The De Soto Chronicles

The De Soto expedition forms an integral part of the great age of discovery and conquest in the Americas triggered by the Columbian voyages. In the wake of Columbus there came other explorers and conquistadors who pushed through the islands of the Caribbean and into the American mainlands in the first half of the 16th century. They came as explorers and discoverers, conquerors and settlers, spreading the best and worst of European civilisation through the Americas. The De Soto expedition was the first major encounter of Europeans with North American Indians in the eastern half of the United States, and, as such, is of monumental importance in the study and analysis of the origins of North American history after the arrival of the Europeans. De Soto and his expedition of over 600 men, including 200 cavalry, spent four years (1539-43) travelling through what is now Florida, Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. De Soto discovered the Mississippi River, died of a fever, and was buried near the river. For anthropologists, the surviving De Soto chronicles are uniquely valued for the enthnological information they contain. These documents are the only detailed eyewitness records of the most advanced native cultural achievement in North America - the Mississippian culture - a culture that vanished in the wake of European contact. Scholars are now engaged in the prospect of uniting the ethnological record displayed in the De Soto chronicles with modern archaeological, historical and linguistic findings in order to yield the first comprehensive picture of south-eastern Mississipian Indian chiefdoms at the time of European contact. De Soto's expedition was one of those primary events in the transformation of North American life initiated by the Columbian voyages, and it is within this context that the accounts included in these volumes are of extraordinary importance. "The De Soto Chronicles" should greatly facilitate access, both popular and scholarly, to the central accounts of the expedition. The publication of new and refined translations, along with previously unpublished documents relevant to the expedition, offer a significant contribution to the general understanding of the vital role played by the early Spaniards in the history of North America. This work has been designated as an official project of the Spain '92 Foundation.