• Pedro Calderón
• Pánfilo de Narváez
• Descendants of De Soto

A Captain of cavalry in the De Soto expedition, Pedro Calderón was put in charge of the base camp at Ocita, hence the name of our company of re-enactors. The son of Rodrigo Calderon and Beatriz de Hoceces, inhabitants of Badajoz, Spain had served as a very young man under the command of the great Captain Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba in the Italian Wars. (This almost mystical appellation seems to have guaranteed the ability to command.) Accompanied by his sons, Rodrigo Calderon and Gregorio de Hoces, he commanded a caravel the San Antón that left Seville with the expedition in 1537. According to his testimony in 1558 he would have been around forty-one years old when the expedition made landfall in La Florida in 1539.

A Captain of cavalry in the De Soto expedition, Pedro Calderón was put in charge of the base camp at Ocita, hence the name of our company of re-enactors. The son of Rodrigo Calderon and Beatriz de Hoceces, inhabitants of Badajoz, Spain had served as a very young man under the command of the great Captain Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba in the Italian Wars. (This almost mystical appellation seems to have guaranteed the ability to command.) Accompanied by his sons, Rodrigo Calderon and Gregorio de Hoces, he commanded a caravel the San Antón that left Seville with the expedition in 1537. According to his testimony in 1558 he would have been around forty-one years old when the expedition made landfall in La Florida in 1539.
 
 

“...It was necessary for the Governor [De Soto] to leave a garrison of soldiers and other persons to defend and protect the weapons, supplies and munitions of the army, since he had brought a great quantity of these things, and at the same time to guard the caravel and two brigantines which lay at anchor in the bay. He therefore named Captain Pedro Calderón to remain in charge of everything that was left behind on both land and sea, giving him for his defense forty lancers and eighty footsoldiers in addition to the sailors who belonged to the ships.”¹ Please note there is some discrepancy among the various chroniclers as to the number of men left behind, alternately we have:

“We left Baya Honda to explore inland, taking with us all the people that had come on shore excepting twenty-six cavalry and sixty infantry, left in charge of the port until the Governor should be heard from, or should send orders to join him.”² or,

“The governor left Captain Calderón in the port with thirty horse and seventy foot with food for two years.”³ and finally, “those who had been ordered to remain there with Captain Calderón regretted this greatly. There were forty on horseback and sixty soldiers left to guard the town and supplies, the port and the brigantines and small vessels that remained...”⁴

Under orders to maintain a peaceful relationship with the native inhabitants he seems to have done so. Though doubtless his men were bemoaning the lack of excitement and gold, they seem to have made do by fishing and planting a garden. . While at Ocita he “received a message from Isabel de Bobadilla for her husband, de Soto, by a captain who brought it from Havana.” ⁵ In late October 1539, Juan de Añasco with thirty horsemen arrived from Apalaache, with orders to leave the base camp and rejoin the main armwhile Calderón and his cavalry accompanied by some crossbowmen journeyed by land arriving with the loss of two men and several horses.

Calderón is not mentioned in the chronicles again until the end when he commanded one of the brigantines traveling down the Mississippi to Mexico. After the expedition he apparently stayed in Mexico, eventually returning to Badajoz, Spain by 1558.⁶
 
 

1. Vega, Garcilaso de la. Trans. John and Jeannette Varner. The Florida of the Inca. (University of Texas Press, Austin 1988) p.88.

2. Vega pp.101-102.

3.Biedma, Luys Hernandez. Trans. Buckingham Smith. Narratives of De Soto in the Conquest of Florida. (Palmetto Books: Gainesville, Florida 1968) p.232.

4. Clayton, Lawrence A., Vernon James Knight, Jr. and Edward C. Moore ed. The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando De Soto to North America in 1539-1543. Vol. I (The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, Alambama 1993) p.64.

5. Clayton. p.258.

6. Ignacio Avellaneda. Los Sobrevivientes de la Florida: The Survivors of the De Soto Expedition. (Research Publication of the P.K. Young Library of Florida History: Gainesville, FL 1990) pp.19-20.

