Today, the Florida State Quarter Coin remembers when De Soto and his men landed on the western coast of Florida on May 30, 1539.
From the Discovery and Conquest of Terra Florida, by Don Ferdinando de Soto, and Six Hundred Spaniards, His Followers in the Works of the Hakluyt Society, published in 1851:
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On Sunday the 18th of May, in the year of our Lord 1539, the Adelantado or president departed from Havana in Cuba with his fleet, which were nine vessels, five great ships, two caravels, and two brigantines.
They sailed seven days with a prosperous wind. The 25th day of May, the day de Pasca de Spirito Santo (which we call Whitson Sonday), they saw the land of Florida; and because of the shoals, they came to an anchor a league from the shore.
On Friday the 30th of May they landed in Florida, two leagues from a town of an Indian lord, called Ucita.
They set on land two hundred and thirteen horses, which they brought with them, to unburden the ships, that they might draw the less water.
He landed all his men, and only the seamen remained in the ships, which in eight days, going up with the tide every day a little, brought them up unto the town.
As soon as the people were come on shore, he pitched his camp on the sea side, hard upon the bay which went up unto the town.
And presently the captain general Vasques Porcallo, with other seven horsemen, foraged the country half a league round about, and found six Indians, which resisted him with their arrows, which are the weapons which they use to fight with all.
The horsemen killed two of them, and the other four escaped; because the country is cumbersome with woods and bogs, where the horses stuck fast, and fell with their riders, because they were weak with travelling upon the sea.
The same night following, the Governor, with an hundred men in the brigantines, lighted upon a town, which he found without people, because, that as soon as the Christians had sight of land, they were descried, and saw along the coast many smokes, which the Indians had made to give advice the one to the other.
The next day Luys de Moscoso, master of the camp, set the men in order, the horsemen in three squadrons, — the vantgard, the batallion, and the rerewarde: and so they marched that day, and the day following, compassing great creeks which came out of the bay.
They came to the town of Ucita, where the Governor was, on Sunday the first of June, being Trinity Sunday.
The town was of seven or eight houses. The lords house stood near the shore, upon a very high mount, made by hand for strength. At another end of the town stood the church, and on the top of it stood a fowl made of wood, with gilded eyes.
Here were found some pearls of small value, spoiled with the fire, which the Indians do pierce and string them like beads, and wear them about their necks and wrists, and they esteem them very much.
The houses were made of timber, and covered with palm leaves.
The Governor lodged himself in the lords houses, and with him Vasques Porcallo, and Luys de Moscoso; and in others that were in the midst of the town, was the chief alcalde or justice, Baltasar de Gallegos, lodged; and in the same houses was set in a place by itself, all the provision that came in the ships.
The other houses and the church were broken down, and every three or four soldiers made a little cabin wherein they lodged.
The country round about was very fenny, and encumbered with great and high trees.
The Governor commanded to fell the woods a crossbow shot round about the town, that the horses might run, and the Christians might have the advantage of the Indians, if by chance they should set upon them by night.
In the ways and places convenient, they had their sentinels of footmen by two and two in every stand, which did watch by turns, and the horsemen did visit them, and were ready to assist them, if there were any alarm.
The Governor made four captains of the horsemen, and two of the footmen. The captains of the horsemen were, one of them, Andrew de Vasconcelos, and another, Pedro Calderan de Badajos; and the other two were his kinsmen, to wit, Arias Tinoco and Alfonso Romo, born likewise in Badajos.
The captains of the footmen, the one was Francisco Maldonado of Salamanca, and the other Juan Rodriguez Lobillo.
While we were in this town of Ucita, the two Indians which John Danusco had taken on that coast, and the Governor carried along with him for guides and interpreters, through carelessness of two men which had the charge of them, escaped away one night.
For which the Governor and all the rest were very sorry, for they had already made some roads, and no Indians could be taken, because the country was full of marsh grounds, and in many places full of very high and thick woods.
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The Florida State Quarter Coin shows with an artist’s image of De Soto landing on the western coast in 1539.
