instructed him.

Being ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, Portuguese, and Castilian. He read about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Claudius Ptolemy, Pierre Cardinal d'Ailly's Imago Mundi, the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's Natural History, and Pope Pius II's Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum.

Columbus's goals

Columbus journeyed to the New World with goals in mind. First, he believed he could find a shorter and easier route to Asia, which made things Europe did not. Some people said this was nonsense. Columbus wanted to prove these people wrong.

After Columbus

The Spanish conquistadors first settled on the islands of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti), Cuba, and Puerto Rico. They seized as much gold as they could.

In the United States, Columbus Day is a holiday that celebrates Columbus's arrival in the New World on October 12, 1492. The World's Columbian Exposition, which happened in 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, was held to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus visiting the Americas.

Interesting facts about Christopher Columbus

The real name that he was given when he was born in Genoa was Cristoforo Colombo.

Many people during the time of Columbus believed that the Earth was flat.

Before his famous voyages, he used to sell maps and charts.

The first land they saw in America was the island of San Salvador, 375 miles off of the coast of Florida.

Columbus never actually set foot on mainland America.

Seville Cathedral in Spain, and the Columbus Lighthouse at Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic both claim to have Columbus's bones. In 2016 a DNA analysis said that the bones in Spain were his.

Christopher Columbus Quotes

"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."

"Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World."

"Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. Those that are enlightened before the others are condemned to pursue that light in spite of the others."

Related pages
Egg of Columbus
Images for kids

In Spanish: Cristóbal Colón para niños

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After the news of Christopher Columbus ' famous trip to the Americas reached England, King Henry VII sent John Cabot to seek new lands for the English. Cabot reached North America in 1497. His landing led England to claim what is now Canada.

Like Columbus, John Cabot was born in Genoa, in what is now Italy, in about 1450. His original name was Giovanni Caboto. By 1461 Cabot had moved to Venice, Italy. During the 1470s Cabot sailed to the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea as a trader. He visited Mecca, a great trading center in Arabia.

By 1495 Cabot was living in Bristol, England. He believed that he could find a short route to Asia. His plan was to sail north and west across the Atlantic Ocean. In 1496 King Henry VII agreed to the trip. Bad weather, food shortages, and conflicts with his crew forced Cabot to turn back.

The next year Cabot sailed again with a crew of 18 men on the small ship Matthew. On June 24, 1497, the men reached North America. They explored the coast of what is now Canada, in either Newfoundland and Labrador or Nova Scotia. The ship may also have reached what is now the U.S. state of Maine. In August 1497 Cabot returned to Bristol.

The next year the king sent Cabot on another trip. Cabot thought that he could reach Japan by sailing south along the coast he had found. Cabot left England with five ships. One ship stopped in Ireland. The other four ships never returned. Cabot may have reached North America again, or he may have died at sea.

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After the news of Christopher Columbus' famous trip to the Americas reached England, King Henry VII sent John Cabot to seek new lands for the English. Cabot reached North...

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©1997, Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site Project

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A biography of the explorer, John Cabot.

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Samuel 'Hunterry' de Champlain ( c. 13 August 1567 - 25 December 1635) was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He made between 21 and 29 trips across the Atlantic Ocean, and founded Quebec, and New France, on 3 July 1608. He is called "The Father of New France". He founded Quebec City on July 3, 1608. In 1609 he came to Lake Champlain, which is named for him.

Early Travels

Born in Brouage, France, much of Champlain's early life is unknown, although it is speculated by some that his mother was a Huguenot. His first trip to North America was on March 15, 1603 as part of a fur trading expedition. Although he had no official assignment on the voyage, he created a map of the St. Lawrence River and, on his return to France on September 20, wrote an account of his travels called Des Sauvages (The Savages).

Instructed by Henry IV to make a report on his discoveries, Champlain joined another expedition to New France in the spring of 1604 led by Pierre Du gua Sieur de Monts. He helped found the Saint Croix Island settlement which was abandoned the following spring 1605 when the settlers moved across the Bay of Fundy to found the Habitation at Port-Royal (which had been located with Champlain's assistance), where Champlain lived until 1607 while he explored the Atlantic coast.

In 1605 and 1606 Champlain explored the land that is now Chatham, Cape Cod as a prospective settlement but small skirmishes with the resident Monomoyick Indians ultimately dissuaded him from the idea. He named the area Port Fortune and featured it on his maps.

Founding of Quebec City

The first winter was difficult for the colonists. Of the twenty-five people who stayed for the winter only 8 survived, most having died of scurvy and some of smallpox.

Champlain married Hélène Boullé on 27 December 1610.

Hélène lived in Quebec for several years, but returned to Paris and eventually decided to enter a convent. The couple had 1 child, and Champlain adopted three Montagnais girls named Faith, Hope, and Charity in the winter of 1627-28.

Relations and War with Indians

On July 29, at Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York) Champlain and his party encountered a group of Iroquois. A battle began the next day. Two hundred Iroquois advanced on Champlain's position as a native guide pointed out the three Iroquois chiefs. Champlain fired his arquebus and killed two of them with one shot. The Iroquois turned and fled. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years.

Securing New France

That fall he returned once again to France to secure a future for his venture in the New World. Having lost the support of the merchants in 1610, he wrote a note to Louis XIII to ask him to intervene on his behalf.

On October 8, 1612, Louis XIII named Charles de Bourbon, comte de Soissons his lieutenant-general in New France. Charles died almost immediately, and was succeeded in the office by Henry II, Prince of Condé. Champlain was given the title of lieutenant and received the power to exercise command in the lieutenant-general's name, to appoint "such captains and lieutenants as shall be expedient," to "commission officers for administration of justice and maintenance of police authority, regulations and ordinances," to make treaties and carry out wars with the natives, and to restrain merchants who did not belong to the society. His duties included finding the easiest way to China and the East Indies, as well as to find and exploit mines of precious metals in the area.

