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Hernando de Soto

Hernando de Soto marched across what is now eleven U.S. states, leaving a trail of destruction and disease.

Editor’s Note: One of the most respected historians of the Civil War and Indian conflicts, Peter Cozzens has written 17 books, including The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars of the American West, which won the Gilder Lehrman Prize for Military Hist

Some men see the beginnings. The conquistador who first saw the Mississippi also took the Inca highway to fabulous Cuzco.

In Florida the great conquistador hoped to find a Golconda. Instead, he found a Golgotha. 

Before the days of the explorers, the Mississippi was an Indian river. Spreading in a vast belt from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico was a multitude of tribes—Fox, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Iowa, Illinois, Winnebago, Miami, Masouten, Chickasaw, Oto, Quapaw, and others.

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