Havana's oldest and most famous fortress and the oldest inhabited building in the Western Hemisphere. The construction of it was prolonged through the administrations of many Governors and was for years the chief issue of political contention in the island. It was long the Governor's residence as well as a fortress; from it Hernando de Soto set out for the exploration of Florida and the discovery of the Mississippi River, and from its ramparts his wife, Dona Isabel, long but vainly maintained her daily vigil for his return.] News came at last, to end in grief her agonizing vigil. It was near the end of 1543 that some three hundred weary and worn survivors of de Soto's expedition reached Panuco, on the Mexican coast, with tidings of their leader's death and the destruction of all the rest of the party. They had wandered through what is now the State of Georgia northward as far as the Tennessee Mountains, thence back to Mobile Bay, in Alabama, thence northwest to the Mississippi, and to the Ouachita, or Washita, in Arkansas. While thence descending the Mississippi, in June, 1542, de Soto had died, and his body had been sunk in the great river. The remainder of his company, led by Luis de Alvarado, had continued down the Mississippi River to the Gulf, and thence sailed along the coast to Panuco. Thus ended the career of one of the most famous of all the Spanish explorers; and thus ended another brief but disastrous chapter in Cuban history. The island had been drained of men, horses, supplies of all kinds; for its population was still so small that the loss of a few hundred of its best men and horses was a serious deprivation. Its own domestic interests had been neglected. Its government had become inefficient. The Indians, taking advantage of the weakness of the Spaniards, had begun to cherish hopes of regaining their old freedom, and in some places had risen forcibly to seek that end, with the effect of enraging the Spaniards against them even to the extreme of resolving upon either their complete enslavement or their extermination. Indeed, serious trouble arose with the Indians during de Soto's brief stay in the island. Shortly before his arrival there had been an outbreak of the natives at Baracoa, which resulted in the partial destruction of that town by burning. Towns built entirely of sun-dried thatch were easily burned. Hearing of this, de Soto in almost his first official utterance in Cuba authorized the sending of strong expeditions against the natives, to hunt them down and destroy them ruthlessly. The offending Indians were all Cimarrons, or "wild" Indians who had never been under the repartimiento system, and who expected and solicited the "tame" Indians to rise and join them. The latter not only refused to do this, however, but offered to go out and fight and subdue the Cimarrons, provided they were permitted to do so without being accompanied by Spanish troops; to which the authorities unfortunately would not agree.