Exploration of "New France"

At the start of the year he published an account of his life from 1604-1612 called Voyages and on March 29, 1613, he arrived back in New France and proclaimed his new commission. Champlain set out on May 27th to continue his exploration of the Huron country and in hopes of finding the 'northern sea' he had heard about (probably Hudson Bay). He traveled the Ottawa River giving the first description of this area. It was in June that he met with Tessouat, the Algonkian chief of Allumette Island, and offered to build them a fort if they were to move from the area they occupied with its poor soil to the Lachine Rapids.

By August 26 Champlain was back in Saint-Malo. There he wrote an account of his journey up the Ottawa river and published another map of New France. In 1614 he formed the "Compagnie des Marchands de Rouen et de Saint-Malo" and "Compagnie de Champlain", which bound the Rouen and Saint-Malo merchants for eleven years. He returned to New France spring of 1615, this time with four Recollects in order to further religious life in the new colony.

In 1615, Champlain is brought through the Peterborough area by Huron. He used the ancient portage between Chemong Lake and Little Lake (now Chemong Road); stayed for a short period of time in Bridgenorth area.

Military Expedition

On September 1, at Cahiagué (on Lake Simcoe), he started a military expedition. They passed Lake Ontario at its eastern tip where they hid their canoes and continued their journey by land. They followed the Oneida River until they found themselves at an Iroquois fort. Pressured by the Hurons to attack prematurely, the assault failed. Champlain was wounded twice in the leg by arrows, one in his knee. The attack lasted three hours until they were forced to flee.

Although he didn't want to, the Hurons insisted that Champlain spend the winter with them. During his stay he set off with them in their great deer hunt, during which he became lost and was forced to wander for three days living off game and sleeping under trees until he met up with a band of Indians by chance. He spent the rest of the winter learning "their country, their manners, customs, modes of life". On May 22, 1616 he left the Huron country and was back in Quebec on July 11 before heading back to France on July 20.

Improving Administration in New France

Champlain returned to New France in 1620 and was to spend the rest of his life focusing on the administration of the country rather than exploration.

On July 19, Champlain was forced to surrender the colony. Many colonists were transported first to England and then to France but Champlain remained in London to begin the process of regaining the colony. It was not until the 1632 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, however, that Quebec was formally given back to France.

Illness and Death

By October of 1635 Champlain was stricken with paralysis. He died December 25, 1635. He was buried temporarily in an unmarked grave while construction was finished on the chapel of Monsieur le Gouverneur. Unfortunately it was destroyed by fire in 1640 and immediately rebuilt but nothing is known of it after 1640 although after 1674 it no longer existed. As such the exact burial site of Champlain is unknown.

There is no authentic portrait of Champlain. Paintings of Champlain have been shown to be actually of Michel Particelli d'Émery. The only surviving picture we have is an engraving of a battle at Lake Champlain in 1609, but the facial features are too vague to make out.

Many sites and landmarks have been named to honour Champlain, who was a prominent figure in many parts of Acadia, Ontario, Quebec, New York, and Vermont. Memorialized as the "Father of New France" and "Father of Acadia", his historic significance endures in modern times. Lake Champlain, which straddles the border between northern New York and Vermont, extending slightly across the border into Canada, was named by him, in 1609, when he led an expedition along the Richelieu River, exploring a long, narrow lake situated between the Green Mountains of present-day Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of present-day New York. The first European to map and describe it, Champlain claimed the lake as his namesake.

Memorials include:

Lake Champlain, Champlain Valley, the Champlain Trail Lakes.

Champlain Sea: a past inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in North America, over the St. Lawrence, the Saguenay, and the Richelieu rivers, to over Lake Champlain, which inlet disappeared many thousands years before Champlain was born.

Champlain Mountain, Acadia National Park - which he first observed in 1604.

A town and village in New York, as well as a township in Ontario and a municipality in Quebec.

The provincial electoral district of Champlain, Quebec, and several defunct electoral districts elsewhere in Canada.

Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park, a provincial park in northern Ontario near the town of Mattawa.

Champlain Bridge, which connects the island of Montreal to Brossard, Quebec across the St. Lawrence.

Champlain Bridge, which connects the cities of Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec.

Champlain College, one of six colleges at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, is named in his honour.

Fort Champlain, a dormitory at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario; named in his honour in 1965, it houses the 10th cadet squadron.

A French school in Saint John, New Brunswick; École Champlain, an elementary school in Moncton, New Brunswick; Champlain College, in Burlington, Vermont; and Champlain Regional College, a CEGEP with three campuses in Quebec.

Marriott Château Champlain hotel, in Montreal.

Streets named Champlain in numerous cities, including Quebec, Shawinigan, the city of Dieppe in the province of New Brunswick, in Plattsburgh, and no less than eleven communities in northwestern Vermont.

A garden called Jardin Samuel-de-Champlain in Paris, France.

A memorial statue on Cumberland Avenue in Plattsburgh, New York on the shores of Lake Champlain in a park named for Champlain.

A memorial statue in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada in Queen Square that commemorates his discovery of the Saint John River.

A memorial statue in Isle La Motte, Vermont, on the shore of Lake Champlain.

The lighthouse at Crown Point, New York features a statue of Champlain by Carl Augustus Heber.

A commemorative stamp issue in May 2006 jointly by the United States Postal Service and Canada Post.

A statue in Ticonderoga, New York, unveiled in 2009 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Champlain's exploration of Lake Champlain.

A statue in Orillia, Ontario at Couchiching Beach Park on Lake Couchiching. This statue was removed by Parks Canada, and is not likely to be returned, as it incorporated offensive depictions of First Nations peoples.

HMCS Champlain (1919), a S class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1928 to 1936.

HMCS Champlain, a Canadian Forces Naval Reserve division based in Chicoutimi, Quebec since activation in 1985.

Champlain Place, a shopping centre located in Dieppe, New Brunswick, Canada.

The Champlain Society, a Canadian historical and text publication society, chartered in 1927.

A memorial statue in Ottawa at Nepean Point, by Hamilton MacCarthy. The statue depicts Champlain holding an astrolabe (upside-down, as it happens). It did previously include an "Indian Scout" kneeling at its base. In the 1990s, after lobbying by Indigenous people, it was removed from the statue's base, renamed and placed as "Anishinaabe Scout" in Major's Hill Park.

