Simplify the following text for a Grade 13 native English-speaking person.
Original: Brave leadership , unwavering loyalty , and clever schemes for the extortion of native villages for their captured chiefs , became De Soto 's hallmark during the Conquest of Central America .
Simplified: Brave leadership , unwavering loyalty , and clever schemes for the extortion of native villages for their captured chiefs became de Soto 's hallmark during the Conquest of Central America .