The Hernando de Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast.

Abstract

This collection of trenchant essays raises the level of debate about Soto, his route, and his effects on Native Americans to new heights of sophistication by critically examining the literary sources and a host of methodological and contextual issues largely ignored in other works.-Paul E. Hoffman, author of A New Andalucia and a Way to the Orient: The American Southeast during the Sixteenth Century. This volume will be a magnificent contribution to de Soto studies. It establishes a modern historiographical foundation from which all future studies must proceed.-Jeffrey P. Brain, author of Winterville: Late Prehistoric Culture Contact in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Hernando de Soto and several hundred armed men cut a path of destruction and disease across the Southeast from Florida to the Mississippi River (1539-1542). The result was the social and demographic collapse or radical transformation of many Native American societies, and the gradual opening of the Southeast to European colonization. Traditionally, studies of the Soto expedition have concentrated on reconstructing its route. While not neglecting this issue, the eighteen contributors to this volume-themselves leading historians, archaeologists, literary critics, anthropologists, and ethnohistorians-investigate broader cultural and literary aspects of the sources themselves. The texts are also used to discuss microhistorical aspects of the expedition (including its daily routine, logistics, and health), and to evaluate their contribution to a better understanding of colonialism and southeastern Native American ethnohistory. Patricia Galloway is Special Projects Officer with the Mississippi Department of Archives andHistory. She is the author of Choctaw Genesis 1500-1700 (Nebraska 1995) and the editor of The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: Artifacts and Analysis (Nebraska 1989).