Images for kids

Detail from "Défaite des Iroquois au Lac de Champlain," Champlain Voyages (1613). This self-portrait is the only surviving contemporary likeness of the explorer.

Champlain and guide in Isle La Motte, Vermont, at the site Champlain is said to have first set foot in Vermont (and encamped) in 1609. Lake Champlain is in the background. (Sculptor E.L.Weber, 1967; Photo by Matt Wills, 2009)

Marine astrolabe attributed to Champlain, made in France in 1603, found in Ontario in 1867.

19th century artist's conception of Champlain by E. Ronjat.

In Spanish: Samuel de Champlain para niños

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Samuel de Champlain was one of France's most famous explorers, most well-known for founding the city of Quebec.

Champlain was born to Antoine Champlain and Marguerite Le Roy in 1574 in Brouage, a small town on France's west coast. Historians don't know much about his early life, other than that he probably learned the ropes of sailing quite early because his father and uncle were both mariners. Young Samuel was soon an accomplished navigator and creator of nautical charts.

France was at war with Spain in the late 16th Century, and Champlain served in the army of France's King Henry IV. France won that particular war, and Champlain accompanied his uncle, Captain Provençal, on a journey aboard the St. Julien to return captured Spanish soldiers to Spain. The French ship then took on an assignment from the Spanish king, Philip III, to travel to the West Indies. Champlain was onboard for three voyages that lasted nearly two years, from 1599 to 1601, traveling around the Caribbean area and making notes, written and visual, of what he saw: land, plants, and animals. He is one of the first to have written of the efficacy of constructing a canal across Panama.

Henry IV, the French king, was keen to have a settlement in the New World and sent an expedition under the command of François Gravé Du Pont. The ships set off from France on March 15, 1603. They passed what is now Newfoundland and on up the St. Lawrence River, anchoring in the harbor of Tadoussac near the mouth of the Saguenac River and ultimately reaching Montreal. The French explorers maintained relatively good relations with the Native Americans that they met; Champlain recorded information in his notes. In particular, the Frenchmen were intrigued by a great sea to the west that the Native Americans had mentioned.

The ships returned to France in late 1603, and Champlain reported his findings to Henry IV. The king was so impressed that he commissioned another voyage, this one designed to last much longer, and urged Champlain to take part. That voyage, headed up by Pierre du Gua de Monts, left in 1604 and spent three years in what was called New France. They landed on the Nova Scotia coast and continued on to the Bay of Fundy, before settling in for the winter at Saint Croix Island. They explored down the eastern coastline of what is now North America as far as Cape Cod. They established Port Royal in 1606; this became the capital of Arcadia.

Part of the financing of the voyage came from the a monopoly on the fur trade that Henry IV had granted to Monts. Times were tough in 1605, and Monts returned to France. Champlain and a few others stayed behind, exploring. They left for home in 1607.

Champlain had not lost his thirst for exploration and was on yet another voyage to the New World in 1608, this time as captain of the Don-de-Dieu, one of the three ships making the voyage. They achieved their goal of establishing a settlement, at a place that the locals called kebec, which meant "the narrowing of the waters." Champlain spelled it Quebec. They built a fort to protect the new settlement.

Champlain had become friendly with members of the Algonquin and Huron tribes, and those two tribes asked Champlain and his men to aid them in a struggle against the Iroquois in July 1609. The French did so, and Champlain also explored more of the land around Quebec. In fact, he was the first European to map the lake that now bears his name: Lake Champlain. He participated in two more military campaigns, in 1610 and 1615. An injury he suffered in the third campaign, taking an arrow to the knee, made him unable to walk and forced him to remain in the Lake Huron region for a winter; during this time, he established friendly relations with two more Native American tribes, the Nipissing and the Odawa.

King Henry IV died in 1610, and the new king was his son, the young Louis XIII. This king named Champlain his lieutenant in New France in 1611. Champlain traveled back and forth between France and New France several times while also exploring more and more territory in New France. (In all, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean 21 times.) In 1615, he saw the Great Lakes for the first time when he reached the eastern edge of what is now Lake Huron. (This turned out to be the western sea to which the Native Americans had referred.)

He returned to France in 1616 and stayed there for a few years, writing up accounts of his voyages and including maps and sketches of the animals, plants, and people that he encountered. He went back to New France in 1620, this time taking his wife, Hélène, with him. They stayed for a number of years.

Champlain wanted to expand Quebec, already the center of the French fur trade, into the center of New France; the French king agreed. In 1628, Champlain was named the deputy of a new organization created by France's Cardinal Richelieu, the Company One Hundred Associates. Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu gave this company ownership of all lands between Florida and the Arctic Circle, with a near-monopoly on trade.

English soldiers disrupted Champlain's dream of a vibrant Quebec in 1629, when they occupied it, as part of a wider war with France. The English left in 1632, and France retook control.

Champlain made what turned out to be his last trip to New France in 1633. He died two years later, of a stroke.

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Samuel de Champlain was one of France's most famous explorers, most well-known for founding the city of Quebec.

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English explorer and navigator Henry Hudson made four difficult and dangerous sea voyages seeking a shortcut from Europe to the Far East. Although he failed to find it, his...

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Henry Hudson (1565 - disappeared 23 June 1611) was an English explorer and navigator in the 1600s. He was well known for discovering the Hudson River and the Hudson Bay.

Hudson was trying to find a northwest passage to Cathay (present day China). He tried twice before he found it. Hudson discovered the Hudson Bay and Hudson River in North America. He claimed the Hudson Bay for England along with other pieces of land. He was working for the Dutch when he found the Hudson River. He found it in 1609 when he was looking for a way to get from North America to Asia by water. This was named the Northwest Passage.

Details of Hudson's birth and early life are mostly unknown. Some sources have identified him as having been born in about 1565, but others date his birth to around 1570. Hudson is thought to have spent many years at sea, beginning as a cabin boy and gradually working his way up to ship's captain.

