Return To Spain
De Soto returned to Spain with an enormous share of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. He was admitted into the prestigious Order of Santiago. His share was awarded to him by the King of Spain, and he received 724 marks of gold, 17,740 pesos. He married Isabel de Bobadilla, daughter of Pedrarias Dávila and a relative of a confidante of Queen Isabella.
De Soto petitioned King Charles for the government of Guatemala with "permission to make discovery in the South Sea," but was granted the governorship of Cuba instead. De Soto was expected to colonize the North American continent for Spain within four years, for which his family would be given a sizeable piece of land.
Fascinated by the stories of Cabeza de Vaca, who had survived in North America after becoming a castaway and just returned to Spain, de Soto selected 620 eager Spanish and Portuguese volunteers, including some of African descent, for the governing of Cuba and conquest of 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 armour and equipment, they also carried more than 500 livestock, including 237 horses and 200 pigs, for their planned four-year continental expedition.
Read more about this topic: Hernando De Soto
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or spain:
“The house waited on your private beach
each day,
when you had the time to return to her.
And you so often had the time,
even when fury blew out her chimney,
even when love lifted the shingles....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The mother as a social servant instead of a home servant will not lack in true mother duty.... From her work, loved and honored though it is, she will return to her home life, the child life, with an eager, ceaseless pleasure, cleansed of all the fret and fraction and weariness that so mar it now.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)
“Heroic ages are not and never were sentimental and those daring conquistadores who conquered entire worlds for their Spain or Portugal received lamentably little thanks from their kings.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)