ONE
ONE HOW FERNANDO DE SOTO WENT TO GOVERN THE ISLAND OF CUBA OR FERNANDINA AS CAPTAIN GENERAL OF THEIR MAJESTIES, AND WITH TITLE OF ADELANTADO OF FLORIDA. The Emperor our lord made as his Governor and Captain General of the island and province of Florida and its annexes on the mainland, to the northern part that the adelantado Juan Ponce de Leon5 had di'scovered, Hernando de Soto, who was one of the soldiers of the Governor Pedrarias de Avila, and of whom, in the affairs of the mainland, mention is often made, because he was one of the earliest persons in those places, and in the end he found himself in the imprisonment of Atabaliba [Atahualpa], where he was one of those who gained a large part of those spoils.6 And he put so great a portion of them in Spain, that it was rumored that he was seen with more than one hundred thousand pesos of gold in Castille, where for his services and merits he was very well treated by the Emperor our lord, and he made him a knight of the military Order of the apostle St. James and gave him other favors and made him his Governor and Captain General as stated. And being there in Castille, he married one of the daughters of Governor Pedrarias Davila, whose name was Dona Isabel de Bobadilla, like her mother, a woman of great essence and goodness, and of very noble judgment and character, and with her he went to the island of Fernandina [Cuba], where he arrived in the month of Uune7] of the year of fifteen thirty-nine. And after he had visited the island and its towns and provided what was suitable to the good state and sustenance of the land, he gave order to arm and cross to the mainland for the conquest, settlement, and pacification of those provinces that were entrusted to him by His Majesty; this history8 will relate in the following chapters the things that occurred in this enterprise. 5Ponce de Leon explored the Florida coastline in 15 13. 6Hernando de Soto served in Central and South America between 15 I 3 and 1535. 7The month is missing from the text, but other sources indicate that the date was June 7, 1539 [1538]. 8Referring to Oviedo's Historia general y natural de las Indias, of which these chapters are only a part. ACCOUNT BY RODRIGO RANGEL ~ 251 ...
OR