Exploration

Expeditions of 1607 and 1608

In 1607, the Muscovy Company of England hired Hudson to find a northerly route to the Pacific coast of Asia. At the time, the English were engaged in an economic battle with the Dutch for control of northwest routes. It was thought that, because the sun shone for three months in the northern latitudes in the summer, the ice would melt and a ship could make it across the "top of the world".

On 1 May 1607, Hudson sailed with a crew of ten men and a boy on the 80-ton Hopewell. They reached the east coast of Greenland on 14 June, coasting it northward until the 22 June. Here the party named a headland "Young's Cape", a "very high mount, like a round castle" near it "Mount of God's Mercy" and land at 73° north latitude "Hold with Hope". After turning east, they sighted "Newland"-i.e Spitsbergen -on the 27 May, near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later simply named the "Great Indraught" (Isfjorden).

On 13 July, Hudson and his crew estimated that they had sailed as far north as 80° 23' N, but more likely only reached 79° 23' N. The following day they entered what Hudson later in the voyage named "Whales Bay" (Krossfjorden and Kongsfjorden), naming its northwestern point "Collins Cape" (Kapp Mitra) after his boatswain, William Collins. They sailed north the following two days. On the 16 July, they reached as far north as Hakluyt's Headland (which Thomas Edge claims Hudson named on this voyage) at 79° 49' N, thinking they saw the land continue to 82° N ( Svalbard's northernmost point is 80° 49' N) when really it trended to the east. Encountering ice packed along the north coast, they were forced to turn back south. Hudson wanted to make his return "by the north of Greenland to Davis his Streights ( Davis Strait), and so for Kingdom of England," but ice conditions would have made this impossible. The expedition returned to Tilbury Hope on the River Thames on 15 September.

Hudson reported large numbers of whales in Spitsbergen waters during this voyage. Many authors credit his reports as the catalyst for several nations sending whaling expeditions to the islands. This claim is contentious-others have pointed to strong evidence that it was Jonas Poole's reports in 1610, that led to the establishment of English whaling, and voyages of Nicholas Woodcock and Willem Cornelisz van Muyden in 1612, which led to the establishment of Dutch, French and Spanish whaling. The whaling industry itself was built by neither Hudson nor Poole-both were dead by 1612.

In 1608, English merchants of the East India and Muscovy Companies again sent Hudson in the Hopewell to attempt to locate a passage to the Indies, this time to the east around northern Russia. Leaving London on 22 April, the ship travelled almost 2,500 mi (4,000 km), making it to Novaya Zemlya well above the Arctic Circle in July, but even in the summer they found the ice impenetrable and turned back, arriving at Gravesend on 26 August.

Expedition of 1609

In 1609, Hudson was chosen by merchants of the Dutch East India Company in the Netherlands to find an easterly passage to Asia. While awaiting orders and supplies in Amsterdam, he heard rumours of a northwest route to the Pacific through North America. Hudson had been told to sail through the Arctic Ocean north of Russia, into the Pacific and so to the Far East. Hudson departed Amsterdam on 4 April, in command of the Dutch ship Halve Maen. He could not complete the specified (eastward) route because ice blocked the passage, as with all previous such voyages, and he turned the ship around in mid-May while somewhere east of Norway's North Cape. At that point, acting outside his instructions, Hudson pointed the ship west and decided to try to seek a westerly passage through North America.

They reached the Grand Banks of Newfoundland on 2 July, and in mid-July made landfall near the LaHave area of Nova Scotia. Here they encountered First Nations who were accustomed to trading with the French; they were willing to trade beaver pelts, but apparently no trades occurred. The ship stayed in the area about ten days, the crew replacing a broken mast and fishing for food. On the 25 July, a dozen men from the Halve Maen, using muskets and small cannon, went ashore and assaulted the village near their anchorage. They drove the people from the settlement and took their boat and other property-probably pelts and trade goods.

On 4 August, the ship was at Cape Cod, from which Hudson sailed south to the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay. Rather than entering the Chesapeake he explored the coast to the north, finding Delaware Bay but continuing on north. On 3 September, he reached the estuary of the river that initially was called the "North River" or "Mauritius" and now carries his name. He was not the first European to discover the estuary, though, as it had been known since the voyage of Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524.

On 6 September 1609, John Colman of his crew was killed by natives with an arrow to his neck. Hudson sailed into the Upper New York Bay on 11 September, and the following day began a journey up what is now known as the Hudson River. Over the next ten days his ship ascended the river, reaching a point about where the present-day capital of Albany is located.

On 23 September, Hudson decided to return to Europe. He put in at Dartmouth, England on 7 November, and was detained by authorities who wanted access to his log. He managed to pass the log to the Dutch ambassador to England, who sent it, along with his report, to Amsterdam.

While exploring the river, Hudson had traded with several native groups, mainly obtaining furs. His voyage was used to establish Dutch claims to the region and to the fur trade that prospered there when a trading post was established at Albany in 1614. New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island became the capital of New Netherland in 1625.

Expedition of 1610-1611

In 1610, Hudson obtained backing for another voyage, this time under the English flag. The funding came from the Virginia Company and the British East India Company. At the helm of his new ship, the Discovery, he stayed to the north-some claim he deliberately stayed too far south on his Dutch-funded voyage-reached Iceland on 11 May, the south of Greenland on 4 June, and rounded the southern tip of Greenland.

On 25 June, the explorers reached what is now the Hudson Strait at the northern tip of Labrador. Following the southern coast of the strait on 2 August, the ship entered Hudson Bay. Excitement was very high due to the expectation that the ship had finally found the Northwest Passage through the continent. Hudson spent the following months mapping and exploring its eastern shores, but he and his crew did not find a passage to Asia. In November, however, the ship became trapped in the ice in James Bay, and the crew moved ashore for the winter.

When the ice cleared in the spring of 1611, Hudson planned to use his Discovery to further explore Hudson Bay with the continuing goal of discovering the Passage; however, most of the members of his crew ardently desired to return home. Matters came to a head and much of the crew mutinied in June. Descriptions of the successful mutiny are one-sided, because the only survivors who could tell their story were the mutineers and those who went along with the mutiny.

