page_title: Muscogee
section_title: Spanish expedition (1540–1543)
hierarchical_section_title: Muscogee / History / Spanish expedition (1540–1543)
caption_attribution_description: English: Hernando de Soto and his men burn Mabila, after a surprise attack by Chief Tuskaloosa and his people, 1540 CE.
context_page_description: The Muscogee, also known as the Muskogee, Muscogee Creek, Creek, Mvskokvlke, or the Muscogee Creek Confederacy in the Muscogee language, are a related group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. Their original homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, all of Alabama, western Georgia and part of northern Florida.
  Like the Cherokees in northeastern Alabama, most of the Muscogee people were forcibly relocated from their original lands in the 1830s during the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory. Some Muscogee fled European encroachment in 1797 and 1804 to establish two small tribal territories that continue to exist today in Louisiana and Texas. Another small branch of the Muscogee Creek Confederacy managed to remain in Alabama and is now known as the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.
  A large population of Muscogee people moved into Florida between roughly 1767 and 1821 and these people intermarried with local tribes to become the Seminole people, thereby establishing a separate identity from the Creek Confederacy. Muscogee people in these waves of migration into Florida were fleeing conflict and encroachment by European settlers.
context_section_description: After Cabeza de Vaca, a castaway who survived the ill-fated Narváez expedition, returned to Spain in 1537, he told the Court that Hernando de Soto said that America was the "richest country in the world". Hernando de Soto was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first expedition into the interior of the North American continent. De Soto, convinced of the "riches", wanted Cabeza de Vaca to go on the expedition, but de Vaca declined his offer because of a payment dispute. From 1540 to 1543, de Soto explored through present-day Florida and Georgia, and then westward into the Alabama and Mississippi area. The areas were inhabited by historic Muscogee Native Americans. De Soto brought with him a well-equipped army. He attracted many recruits from a variety of backgrounds who joined his quest for riches in the Americas. As the de Soto expedition's brutalities became known to the indigenous peoples, they decided to defend their territory. The Battle of Mabila was a turning point for the de Soto venture; the battle "broke the back" of the Spanish campaign, and the expedition never fully recovered.
caption: Hernando de Soto and his men burn Mabila, after a surprise attack by Chief Tuskaloosa and his people; 1540, painting by Herb Roe, 2008.
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