Moscoso's Ships
by D avid Purdy
fo r New Spain . By the time they arrived somewh ere in the middle of present-day Texas, th ey were weary and hungry. 1l1e only indigenous tribes they could find were no t fa rmers but hunters, who had little in the way of foo d stores that could feed the expedi tio n . W ith no sign of New Spain on the horizo n, they turned around and trekked 300 m iles back to the Mississippi with a plan ro build ships to return to Spanish territory via a water route. The army of Spaniards, Po rtuguese, and Indians go t back to the Mississippi River region in D ecember 1542. They located a tribe with enough foo d stores to suit their needs, so they stole the foo d and settled in fo r the winter. 1 Building ships in the wilderness in the dead of winter was clearly a difficult task. Fortunately, one of the soldiers on the expedition, a Genoese, was an experienced shipbuilder, and ano ther knew how to saw timber in quantity. W ith the help of two caul kers and a number of carpenters in the grou p, they set abo ut co nstr uc tin g a sm all fl eet o f vessels along the shores of the Mississippi. Timber fo r the hulls was not a problem as the WiLliam H. PoweLL's painting, Discovery of the M ississip pi, depicts H ernando de Soto's 1541 encounter with camp was surrounded by fo rests, but iron for the M ississippi River. De Soto's men were the first Europeans to see the river; Luis Moscoso de Alvarado served as fas teners and hardware the expedition's "Master of the Camp." When de Soto died in May of 1542, Moscoso assumed command of the wo uld pose the biggest expedition. The painting was commissioned by the US Congress to hang in the Rotunda in the capitol building in problem. The men scav1847. PoweLL (1823- 1879) was the Last artist to be commissioned by the Congress for a painting in the Rotunda. enged what iro n they fro m a number of tribes that were traveling Tampa, arriving inMayofl 539. From there could from supplies and equipment that with them as guides, slaves, captives, and they marched northwards to the Carolinas the expedition carried with them. A m ajor C hristian fo llowers. The Spaniards had come before heading wes t towards the M ississippi source cam e from the chains, leg irons, and looking fo r gold, but three years in to their River and on through present-day M isso uri, shackles used ro confine captives, but even q uest, they were confident rhat none was Arkansas, and eventually Texas and Lo uisi- with these measures, iron was scarce. As a to be fo und in this part of the continent. ana. In three years they fo und not a speck result, the men m ade the spikes shorter than Instead, their overwhelming desire at this of gold. D e Soto took ill in May of 1542 what would be used in a regular shipyard, po int was to abandon their quest and and, when death was imminent, he placed and, to accommodate the short fas tenings, return to Spanish-governed territo ry. But Moscoso in charge. they hewed the hull planks thinner as well . Moscoso and his o ffi cers were gold seekU nder Moscoso's co mm and, th e The caulkers "closed [the planks] up with ers in unkn own rerri to ry, no r surveyors o r expedi tion so ught to head home and set oakum , go t from a plant like hemp, called skilled navigators. Alrhough rh ey knew rhey off overland towards the south wes t, bound eneque111 ." The expedition's only cooper made n D ecemberofl 542, fifty years after Columbus "d iscovered" the New World, Luis Moscoso de Alvo rado had a major p ro blem on his hands. H e was, li terally, up the creek w ithout a paddle. The creek was the Mississippi River, and Moscoso not only didn't have a paddle, he didn't even have a boat. Luis Moscoso de Alvo rado was the commander of a Spanish expedition , the fi rst European penetratio n into the interior of North Ame rica. U nder his command we re mo re th an 300 (mostly) Spanish soldiers and a few h undred American Indians
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were located along the banks of the migh ty "Rio G rande de la Florida" (the Mississippi River), they o nly had a vague idea of where they we re alo ng it. They did know that they we re a lo ng way from Spanish-settled territory, be it C uba or New Spain (Mexico). H ow did Moscoso get into this position ?H e had come to "La Flo rida," the Spanish name fo r what is now the southeastern United States, as "Master of the Camp," an officer in H ernando de Soto's expedition of 1539. This army of 600 Spanish and Po rtuguese soldiers had sailed to the wes t coast of the Florida peninsula, near present-day
SE A HISTORY 134, SPRING 2011