In the latter class was ship's navigator, Abacuk Pricket, a survivor who kept a journal that was to become one of the sources for the narrative of the mutiny. According to Pricket, the leaders of the mutiny were Henry Greene and Robert Juet. The latter, a navigator, had accompanied Hudson on the 1609 expedition, and his account is said to be "the best contemporary record of the voyage". Pricket's narrative tells how the mutineers set Hudson, his teenage son John, and seven crewmen-men who were either sick and infirm or loyal to Hudson-adrift from the Discovery in a small shallop, an open boat, effectively marooning them in Hudson Bay. The Pricket journal reports that the mutineers provided the castaways with clothing, powder and shot, some pikes, an iron pot, some food, and other miscellaneous items.

Disappearance

After the mutiny, Hudson's shallop broke out oars and tried to keep pace with the Discovery for some time. Pricket recalled that the mutineers finally tired of the David-Goliath pursuit and unfurled additional sails aboard the Discovery, enabling the larger vessel to leave the tiny open boat behind. Hudson and the other seven aboard the shallop were never seen again. Despite subsequent searches, including those conducted by Thomas Button in 1612, and by Zachariah Gillam in 1668-1670, their fate is unknown.

Pricket's reliability

Pricket's journal and testimony have been severely criticized for bias, on two grounds. Firstly, prior to the mutiny the alleged leaders of the uprising, Greene and Juet, had been friends and loyal seamen of Hudson. Secondly, Greene and Juet did not survive the return voyage to England (Juet, who had been the navigator on the return journey, died of starvation a few days before the company reached Ireland). Pricket knew he and the other survivors of the mutiny would be tried in England for piracy, and it would have been in his interest, and the interest of the other survivors, to put together a narrative that would place the blame for the mutiny upon men who were no longer alive to defend themselves.

The Pricket narrative became the controlling story of the expedition's disastrous end. Only eight of the thirteen mutinous crewmen survived the return voyage to Europe. They were arrested in England, and some were put on trial, but no punishment was imposed for the mutiny. One theory holds that the survivors were considered too valuable as sources of information to execute, as they had travelled to the New World and could describe sailing routes and conditions.

The gulf or bay visited by Hudson is three times the size of the Baltic Sea, and its many large estuaries afford access to otherwise landlocked parts of Western Canada and the Arctic. This allowed the Hudson's Bay Company to exploit a lucrative fur trade along its shores for more than two centuries, growing powerful enough to influence the history and present international boundaries of western North America. Hudson Strait became the entrance to the Arctic for all ships engaged in the historic search for the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic side - though modern voyages take more northerly routes.

Along with Hudson Bay, many other topographical features and landmarks are named for Hudson. The Hudson River in New York and New Jersey is named after him, as are Hudson County, New Jersey, the Henry Hudson Bridge, the Henry Hudson Parkway, and the town of Hudson, New York. The unbuilt Hendrik Hudson Hotel in New York was also to have been named after him.

In Spanish: Henry Hudson para niños

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Hernando de Soto ( c. 1500 - 21 May 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States (through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and most likely Arkansas). He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River.

Hernando de Soto was born circa 1500 in Extremadura, Spain, to parents who were both , nobility of modest means. The region was poor and many people struggled to survive; young people looked for ways to seek their fortune elsewhere. He was born in the current province of Badajoz. Three towns- Badajoz, Barcarrota and Jerez de los Caballeros-claim to be his birthplace. He spent time as a child at each place. He stipulated in his will that his body be interred at Jerez de los Caballeros, where other members of his family were buried. A few years before his birth, the Kingdoms of Castille and Aragon conquered the last Islamic kingdom of the Iberian peninsula. Spain and Portugal were filled with young men seeking a chance for military fame after the defeat of the Moors. With Christopher Columbus's discovery of new lands (which he thought to be East Asia) across the ocean to the west, young men were attracted to rumors of adventure, glory and wealth.

In the New World

De Soto sailed to the New World with Pedro Arias Dávila, appointed as the first Governor of Panama. In 1520 he participated in Gaspar de Espinosa's expedition to Veragua, and in 1524, he participated in the conquest of Nicaragua under Francisco Hernández de Córdoba. There he acquired an encomienda and a public office in León, Nicaragua. Brave leadership, unwavering loyalty, and ruthless schemes for the extortion of native villages for their captured chiefs became de Soto's hallmarks during the conquest of Central America. He gained fame as an excellent horseman, fighter, and tactician. During that time, de Soto was influenced by the achievements of Iberian explorers: Juan Ponce de León, the first European to reach Florida; Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to reach the Pacific Ocean coast of the Americas (he called it the "South Sea" on the south coast of Panama); and Ferdinand Magellan, who first sailed that ocean to East Asia. In 1530, de Soto became a of León, Nicaragua. He led an expedition up the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula searching for a passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean to enable trade with the Orient, the richest market in the world. Failing that, and without means to explore further, de Soto, upon Pedro Arias Dávila's death, left his estates in Nicaragua. Bringing his own men on ships which he hired, de Soto joined Francisco Pizarro at his first base of Tumbes shortly before departure for the interior of present-day Peru. Pizarro quickly made de Soto one of his captains.

Conquest of Peru

During 1533, the Spanish held Atahualpa captive in Cajamarca for months while his subjects paid for his ransom by filling a room with gold and silver objects. During this captivity, de Soto became friendly with Atahualpa and taught him to play chess. By the time the ransom had been completed, the Spanish became alarmed by rumors of an Inca army advancing on Cajamarca. Pizarro sent de Soto with 200 soldiers to scout for the rumored army.

While de Soto was gone, the Spanish in Cajamarca decided to kill Atahualpa to prevent his rescue. De Soto returned to report that he found no signs of an army in the area. After executing Atahualpa, Pizarro and his men headed to Cuzco, the capital of the Incan Empire. As the Spanish force approached Cuzco, Pizarro sent his brother Hernando and de Soto ahead with 40 men. The advance guard fought a pitched battle with Inca troops in front of the city, but the battle had ended before Pizarro arrived with the rest of the Spanish party. The Inca army withdrew during the night. The Spanish plundered Cuzco, where they found much gold and silver. As a mounted soldier, de Soto received a share of the plunder, which made him very wealthy. It represented riches from Atahualpa's camp, his ransom, and the plunder from Cuzco.

