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
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.