On May 30, 1539, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto arrived in La Florida, the Land of Flowers, and came ashore with nine ships carrying 500 tons of materials for a long expedition. Scouting parties were to search the surrounding countryside for a suitable place to establish a fortified camp. According to Rodrigo Rangel, on Friday, May 30, the expedition disembarked in Florida two leagues from a town of an Indian chief called Ucita and unloaded two hundred and thirteen horses to lighten the ships so they would need less water. Captain general Vasco Porcallo then rode out with seven horsemen, ranged about a half league through the land, and encountered six Indians who opposed them with arrows; the horsemen killed two and four escaped. King Charles V had proclaimed De Soto governor of Cuba, and for months De Soto prepared for the journey to La Florida using Cuban resources financed from his own fortune. The native Tocobaga people living near present-day Tampa Bay were in a no-man’s-land between two warring Indian chiefdoms: the Calusa, who claimed the land from Sarasota Bay to the Florida Keys, and the Timucuan peoples, who controlled Central and North Florida to the Aucilla River.