
In 1539, the conquistador Hernando de Soto arrived in Florida with an expedition of 620 men, 220 horses, and nine ships. His aims were various—including searching for a new route to China—but like the other Spanish invaders of his time, he sought gold.
De Soto’s ill-fated quest may have traversed parts of modern-day Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. It claimed the life of De Soto himself (as well as numerous members of his expedition and opposing Native Americans killed in battle). Three years after the expedition had begun, only 311 of the 620 members of his expedition made it back to Mexico City alive (the former Aztec city had only been absorbed into “New Spain” about 20 years before). These survivors recounted tales of indigenous tribes who buried their honored dead in giant earthwork mounds, upon which wooden temples were constructed.
Twenty years later, a French expedition to establish a colony in present-day St. Augustine, brought French artist Jacques Le Moyne to Florida. He created a painting that depicted indigenous tribes burying a chief beneath a mound, an image later preserved in an engraving.

Le Moyne captioned his painting:
“Sometimes the deceased king of this province is buried with great solemnity, and his great cup from which he was accustomed to drink is placed on a tumulus with many arrows set about it.” (quoted in Silverberg1)
But the French were soon driven out of Florida by the Spanish. It wasn’t until 1673 that the French sent further explorers into the Southeast. Though they encountered indigenous tribes, they encountered no tribes who lived among great tomb-like mounds. These peoples had vanished without a trace. To them, North America seemed an empty continent, with few civilizations that rivaled the colonists’ own in the realm of the built environment.
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