Again, on condition that when you go out of these our said kingdoms, and arrive in said country, you will carry and have with you... the persons, religious and ecclesiastical, who shall be appointed by us for the instruction of the natives of that Province in our Holy Catholic Faith, to whom you are to give and pay the passage, stores, and other necessary subsistence for them, according to their condition, all at you cost, receiving nothing from them during the said entire voyage; with which matter we gravely charge you, that you do and comply with, as a thing for the service of God and our own, and any thing otherwise we shall deem countrary to our service. - From the Concession granted by the King of Spain to Hernando de Soto for the Conquest of Florida1

     In compliance with this with the above mentioned portion of  his cedula or royal contract, twelve clerics accompanied the expedition of  Hernando de Soto to La Florida in 1539.
 

Some brief biographical information culled from:
Ignacio  Avellaneda's  Los Sobreviventes de la Florida: The Survivors of the De Soto Expedition.

Cañete, Garcia de.

Son of Pedro de Cañete and Elvira de Avila, citizans of Illecas, Smith includes a survivor called Cañete from Ubeda or Baeza.  This could be fray Sebastian de Cañete, author of the so-called Cañete Fragment, who may have been another witness and chronicler of the de Soto expedition and whose complete writtings are yet to be found.

Fraile- Frair

Gallegos, Juan – Priest, Dominican

He was a brother of Baltasar de Gallegos and thus possibly from Sevilla, and one of the three surviving priests.  There is one person with the same name listed as son of Juan Martin Bermejo and Beatriz Belazquez, citizens of Oliva.  This may be the same priest mentioned by Garcilasco de la Vega, who wrote that he was from Sevilla.  [Note: Avellaneda  in his bio sketch of Baltasar de Gallegos , “He also suffered the death of his brother who had participated in the expedition and who was a priest of the Dominican order.”  Which seems to imply that Juan did not survive….?]

French cleric mentioned by Garcilasco de la Vega who indicated that he died.  However, father Paris appears in the list of survivors.

Parra, Alonso de – Cleric

A cleric, son of Bartolome de la Parra and Catalina Perez, citizens of Villanueva  de Barcarrota.  He is listed from Jerez or Villanueva, which are towns located in the same province of Extremadura.

Father Pozo – Priest

Surviving priest from Segura.  There was a Barolome Pozo, son of Fernan Alonso Pozo and Isabel Maciass, from Segura de Leon.  Garcilasco de la vega mentions a priest called Francisco del Poso, from Cordoba.  This Segura is in Extremadura while Cordoba is in Andalucia.

Torre, Alvaro de la – Cleric

On October 25th, 1559, Mexican Viceroy Luis de Velasco wrote to Florida Explorer, Tristan de Luna Luna y Arellano.  He informed Luna that he was sending a memoir written by Alvaro de la Torre, “the cleric who was with de Soto in Florida.”  It is clear from the contentof this message that the Viceroy was writing about someone he and Luna knew well.  Alvaro de la Torre could be the sixth chronicler of the de Soto expedition afte  Elvas, Rangel, Biedma, Garcilasco, and Canete.  [or perhaps he is the author of the Cañate fragment?]  This cleric appears distinct from Fray Francisco de la Torre described later.  While Alvaro gave his memoir to the Viceroy, most likely in Mexico, Fransico may have stayed in Spain where he went after the Florida Expedition.

Torres, Fray Francisco de – Priest 1515

Priest from the Order of the Holy Trinity, who met Soto in 1538 and who was born around 1515.  He testified in Madrid in 1546 that he accompanied de Soto to Florida and that the latter died on the 21st day of May 1542, in the province of Guachoya, near the Espirtu Santo river.  He signed his deposition.

Some of the things contained in this relation [prepared for Menendez] that Fray Sebastian de Cañete and the Captain gave are of the things they saw in Florida, going with De Soto….
…the  Cañete fragment, even though quite short [a couple of pages], devotes much of its space to descriptions of the land, fruits, fauna, and even more of its native peoples.²
 

Biedma

(Cross erected in Ycasqui [Parkin, AR])
     Before we got to it, we arrived at another province another lord, who was named Ycasqui, with whom he [Pacaha] was always at war.  This cacique came forth in peace, telling us that he had been hearing of us for a long time, and that he knew that we were men from heaven and that heir arrows could not do us harm, and therefore they wanted no war with us, but rather wanted to serve us.  The Governor received them very well and refused to let any soldiers enter his town, so that they might not do it any damage, and we made camp on a plain in view of the town of the cacique.  We were there two days.
     The day arrived, the cacique spoke with the Governor, telling him that he knew that he was a man from heaven, and since he had to continue onward he should leave a sign indicating whom he could ask for help for his wars, and whom his people could ask for water for their fields, because they were in great need of it, since their children were dying of hunger.  The Governor commanded that they should return the next day, that he would give him the sign of heaven that he asked for, and he should believe that he would lack nothing if he had true faith in it.  They next day the cacique returned to us, saying many things because we delayed so much in giving him the sign that he had asked for, since he was willing serve us and follow us, and he made such a great lament becausethey did not give it so quickly that he made us all weep from seeing the devotion and insistance with which he requested it.  The Governor commanded that he and all  his Indians should return in the afternoon and told him that we would go to his town and bring him the sign that he had requested.
     He came in the afternoon with all his people.  We went in procession up to the town, and they came after us.  Having arrived at the town, we found that the caciques they were accustomed to have, next to the the houses where they live, some very high mounds, made by hand, and that others have their houses on the mounds themselves.  On the summit of that mound we drove in the cross.  The Indinas did as they saw us do, neither more nor less.  They brought a great quantity of canes and made a wall around it.  We returned to camp that night.³

