Hernando de Soto
Spanish explorer and conquistador · Spain · Historical Figures · Lived 1500 to 1542 · aged 42
Hernando de Soto is read about 649 times a day, in 68 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He crossed the Mississippi River before anyone in Europe knew it was there - then died on its banks hunting for gold that didn't exist and a passage to China that couldn't.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 12
![A proposed route for the De Soto Expedition, based on Charles M. Hudson map of 1997.[19]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/DeSoto_Map_HRoe_2008.jpg/500px-DeSoto_Map_HRoe_2008.jpg)
A proposed route for the De Soto Expedition, based on Charles M. Hudson map of 1997.[19]
Library of Congress' engraving.The Spanish caption reads:"HERNANDO DE SOTO: Extremaduran, one of the discoverers and conquerors of Peru: he travelled across all of Florida and defeated its previously invincible natives, he died on his expedition in the year 1542 at the age of 42".
De Soto's men burn Mabila, illustration by Herb Roe
Discovery of the Mississippi by William H. Powell (1823-1879) is a Romantic depiction of de Soto seeing the Mississippi River for the first time. It hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda.
Illustration of an indigenous man at the banks of the river with de Soto and others
Burial of de SotoIn their orbit
Spouse: Inés de BobadillaAbout this person
De Soto cut his teeth in Nicaragua and the Yucatan, then helped Francisco Pizarro tear through the Inca Empire in Peru. By 1539 he was ready for his own prize: he led the first European expedition deep into what would become the American Southeast, dragging his men through Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, the Carolinas, Mississippi, and likely Arkansas. They were chasing reports of gold from coastal explorers and Native tribes, and searching for a route to the Pacific or China. What they found was swamp, forest, and the Mississippi River - which de Soto became the first European on record to cross. On 21 May 1542, he died on its banks, somewhere near present-day Lake Village, Arkansas, or Ferriday, Louisiana. The expedition staggered on without him, leaving behind only contested chronicles shaped by the scribes and translators who claimed his story for their empires.
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