Slightly more than a decade before Hernando de Soto made his entrada into La Florida, the far less well known Pánfilo de Narváez made his foray into what would later become the State of Florida. The Royal Concession granted to him was very similar to that later granted to De Soto. Likewise, his expedition consisted of a comparable number of men, horses and ships. Evidently an effective courtier, based on his ability to get plum assignments, he repeatedly proved to be an indifferent, and sometimes incompetent, military commander. Ultimately though, both he and De Soto would share the same fate of dying in their conquest of the New World.

Bernal Diaz, who met him in Mexico, described Narváez as tall, robust and fair with a great red beard and a voice that sounded very deep and hoarse as if it came from a vault.¹ Narváez was born in Spain around 1475. Around the age of 23 he left for the New World, initially to the island of Hispaniola and later as the second-in-command to Juan de Esquieval in Jamaica. By 1511 he had joined Diego Valázquez in the conquest of Cuba. As Valázquez’s chief lieutenant he had “slashed his way with fifteen crossbowman and a few arquebusiers across the southern part of the island.”²Among his men was Bartolome de Las Casas who would later dedicate his life to renouncing the Spanish treatment of the native population. For his “service” Narváez was granted an encomienda in Cuba with a hundred and fifty-nine Indians.³

In 1518 he returned to Spain, seeking the proclamations needed for Valázquez to conquer the Yucatan. Of course in the meantime Cortés was already, and without waiting for official permission, conquering the Aztec Empire. When Narváez returned to Cuba with the needed decrees, the island's population was being decimated by a plague and Valázquez, as Governor elected to remain in place. In March of 1520, Narváez, despite orders from the audiencia stopping his expedition that threatened to strip the Caribbean of Spaniards, sailed with eighteen ships under his command, from Cuba bound for Mexico.

Upon his arrival on the coast of Mexico Narváez established a town, ignoring the advice of a better location for a colony from a carpenter who had accompanied Cortés, but later quit the expedition to become a farmer. Narváez made every effort to be kind to the Totonacs and others whom he met. “This must have been very difficult for him, for no one was more consumed with a sense of his own superiority and with a greater contempt for indigenous peoples....But the size of Narváez’s force, and the evident superiority of it to Cortés', impressed the Totonacs. After a few days Narváez proclaimed, through his town crier, that Cortés and his party were bad men who had come to rob and take prisoners...”⁴

News soon reached the Emperor Montezuma, then in captivity at the hand of Cortés, of the arrival of Narváez’s expedition. Seeing this as an opportunity to be rid of Cortés, Montezuma sent ambassadors to Narváez inquiring of his intentions. “Narváez...in reply...said...that he had been sent to Mexico at the command of the King in order to colonize (poblar) the land, and that he would release Montezuma, give him back what had been stolen from him, and not kill any one. He suggested that the two of them should exchange names: he, Narváez, would call himself Montezuma; Montezuma would thenceforth be known as Narváez. This bizarre proposal derived from a usage which had often pleased native leaders in Hispaniola.”⁵

Narváez had proclaimed Cortés in open rebellion against the crown. Initially Cortés undermined the leadership of the much larger army of Narváez with promises and bribes. Aided no doubt by the fact that Narváez had kept most of the presents bestowed by the local chieftain, many of the new conquistadors joined the veterans of the Mexican campaign. As Narváez’s position weakened, Cortés sought to win a military victory against his fellow Spaniard. “Narváez organized his artillery, horsemen, arquebusiers and crossbowmen in flat territory a mile from Cempollan. But the rain came on heavily. After some hours, Narváez ’s captains, soaked to the skin and weary of waiting for an attack which half of them thought would never come, and which many of which hoped might be successful, decided to return Cempollan. These captains left their horses and other equipment outside the town... Narváez in particular would not believe that Cortés was only about three miles away, even when one of his scouts told him so.”⁶

Self-confident as always, Narváez retired to the top of a pyramid for the night, surrounded by his captains. On the rainy night of May 28, 1520, Cortés and his army struck. During the battle “Narváez, was wielding a great two-handed broadsword, a montante, which he swung with dexterity but, in the dark without much effect.”⁷ After some wild moments, Narváez was heard to shout out, “Holy Mary, protect me, for they have killed me and destroyed my eye.” One of Sandoval’s pikemen...had in fact extracted Narváez’s right eye...With flames encircling them, Narváez and those with him gave themselves up.”⁸

