Hernando De Soto landed in Florida at Tampa Bay in May, 1539, with an army of around 800 Spaniards, including two women, as well as 240 horses and several pigs. The expedition traveled through the Southeast to Texas and returned to the Mississippi River to float down to the Gulf of Mexico, and only about 300 Spaniards survived the four-year journey to reach Mexico in September of 1543. In December, 1540, De Soto entered what is now the state of Mississippi with about 700 Spaniards and Indian captives. At the flooded Tombigbee River, Indians on the west bank threatened the army, and De Soto sent 30 mounted soldiers to cross upstream and drive them away; after the Indians left, the army crossed and continued without opposition. De Soto and his army spent that winter in the village of Chicasa, a Chickasaw settlement. The inhabitants abandoned the village to the Spaniards and moved to a smaller village a few miles away, though the Chickasaw chief continued to visit Chicasa with gifts of dogs, rabbits, and animal hides. In March, 1541, the Chickasaws attacked Chicasa to drive the Spaniards out, killing about a dozen Spaniards and fifty horses, and burning the village and livestock pens, which killed many pigs. De Soto and most of his army survived, resumed their westward journey in April, and later reached Mexico. Although Owl Creek Mounds has been suggested as the site of Chicasa, archaeological discoveries indicate the mounds were abandoned around A.D. 1200, and no one lived there at the time of De Soto’s expedition.