Hernando de Soto had spent his youth…

Hernando de Soto had spent his youth in the family manor house at Jerez de los Caballeros in Badajoz, Spain.

His parents intend him to be a lawyer, but in 1514 he tells his father of his desire to go to the Indies, and he departs for Seville.

Despite his youth—he is seventeen or eighteen years old—de Soto's zeal and his equestrian skills help gain him a place on the expedition of Pedro Arias Dávila (also called Pedrarias Dávila) to the West Indies.

Segovia-born Arias Dávila, a soldier in his youth, had served with distinction in wars against the Moors in Granada in the 1490s and in North Africa in 1508-11.

He apparently owes his appointment as captain general of the Spanish lands in the New World, which he had received in 1513, to the bishop of Burgos.

Arias Dávila, now probably in his early seventies, sails for the New World in 1514 with nineteen ships and about fifteen hundred men, the largest expedition yet.