mouth of the Mobile River. The inhabitants, disgusted with the strangers, and provoked by an outrage committed on one of their chiefs, brought on a severe conflict, in which two thousand of the natives and about twenty Spaniards were slain. A considerable number of Spaniards died afterwards of their wounds; they also lost about forty horses. The village was burnt in the action. After this engagement, Soto retreated to Chicaça, a small town in the country of the Chickasaws, where he remained until March, 1541. His army now resumed its march through the Indian territory, and after many mishaps and very grievous discouragements, in the latter part of April Soto first beheld the Mississippi: this was probably not far from the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude. The river was crossed by Soto, and still further attempts were made to discover the wealth and magnificence which they had set out to find in Florida. But it was all in vain: chagrined by a conviction of total failure, Soto sank under his disappointment, and died May 25th, 1542. "To conceal his death, his body was wrapped in a mantle, and, in the stillness of midnight, was silently sunk into the middle of the stream. The discoverer of the Mississippi slept beneath its waters. He had crossed a large part of the continent in search of gold, and found nothing so remarkable as his burial place."[1] The remains of this vaunted expedition, in number not half that with which they embarked, floated down the Mississippi to its mouth, and in September, 1543, reached a Spanish settlement near the present site of Tampico.
Florida was thenceforth abandoned. Not a settlement was made; not a single site occupied by the Spaniards; yet Spain, under the name of Florida, laid claim to the entire sea-coast of America, as far even as Newfoundland. Their first actual settlement arose out of that bitter hatred and fierce persecuting zeal which characterized at that time, on the Continent, both Roman Catholics and Protestants.
The illustrious and excellent Admiral de Coligny, one of the ablest of the French Protestant leaders, was desirous of finding a home in America for the persecuted Huguenots. Accordingly—an expedition to Brazil in 1555 having failed—he fitted out an expedition, sanctioned by the bigotted but feeble Charles IX., and gave the command to Jean Ribault of Dieppe, an experienced mariner and decided Protestant. The expedition consisted of two ships, with a goodly company who went out as colonists. Ribault reached the coast of Florida in May, entered a spacious inlet which he named Port Royal, and built a fort called Carolina, a name which still remains to us, although the early colony perished. Twenty-six were left to found a settlement, while Ribault returned to France for supplies; but becoming disheartened, they hastily resolved to abandon the settlement; the commandant was killed in a mutiny; and well-nigh starved, they were
- ↑ Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. i., p. 57.