On the road to Cuzco, Manco Inca Yupanqui, a brother of Atahualpa, had joined Pizarro. Manco had been hiding from Atahualpa in fear of his life, and was happy to gain Pizarro's protection. Pizarro arranged for Manco to be installed as the Inca leader. De Soto joined Manco in a campaign to eliminate the Inca armies under Quizquiz, who had been loyal to Atahualpa.

Return to Spain

Fascinated by the stories of Cabeza de Vaca, who had survived years in North America after becoming a castaway and had just returned to Spain, de Soto selected 620 Spanish and Portuguese volunteers, including some of mixed-race African descent known as Atlantic Creoles, to accompany him to govern Cuba and colonize North America. Averaging 24 years of age, the men embarked from Havana on seven of the King's ships and two caravels of de Soto's. With tons of heavy armor and equipment, they also carried more than 500 head of livestock, including 237 horses and 200 pigs, for their planned four-year continental expedition.

De Soto wrote a new will before embarking on his travels. On 10 May 1539, he wrote in his will:

That a chapel be erected within the Church of San Miguel in Jerez de Los Caballeros, Spain, where De Soto grew up, at a cost of 2,000 ducats, with an altarpiece featuring the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Conception, that his tomb be covered in a fine black broadcloth topped by a red cross of the Order of the Knights of Santiago, and on special occasions a pall of black velvet with the De Soto coat of arms be placed on the altar; that a chaplain be hired at the salary of 12,000 maravedis to perform five masses every week for the souls of De Soto, his parents, and wife; that thirty masses be said for him the day his body was interred, and twenty for our Lady of the Conception, ten for the Holy Ghost, sixty for souls in purgatory and masses for many others as well; that 150000 maravedis be given annually to his wife Isabel for her needs and an equal amount used yearly to marry off three orphan damsels...the poorest that can be found," to assist his wife and also serve to burnish the memory of De Soto as a man of charity and substance.

De Soto's exploration of North America

Historiography

Historians have worked to trace the route of de Soto's expedition in North America. Local politicians vied to have their localities associated with the expedition. The most widely used version of "De Soto's Trail" comes from a study commissioned by the United States Congress. A committee chaired by the anthropologist John R. Swanton published The Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission in 1939. Among other locations, Manatee County, Florida, claims an approximate landing site for de Soto and has a national memorial recognizing that event. In the early 21st century, the first part of the expedition's course, up to de Soto's battle at Mabila (a small fortress town in present-day central Alabama), is disputed only in minor details. His route beyond Mabila is contested. Swanton reported the de Soto trail ran from there through Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas.

The Hutto/Martin Site, 8MR3447, in southeastern Marion County, Florida, on the Ocklawaha River, is the most likely site of the principal town of Acuera referred to in the accounts of the entrada, as well as the site of the seventeenth-century mission of Santa Lucia de Acuera.

Theories of de Soto's route are based on the accounts of four chroniclers of the expedition.

The first account of the expedition to be published was by the Gentleman of Elvas, an otherwise unidentified Portuguese knight who was a member of the expedition. His chronicle was first published in 1557. An English translation by Richard Hakluyt was published in 1609.

Luys Hernández de Biedma, the King's factor (the agent responsible for the royal property) with the expedition, wrote a report which still exists. The report was filed in the royal archives in Spain in 1544. The manuscript was translated into English by Buckingham Smith and published in 1851.

De Soto's secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel, kept a diary, which has been lost. It was apparently used by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés in writing his La historia general y natural de las Indias. Oviedo died in 1557. The part of his work containing Ranjel's diary was not published until 1851. An English translation of Ranjel's report was first published in 1904.

The fourth chronicle is by Garcilaso de la Vega, known as El Inca (the Inca). Garcilaso de la Vega did not participate in the expedition. He wrote his account, La Florida, known in English as The Florida of the Inca, decades after the expedition, based on interviews with some survivors of the expedition. The book was first published in 1605. Historians have identified problems with using La Florida as a historical account. Milanich and Hudson warn against relying on Garcilaso, noting serious problems with the sequence and location of towns and events in his narrative. They say, "some historians regard Garcilaso's La Florida to be more a work of literature than a work of history." Lankford characterizes Garcilaso's La Florida as a collection of "legend narratives", derived from a much-retold oral tradition of the survivors of the expedition.

Milanich and Hudson warn that older translations of the chronicles are often "relatively free translations in which the translators took considerable liberty with the Spanish and Portuguese text."

1539: Florida

In May 1539, de Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men and 220 horses in an area generally identified as south Tampa Bay. Historian Robert S. Weddle has suggested that he landed at either Charlotte Harbor or San Carlos Bay. He named the land as Espíritu Santo after the Holy Spirit. The ships carried priests, craftsmen, engineers, farmers, and merchants; some with their families, some from Cuba, most from Europe and Africa. Few of the men had traveled before outside of Spain, or even away from their home villages.

Near de Soto's port, the party found Juan Ortiz, a Spaniard living with the Mocoso people. Ortiz had been captured by the Uzita while searching for the lost Narváez expedition; he later escaped to Mocoso. Ortiz had learned the Timucua language and served as an interpreter to de Soto as he traversed the Timucuan-speaking areas on his way to Apalachee.

Ortiz developed a method for guiding the expedition and communicating with the various tribes, who spoke many dialects and languages. He recruited guides from each tribe along the route. A chain of communication was established whereby a guide who had lived in close proximity to another tribal area was able to pass his information and language on to a guide from a neighboring area. Because Ortiz refused to dress as a hidalgo Spaniard, other officers questioned his motives. De Soto remained loyal to Ortiz, allowing him the freedom to dress and live among his native friends. Another important guide was the seventeen-year-old boy Perico, or Pedro, from what is now Georgia. He spoke several of the local tribes' languages and could communicate with Ortiz. Perico was taken as a guide in 1540. The Spanish had also captured other Indians, whom they used as slave labor. Perico was treated better due to his value to the Spaniards.

