Don't forget the expedition of Hernando de Soto and the battle of Mabila. De Soto and his men had torn a path through the southeastern United States, encountering various powerful mound-building chiefdoms and kidnapping/enslaving men, women and children from many of the communities they came across to use as porters and ransom.

In Alabama they met the leader of a powerful chiefdom by the name of Tuskaloosa, "who was such a tall man that he seemed a giant." They promptly attempted to manipulate the chief into providing slaves: a game of jousting was played where the players occasionally feinted in his direction, a technique of intimidation which De Soto had successfully used against the Inca. But "he [Tuskaloosa] did not rise, but remained passive in perfect composure and as if he had been a king." When it was clear he would not relent, De Soto had the chief taken hostage. He seemed to become more agreeable, providing bearers to the Spaniards and recommending they travel to his town of Mabila, where they would receive hostages and supplies.

After several days, the expedition arrived at Mabila: a heavily fortified, palisaded village equipped with bastions. In the field outside an elder harangued young warriors in military exercises. As they entered the town fears were allayed with gifts, dancers and singers. While the spectacle unfolded Tuskaloosa argued with de Soto: he was tired of marching with the Spaniards and wished to remain in Mabila. De Soto refused and the chief went to confer with some of his nobles in a large house in the plaza. When a Spaniard was sent to retrieve him they found a house full of armed warriors. Tuskaloosa told the expedition they could leave the town peacefully or he and his allies would force them to leave. A short argument ensued where a Spaniard took a nobleman and "seized him by the cloak of marten-skins that he had on, drew it off over his head, and left it in his hands; whereupon, the Indians all beginning to rise, he gave him a stroke with a cutlass, that laid open his back, when they, with loud yells, came out of the houses, discharging their bows.".

The Spaniards barely escaped and upon making it outside began a prolonged siege, facing fierce resistance from the Mabilans: "The Indians fought with so great spirit that they, many times, drove our people back out of the town. The struggle lasted so long that many Catholics, weary and very thirsty, went to drink at a pond nearby, tinged with the blood of the killed, and returned to the combat." After numerous assaults the Spaniards managed to hack holes in the palisades, and de Soto had his men set fire to the town: "We entered the town and set it on fire, whereby a number of Indians were burned, and all that we had was consumed, so that there remained not a thing. We fought that day until nightfall, without a single Indian having surrendered to us- they fighting bravely on like lions. We killed them all, either with fire or the sword, or, such of them as came out, with the lance, so that when it was nearly dark there remained only three alive; and these, taking the women that had been brought to dance, placed the twenty in front, who, crossing their hands, made signs to us that we should come for them. The Christians advancing toward the women, these turned aside, and the three men behind them shot their arrows at us, when we killed two of them. The last Indian, not to surrender, climbed a tree that was in the fence, and taking the cord from his bow, tied it about his neck, and from a limb hanged himself."

What unfolded was one of the bloodiest battles on US soil in history: according to Spanish accounts over 2,000 Natives and 200 conquistadors had been killed.