LA FUERZA. 
33 
THE TOWER OF LA FUERZA AND THE SENATE BUILDING. 
When De Soto, then Governor of Cuba, learned of the plight of the 
inhabitants, he came hither from Santiago, then the capital, and under¬ 
took the construction of a fort. Captain Mateo Acertuna, the town’s first 
alcalde, was the engineer. De Soto saw the defenses completed before the 
twelfth of May, 1539, when, with a fleet and a force of men “all well made 
and well equipped, so that there had not been seen up to that time an 
armament for the Indies so large and so fine,” he set sail on the memorable 
expedition for the conquest of Florida and the discovery of the Missis¬ 
sippi. The Adelantado left here in La Fuerza, as commander in his 
stead, Dona Isabel de Bobadilla, his wife. It was here that Dona Isabel 
waited and watched through the weary years for the coming of her hus¬ 
band, who was never to return; until at last in the fourth year there came 
refugees from America, who brought the tidings of his fate. “By this,” 
says the contemporary account, “she was so sensibly moved that she 