Rangel

(in Alabama at Malbila)
…and the fire traveled so that the nine arrobas of pearls that they had brought were burned, and all the clothes and ornaments and chalices and moulds for wafers, and the wine for saying mass, and they were left like Arabs empty handed and with great hard ship.
     The Christian women, who were slaves of the Governor, had remained in a hut, and some pages, a friar, a cleric, and a cook and some soldiers; they defended themselves very ell from the Indians, who could not enter until the Christians arrived with the fire and brought them out.⁴
 

(in Arkansas)
…Friday the day of St. John, they went to the town of the lord Casqui [Parkin], and he gave food and clothes to the army, and on Saturday they entered in his town; and he had very good huts, and in the principal [hut], over the door, were many heads of very fierce bulls, as in Spain they put the heads of wild boars  or bears at the doors of the houses of the hunters.  There the Christians placed a cross on a mound.  They received it and adored it with much devotion, and I say with much devotion, because the blind and lame Indians came to ask for healing.  The faith of these, said Rodrigo Rangel, would have been greater than that of the conquistadores, if they had been instructed, and in them more fruit would have been produced than what those Christians produced.⁵
 

Gascilaso – (post Mabilia)

     Their loss did not consist alone in the lack of the horses that were killed and in the comrades who were lost, but also in other things that concerned them more as a result of the uses to which they were dedicated.  These were a little wheat flour, amounting to about three fanegas, and four  arrobas of wine, for this was all they had when they reached Mauvila.  For many days before they had kept this flour and wine very carefully and reverently for celebrating mass, and so that it might be carried more carefully and be better protected, the governor brought it in  his own equipage.  All this was burned, along with the chalices, altars, and ornaments they were carrying for divine worship.  Thenceforth it was impossible for them to hear mass because they did not have the material of bread and wine for the consecration of the Eucharist, though the questions in theology were raised among the religious and secular priests as to whether or not they could consecrate bread of maize.  It was agreed by common consent that the most certain [decision] and above all that which the holy Roman church, our Mother and Lady, in her holy councils and sacred cannons orders and teaches us, is that the bread shall be of wheat and the wine from the grape.  Thus these Spanish Catholics concluded that they would not adopt doubtful remedies for fear of finding themselves thereby disobedient to their mother the Roman Catholic church, and also they omitted [celebrating mass] because even if they had the means for consecrating the Eucharist, they would lack chalices and altars for celebrating it.

     Since everything they were carrying for saying mass was burned in the battle of Mauvila, from that time on, by order of the priests, an altar was set up adorned to be venerated on Sundays and feast days, whenever there was an opportunity to do so.  A priest robed himself with ornaments that they made from deerskin, in imitation of the first garments that there were in the world, which were made of the skins of animals.  Taking his stand at the altar he read the Confession and the Introit of the mass, and the Prayer [the Orison], the Epistle and the Gospel and all the rest to the end of the mass, without the consecration, and these Castilians called it the “dry mass.”  The one who celebrated it, or another of the priests, announced the text and upon it gave his discourse or sermon, and with this sort of ceremony that they felt at being unable to adore Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer in the sacramental elements.  This lasted for three years, until they left La Florida for Christian lands. ⁶

¹Clayton. Vol 1. P.363
²Clayton.Vol I. pp308-310.
³Clayton. Vol. I. p. 239.
⁴Clayton.Vol. I. p.294.
⁵Clayton.Vol.I pp.300-301.
⁶Clayton.Vol.II.pp353-354.
 

Avellaneda, Ignacio. Los Sobreviventes de la Florida: The Survivors of the De Soto Expedition. (University of Florida Libraries: Gainesville, Florida 1990)

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. Vols. I & II (The University of Alabama Press: Tuscaloosa, Alabama 1993)

Swanton, John R. The Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission. (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1985)
 
 

    To quote Firesign Theatre:

     Priest:

(Although just why an Irish priest was with a bunch of Spanish Conquistadors is a puzzlement.)

          Pox Venucci Ixum! Down on your knees now! Do you recognize what I'm holdin' over yer heads, lads?
 

     Elder #1:

          It's a cross; the symbol of the quartering of the Universe into active and passive principles.
 

     Priest:

          God have mercy on their heathen souls!
 

     Conquistidore:

          What the Father means, is what is the cross made of? Gold! ... Have you got any?
 

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