Despite the reasoning of the De Soto Commission Report, many scholars disagree -- including some who otherwise favor A Tampa Bay landing on the north shore. Part of the most important information furnished by the early chroniclers is ignored, or dismissed with what is felt to be little consideration.

An opening assumption that the Bay of Juan Ponce was present Charlotte Harbor is debatable. Evidence makes the strongest case for San Carlos Bay as the site of Ponce's abortive colony. Therefore, Ranjel's statement that the Bay of the Holy Spirit was 10 leagues west of the Bay of Juan Ponce does not automatically eliminate Charlotte Harbor as Soto's landing place.

Another assumption disputed is that the Island of Tortugas, mentioned by Ranjel as a land-mark, is the same as the present Dry Tortugas. Early maps show quite clearly the Tortugas as a distinctive circlet of isles, and early accounts describe a circular inner harbor where small boats could find refuge.

In all the Florida Keys there is only one which fits Ranjel's description of Tortugas -- the Marquesas. The archipelago did not acquire its present name until 1622. At that time the Marquis de Cadereita, viceroy of New Spain, established a camp there from which to personally supervise the salvage of gold from three treasure ships sunk that year by a hurricane.

The early Soto narratives stress the shallow waters of the approach to their port and within the harbor itself.

Tampa's main waters have plenty of depth. Only by an illogical assumption that Soto chose the poorest of three passages, after considerable search, can his fleet be made to scrape bottom going in. The ships also were assumed thereafter to have hugged the shallow shore line where days of constant sounding would be required -- even though safe sailing would have been found a hundred yards

farther off shore to several better landing places.

Strangely the Commission Report lightly dismisses the on-the-spot statement of Soto himself, the most credible witness, that his landing was on a cape well into a huge bay. This would be the northern reaches of either Tampa Bay or Charlotte Harbor.

Not considered is the assertions by Biedma starting the inland march towards the setting sun, of marching 110 leagues to Apalache, and of keeping 12 leagues from the coast.

These and a few other lesser difficulties stimulated publication by Warren H. Wilkinson of the case for a San Carlos Bay landing. It appeared as a series during 1947 in the "American Eagle," official magazine of the former Koreshan Unity Society. The theory has been amplified and given greater circulation by Rolfe Schell in his book, "De Soto Didn't Land In Tampa."

Wilkinson has an ingenious approach to the problem. Relying heavily on Garcilaso's account of the 30 cavaliers, he back-tracks from Apalache, a "known" landmark, to the Bay of the Holy Spirit, the point of controversy. As he reasons out succeeding landmarks on the return journey, Wilkinson eventually arrives at San Carlos Bay via the Caloosahatchee estuary. After recapitulating the march northward, Wilkinson begins his deductions for the reverse journey -- which we excerpt to avoid lengthy repetition of the eyewitness narratives already presented:

THE DE SOTO EXPEDITION

Before dawn the thirty messengers fared forth after rigorous outfitting. They had a foreboding that their first dire straits would be when they had to win their way through a narrow defile in swampy forests which bounded both sides of a marsh 11 leagues along their way. However, there was no ambush so the cavaliers got through safely. This was at the present Aucilla River.