The expedition traveled north, exploring Florida's West Coast, and encountering native ambushes and conflicts along the way. Hernando de Soto army seized the food stored in the villages, captured women to be used as slaves, and forced men and boys to serve as guides and bearers. The army fought two battles with Timucua groups, resulting in heavy Timucua casualties. After defeating the resisting Timucuan warriors, Hernando de Soto had 200 executed, in what was to be called the Napituca Massacre, the first large-scale massacre by Europeans on what later became U.S. soil (Florida). De Soto's first winter encampment was at , the capital of the Apalachee people. It is one of the few places on the route where archaeologists have found physical traces of the expedition. The chroniclers described this settlement as being near the "Bay of Horses".

1540: The Southeast

The expedition continued to present-day South Carolina. There the expedition recorded being received by a female chief (Cofitachequi), who gave her tribe's pearls, food and other goods to the Spanish soldiers. The expedition found no gold, however, other than pieces from an earlier coastal expedition (presumably that of Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón.)

De Soto headed north into the Appalachian Mountains of present-day western North Carolina, where he spent a month resting the horses while his men searched for gold. De Soto next entered eastern Tennessee. At this point, De Soto either continued along the Tennessee River to enter Alabama from the north (according to John R. Swanton), or turned south and entered northern Georgia (according to Charles M. Hudson). The route that Swanton proposed in 1939 is still generally accepted by most archaeologists and by the U.S. government as the route of the de Soto expedition.

De Soto's expedition spent another month in the Coosa chiefdom a vassal to Tuskaloosa, who was the paramount chief, believed to have been connected to the large and complex Mississippian culture, which extended throughout the Mississippi Valley and its tributaries. De Soto turned south toward the Gulf of Mexico to meet two ships bearing fresh supplies from Havana. De Soto demanded women and servants, and when Tuskaloosa refused, the European explorers took him hostage. The expedition began making plans to leave the next day, and Tuskaloosa gave in to de Soto's demands, providing bearers for the Spaniards. He informed de Soto that they would have to go to his town of (or Mauvila), a fortified city in southern Alabama, to receive the women. De Soto gave the chief a pair of boots and a red cloak to reward him for his cooperation. The Mobilian tribe, under chief Tuskaloosa, ambushed de Soto's army. Other sources suggest de Soto's men were attacked after attempting to force their way into a cabin occupied by Tuskaloosa. The Spaniards fought their way out, and retaliated by burning the town to the ground. During the nine-hour encounter, about 200 Spaniards died, and 150 more were badly wounded, according to the chronicler Elvas. Twenty more died during the next few weeks. They killed an estimated 2,000-6,000 warriors at Mabila, making the battle one of the bloodiest in recorded North American history.

1541: Westward

In the spring of 1541, de Soto demanded 200 men as porters from the Chickasaw. They refused his demand and attacked the Spanish camp during the night.

On 8 May, 1541, de Soto's troops reached the Mississippi River.

In the late 20th century, research suggests other locations may have been the site of de Soto's crossing, including three locations in Mississippi: Commerce, Friars Point, and Walls, as well as Memphis, Tennessee. Once across the river, the expedition continued traveling westward through modern-day Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. They wintered in Autiamique, on the Arkansas River.

De Soto died of a fever on 21 May, 1542, in the native village of Guachoya (historical sources disagree as to whether de Soto died near present-day McArthur, Arkansas, or in Louisiana) on the western bank of the Mississippi. Louisiana erected a historical marker at the estimated site.

Before his death, de Soto chose Luis de Moscoso Alvarado, his former maestro de campo (or field commander), to assume command of the expedition. At the time of death, de Soto owned four Indian slaves, three horses, and 700 hogs.

De Soto had encouraged the local natives to believe that he was a deity, specifically an "immortal Son of the Sun," as a ploy to gain their submission without conflict. Some of the natives had already become skeptical of de Soto's deity claims, so his men were anxious to conceal his death. The actual site of his burial is not known. According to one source, de Soto's men hid his corpse in blankets weighted with sand and sank it in the middle of the Mississippi River during the night.

Return of the expedition to Mexico City

De Soto's expedition had explored La Florida for three years without finding the expected treasures or a hospitable site for colonization. They had lost nearly half their men, and most of the horses. By this time, the soldiers were wearing animal skins for clothing. Many were injured and in poor health. The leaders came to a consensus (although not total) to end the expedition and try to find a way home, either down the Mississippi River, or overland across Texas to the Spanish colony of Mexico City.

They decided that building boats would be too difficult and time-consuming, and that navigating the Gulf of Mexico was too risky, so they headed overland to the southwest. Eventually they reached a region in present-day Texas that was dry. The native populations were made up mostly of subsistence hunter-gatherers. The soldiers found no villages to raid for food, and the army was still too large to live off the land. They were forced to backtrack to the more developed agricultural regions along the Mississippi, where they began building seven bergantines, or pinnaces. They melted down all the iron, including horse tackle and slave shackles, to make nails for the boats. They survived through the winter, and the spring floods delayed them another two months. By July they set off on their makeshift boats down the Mississippi for the coast.

Taking about two weeks to make the journey, the expedition encountered hostile fleets of war canoes along the whole course. The first was led by the powerful paramount chief Quigualtam, whose fleet followed the boats, shooting arrows at the soldiers for days on end as they drifted through their territory. The Spanish had no effective offensive weapons on the water, as their crossbows had long ceased working. They relied on armor and sleeping mats to block the arrows. About 11 Spaniards were killed along this stretch and many more wounded.

On reaching the mouth of the Mississippi, they stayed close to the Gulf shore heading south and west. After about 50 days, they made it to the Pánuco River and the Spanish frontier town of Pánuco. There they rested for about a month. During this time many of the Spaniards, having safely returned and reflecting on their accomplishments, decided they had left La Florida too soon. There were some fights within the company, leading to some deaths. But, after they reached Mexico City and Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza offered to lead another expedition to La Florida, few of the survivors volunteered. Of the recorded 700 participants at the start, between 300 and 350 survived (311 is a commonly accepted figure). Most of the men stayed in the New World, settling in Mexico, Peru, Cuba, and other Spanish colonies.