Narváez was taken to Cortés, who said, “Traitor, troublemaker [revolvedor], you have received better than you just deserts.” Narváez answered: “In your power I am and, for the love of God, don’t let these gentlemen kill me.”⁹ After the surrender a black jester of Narváez’s, named Guidela, said ironically of his master, “The Romans never performed such a feat.”¹⁰

Narváez was imprisoned and eventually escaped to Cuba in a caravel. Thereafter he returned to Spain and began his campaign at court resulting in a grant of the Governorship of Cuba and La Florida in 1526. On 17 June 1527, Governor Pánfilo de Narváez left the port of San Lúcar de Barrameda authorized and commanded by Your Majesty to conquer and govern the provinces of which should be encountered from the river of the river of Palms [the Rio Grande] to the cape of Florida. His expedition consisted of five ships with about 600 men.¹¹ He gathered horses, men and supplies on both Hispaniola and Cuba. A storm through them out to sea for some time but on Good Friday, April 15,1528...The Governor raised flags and took possession of the country [Florida].¹² Two weeks later, and ignoring the advice of his officers he elected to send the ships up the coast to find a port while he would march on.¹³  This separation of men and supplies would prove disastrous for the expedition as they were unable to link up again.

Cabaza de Vaca is rather silent about the treatment of the native population, referring only to those who were captured as guides. Based on the accounts of the torture of those sailors who were looking for him, Narváez’s treatment of the Indians was probably at his usual low standard. Exhausted after many months of marching through Florida along the coast and raiding Indian villages for food his army was ready to end their journey. Near the St. Marks, on Apalache Bay, the Governor then called them all into his presence and asked their advice, one man at a time, on how to escape this dismal country.¹⁴ Lacking a clear idea of the distance involved, the consensus was to build boats and sail to Mexico. Melting down the metal from armor and weapons to make nails, and slaughtering their few remaining horses for food, the expedition constructed several barges.

Proceeding slowly along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, the expedition was beset by a storm near the Texas coast, where the boats began to separate. “But the Governor having the healthiest and strongest men in his barge, we [Cabeza de Vaca and his men] could not keep up. I yelled at him to throw me a rope so we could stay with him. He called back that if he were to do what he hoped that night, he must not further sap his men’s strength. I said that since we were too feeble to carry out his orders to follow him, he must tell me how he would that I would that I should act. He replied that it was no longer a time when one should command another; that each must do as he thought best to save himself; that was what he was doing now. So saying, he pulled away in his barge.”¹⁵
 

Narváez's boat later, near the mouth of a river, “landed the men in his barge and coasted on while they walked...”16    Without any record explanation he revoked his Comptroller's commission and assigned it to another. With only two others aboard,  his boat left its anchorage in the evening during a strong wind.  Whether later drowned or captured by Indians after washing ashore, Pánfilo de Narváez was never heard from again.

_____________

Bibliography:

Covey, Cyclone trans. Cabeza de Vaca’s Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America. University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque 1963.

Díaz, Bernal. The Conquest of New Spain. Penguin Books: New York, 1963.

Smith, Buckingham. trans. Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca. Readex Microprint Corporation, 1966.

Thomas, Hugh. Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. Touch Stone, New York. 1993.
 
 

1 Thomas p.354

2 Thomas p.77.

3 Thomas p.355.

4 Thomas p.361

5 Thomas p.364-365

6 Thomas p.377

7 Thomas p.378

8 Thomas p.379

9 Thomasp.379

10 Thomas p.380

11 Covey, p.27

12 Covey, p.31.

13 Covey p.35

14 Covey p.45

15 Covey. p.53

16 Covey. p.72.

This is the result of one of those interesting questions that you don’t get everyday, but lead into unexpected areas of inquiry. On September 1st, 1998, I found a message on my answering machine from Brenda Carr of the Hernando de Soto Historical Society. In response to a query from a reporter regarding the ‘direct’ descent of Rafael de Soto, an oft times honoree at Society celebrations. apparently after many years of press releases somebody had caught on to the fact that Soto had no legitimate children. Consequently, there was no some question as to whether or not Rafael was a ‘lineal’ or a ‘collateral’ descendant. I did recall from reading Duncan’s biography of Soto (Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas) that Soto had had a couple of illegitimate children, but thought that some further research would be necessary before expressing an opinion on this matter. The result was a rather surprising revelation on the nature of a small part of the Spanish culture in the sixteenth century.
 
