The De Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543 (Two Volume Set)

The descriptions of native American settlements in what is now the southeastern United States help show how the advanced cultures of the Mississippian period shaped and cultivated the land. The descriptions of encounters between native and foreign forces are concise and revealing. It is a story to be analyzed from multiple perspectives aside from those of the writers.

Very disappointed to receive only volume 1. If you read the comments, two of us received just volume 1 while another only received volume 2.Then customer service only gives the option to return. How about the option to fix my frigging order by sending volume 2?

The turnaround for shipping was really quick, and the condition of the books was better than described. A great price for the two-volume set!

These books are recent translations of the four major accounts of the De Soto expedition - the Gentleman of Elvas, Luys Hernandez de Biedma, Rodrigo Ranjel, and Garcilaso de la Vega, based on the account of the soldier Gonzalo Silvestre. They also include translations of a number of documents related to the expedition and its members.The books represent a badly needed update of the older translations by Buckingham Smith. They give us a picture of a world of Native American societies with tens or hundreds of thousands of people, ruled by nobles and leaders in ranked hierarchies through ceremony, ritual and belief. And they represent our last real glimpse of these societies at the beginning of the end - before disease, warfare with Europeans, and the shattering effects of De Soto's entrada destroyed the most powerful and complex cultures north of Mesoamerica.Archaeologist, historian, and ordinary reader alike will find these books fascinating and important.

The De Soto Chronicles are an informative and significant translation of the early Spanish explorer. I ordered the two volume set and received Vol II and found it to be an educational read and I would really like to read Vol I if I can find 1/2 the set. Exceptional second 1/2 of a really important work.

Tried 3 times and couldn't get the second volume. Perhaps it's not a two volume set!

A must have set if you want to learn from first hand accounts of the early Spanish exploration of the Southern US

An iconic work of history writing.

Here are assembled English translations of all the available documents that shed light on the de Soto exploration into "Florida", which started in what we know as Florida, but continued well to the north and then to the west. De Soto himself died en route. The four accounts which form the main body of the text are by two actual survivors (one of them part of a significant Portuguese contingent in the expedition), a writer who was depending on the very detailed (but tragically incomplete) testimony of another, clearly literate, surviving participant and Garcilaso de la Vega, well known to anyone who has ever studied the Incas.In addition, there are numerous smaller documents, to shed light on the ambitions and attitudes and expectations of the members of the expedition. Have a look, for example, at de Soto's will. He goes into huge detail as to the chapel he wants constructed for his mortal remains, at what cost and with which religious ceremonies performed. Finally, there is a tiny paragraph in which he acknowledges that, come to think of it, he may never return, alive or dead, so he ordains that the chapel should be built, anyway. Presumably, he didn't just summon a builder and arrange for the chapel's construction in his lifetime because he expected to be able to build a much more lavish one, on his return from "Florida". The book displays every aspect of the Spanish/Portuguese attitude to New World conquest. On the one hand, there was a casual recourse to violence, certainly not unique to the Iberians at the time, but shocking, all the same. On the other hand, the chronicler of the Rangel records occasionally expresses his horror at the treatment by the Spaniards of the indigenous Americans (conceivably reporting the misgivings of Rangel himself). Most likely modern readers wouldn't disagree with him.I think it is an outstanding book, brilliantly annotated. I'd love to have copies of the original texts, as well, but the various translators concerned here are, anyway, much more sensitive to old Spanish and Portuguese and the availability of possible alternative renderings than I could ever be. Any English-language student of the de Soto expedition, or of the conquistadores in general, will want this by his or her side.It works well on the Kindle. The footnotes are accessible and informative. I do actually have this book in paper form (two thick volumes), but I doubt if I'd have thought of taking it with me in my airline luggage, if not in electronic format.