When Hernando de Soto brought his 600 member expedition to North America in 1538, three members of his crew took notes on the journey: about fifty years later Garcilaso de la Vega, one of the great literary figures of the late medieval period, took a crack at writing up de Soto's story.
Note: 9/22: the other image that was located here was of the 16th century Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega (no relation that I can find).
Together, these four documents are great sources of information for archaeologists, concerning most particularly the weird mindset of Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors in the Americas, but also a bit of the flavor of the Mississippian peoples they met.
The de Soto chronicles make interesting reading, and English translations were published together in two volumes back in 1993. To give you a taste of the writing styles and content, see The De Soto Chronicles; to dive in and absorb yourself in the text, get the books edited by Clayton, Knight and Moore.
Clayton LA, Knight Jr. VJ, and Moore EC, editors. 1993. The De Soto Chronicles: The expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Two volumes.
Comments
Kris, I love that you are talking about the DeSoto Entrada, but your comment about the 3 participants that wrote the chronicles is probably a bit over simplified. I’d like to suggest that you read a fasinating analysis of these writings in an article by George Lanford entitled “How Historical are the DeSoto Chronicles?”
This article can be found in the 2009 book, The Search for Mabila, edited by V.J. Knight and published by the Univ. of Alabama Press. This larger volume is the product of a three day multidisciplinary workshop that brought together geologists, geographers, historians, anthropologists and archaeologists to consider the evidence to date about the location of this most-sought-after DeSoto site – and to discuss the best path toward discovery. (by the way, archaeologists are still looking, but Landford’s article is spot on !)
Hey, thanks for the lead, Linda! I appreciate it greatly…..