 

Brenda Carr
Hernando de Soto Historical Society
The Spanish Manor House
910 Third Avenue West
Bradenton, Fl. 34205
941-747-1988
 
 
 

Dear Ms. Carr,
 
 

Regarding your query as to a lineal or collateral descendent of Hernando de Soto, here’s what I’ve been able to come up with on short notice. First some definitions:

Here are some important terms for describing various family relationships. From the soc. genealogy FAQ

 

1) Consanguinity is the blood relationship that exists among individuals who descend from a common ancestor.

2) Lineal relationships exist between individuals who are in the same line of descent. These relationships include your parents, grandparents, g-g-grandparents, children, and grandchildren.

3) Collateral relationships exist between individuals who descend from a common ancestor, but who are not related to each other in a direct line. Collateral relationships include your sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins.

Inheriting Spanish Arms

The descent of Spanish arms and titles differs from much of Europe in that they can be inherited through females. Also, illegitimacy is no bar to descent of arms and titles. The great Spanish families believed that a family pedigree could be more damaged by misalliance than by illegitimacy. Indeed, the patents of nobility of many Spanish families contained bequethals to illegitimate branches in case no legitimate heirs were found. Illegitimacy in Spain was divided into three categories.

1. Natural Children (Hijos Naturales)

Those born of single or widowed parents who could be legitimized by the marriage of their parents or by a declaration by their father that they were his heirs.

Those whose parents, for whatever reason, were not in a position to marry. These hijos had to be legitimized by a petition of royal ratification.

Those born of parents too closely related to marry or who were under a religious vow. These hijos required a papal dispensation in order to inherit their parents' arms or property. These papal dispensations were granted so often that every diocese in Spain had signed blanks ready to affix the appropriate name.

The charges shown on Spanish armorial bearings can depict historical events or deeds of war. They are also characterized by a widespread use of orles and borders around the edge of the shield. In addition to borders, Spain and Portugal marshal arms more conventionally by quartering. The Spanish also allow words and letters on the shield itself, a practice which is considered incorrect in northern Europe. Their is also a lack of crests, and mottoes are rare.

The office of the King of Arms originated in that of the Heralds, whose job was to determine the arms each noble family was entitled to use. The functions and duties of the King of Arms were clearly defined by the declarations of several Kings and are still in force today. The present Chronicler-King of Arms of Spain is Don Vicente de Cadenas y Vicent. He is a recognized authority on the Emperor Charles V and several of his works are noted here...

The “Will of Hernando de Soto” [Havana 1539] written shortly before the La Florida entrada left Cuba, lists among other bequeaths:

 

“...should God give me children, I desire the patron to be my eldest legitimate son, or my eldest legitimate daughter, should I have no male child...And should God not grant me legitimate sons or daughters...the patron be Juan Mendez de Soto, my brother...[or if not the patron be] the eldest son of Catalina de Soto, my sister...”

 

“Also, I command that of my goods be given my nephew, Pedro de Soto, five hundred ducats from my goods.
 
 

Also, I order that to a boy, who they say is my son, called Andrés de Soto, be given four hundred ducats from my goods.
 
 

Also, I order that to a daughter I left in Nicaragua, called Doña de Soto, married to Hernan Nieto, be given one thousand ducats from my goods.”

From this information it seems that although Soto did not have any legitimate heirs, he had at least two acknowledged illegitimate ones that where using the surname “de Soto.” Also, through his siblings he had a number of relations that could result in a close collateral ancestry. Although I suspect that Rafael de Soto could equally well be a lineal or collateral descendent, I certainly can’t find any information in the mid-sixteenth century records or practice that would preclude his claim of being a direct descendent of the Adelantado. This is I’m sure not the definitive answer that you were seeking, but I hope it helps.
 
 

*The unofficial motto of the De Soto expedition, translated from the Latin, “Let’s ask for directions”
 
 

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