Effects of expedition in North America

The Spanish believed that de Soto's excursion to Florida was a failure. They acquired neither gold nor prosperity and founded no colonies. But the expedition had several major consequences.

De Soto was instrumental in contributing to the development of a hostile relationship between many Native American tribes and Europeans. When his expedition encountered hostile natives in the new lands, more often than not it was his men who instigated the clashes.

More devastating than the battles were the diseases which may have been carried by the members of the expedition. Because the indigenous people lacked the immunity which the Europeans had acquired through generations of exposure to these Eurasian diseases, the Native Americans may have suffered epidemics of illness after exposure to such diseases as measles, smallpox, and chicken pox. Several areas traversed by the expedition became depopulated, potentially by disease caused by contact with the Europeans. Seeing the high fatalities and devastation caused, many natives would have fled the populated areas for the surrounding hills and swamps. In some areas, the social structure would have changed because of high population losses due to epidemics. However, recent scholars have begun to question whether the expedition brought novel disease at all. The arrival of many diseases, aside from malaria, is disputed and they may not have entered the region until much later. The first documented smallpox epidemic in the southeast arrived in 1696, and Mississippian social structures persisted in some parts of the region until the 18th century.

The records of the expedition contributed greatly to European knowledge about the geography, biology, and ethnology of the New World. The de Soto expedition's descriptions of North American natives are the earliest-known source of information about the societies in the Southeast. They are the only European description of the culture and habits of North American native tribes before these peoples encountered other Europeans. De Soto's men were both the first and nearly the last Europeans to witness the villages and civilization of the Mississippian culture.

De Soto's expedition led the Spanish crown to reconsider Spain's attitude toward the colonies north of Mexico. He claimed large parts of North America for Spain. The Spanish concentrated their missions in the state of Florida and along the Pacific coast.

Many parks, towns, counties, and institutions have been named after Hernando de Soto, to include:

De Soto, Georgia

De Soto, Illinois

De Soto, Iowa

De Soto, Kansas

De Soto, Mississippi

De Soto, Missouri

De Soto, Nebraska

De Soto, Wisconsin

DeSoto, Texas

DeSoto Caverns, Alabama

DeSoto County, Florida

DeSoto County, Mississippi, and its county seat, Hernando

DeSoto Falls, in DeSoto State Park, Alabama

DeSoto Falls, in Lumpkin County, Georgia

DeSoto Lake, Georgia

De Soto National Forest, in Mississippi

De Soto National Memorial, near Bradenton, Florida, marks the possible location of Espiritu Santo, the point of disembarkation for the expedition.

DeSoto Parish, Louisiana

DeSoto Site Historic State Park, Florida

DeSoto State Park, Alabama

Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas County, Florida, named in turn for the 19th-century coastal fortifications at the site

Hernando, Mississippi

Hernando, Florida

Hernando County, Florida

DeSoto automobile line developed by the Chrysler Corporation

De Soto Heritage Festival

DeSoto Central High School, in Southaven, Mississippi

DeSoto County High School, in Arcadia, Florida

DeSoto Hilton Hotel, Savannah, Georgia

De Soto High School, in De Soto, Kansas

De Soto High School, in De Soto, Missouri

DeSoto High School, in DeSoto, Texas

De Soto High School, in De Soto, Wisconsin

Hernando de Soto Bridge, which carries Interstate 40 across the Mississippi River at Memphis (opened in 1973)

PS 130, Hernando Desoto, a public school in New York City

The De Soto School, a private school in Helena, Arkansas

USS De Soto (1859), a Navy steamer that served during the American Civil War and in the West Indies.

USS De Soto (1860), a riverboat that was renamed General Lyon on 24 October 1862.

USS DeSoto County (LST-1171)

In Spanish: Hernando de Soto para niños

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(1496?-1542). The Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto was one of the most famous gold seekers in history. He participated in the Spanish conquests of Central America and Peru. In the course of exploring what was to become the southeastern United States, he and his men became the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River.

De Soto was born about 1496 in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain. In 1514 he sailed to the New World with Pedro Arias Dávila, governor of Darién (now Panama). De Soto became a ruthless soldier whose men feared his temper but admired his horsemanship. In 1524 and 1526 he took part in expeditions to Central America. In 1532 he joined Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. De Soto's share of the Peruvian treasures made him rich. He returned to Spain and married Dávila's daughter Isabel.

The Spaniards did not know the country north of Florida. Captive American Indians told stories of lands there richer than Mexico or Peru. De Soto decided to win another fortune from this region. He persuaded the king of Spain to appoint him governor of Cuba and Florida. He recruited hundreds of men and helped pay for their equipment. This great army set sail from Spain in April 1538. At Havana, Cuba, they set up an advance base and made final preparations.

On May 30, 1539, de Soto and his men went ashore at Tampa Bay in Florida. They marched northward to Georgia, then turned westward and followed the Alabama River to Mobile Bay. When their supplies and spirits ran low, de Soto rallied his men with the prospect of riches ahead.

Along the way they met many Indian tribes. De Soto forced the Indians to furnish supplies and tortured their chiefs in a useless effort to make them tell where gold was hidden. This brutality led to many battles. The bloodiest was fought near Mobile Bay. About 70 Spaniards were killed, and many more were hurt. De Soto himself was severely wounded.

De Soto first saw the Mississippi River near the present site of Memphis, Tennessee, on May 21, 1541. De Soto's men built boats and crossed the Mississippi River. By the next autumn they reached the Neosho River in northeastern Oklahoma before they turned eastward again.

Everywhere de Soto searched, the Indians reported gold "just ahead" in order to escape his torture, but after three years he still had found no gold. In the spring of 1542 de Soto led his worn and tattered men southward. Near the junction of the Red and the Mississippi rivers, in what is now Louisiana, de Soto fell ill and died on May 21, 1542.

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(1496?-1542). The Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto was one of the most famous gold seekers in history. He participated in the Spanish conquests of Central America and Peru. In the course of exploring what was to become the southeastern United States, he and his men became the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River.