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=== Historiography === [[Historian]]s have worked to trace the route of de Soto's expedition in North America, a controversial process over the years.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://npshistory.com/publications/transportation/desoto-nht.pdf|title=De Soto Trail: National Historic Trail study: Final Report|publisher=National Park Service Southeast Regional Office|year=1990|pages=9, 28|oclc=22338956}}</ref> Local politicians vied to have their localities associated with the expedition. The most widely used version of "De Soto's Trail" comes from a study commissioned by the [[United States Congress]]. A committee chaired by the [[anthropologist]] [[John R. Swanton]] published ''The Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission'' in 1939. Among other locations, [[Manatee County, Florida]], claims an approximate landing site for de Soto and has a national memorial recognizing that event.<ref>[http://www.manateechamber.com/history.asp Manatee County History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080421013518/http://www.manateechamber.com/history.asp |date=21 April 2008 }}, Manatee Florida Chamber of Commerce.</ref> In the early 21st century, the first part of the expedition's course, up to de Soto's battle at [[Mabila]] (a small fortress town in present-day central [[Alabama]]<ref>Sylvia Flowers, "DeSoto's Expedition", U.S. [[National Park Service]], 2007, webpage: [https://web.archive.org/web/20090513014635/http://www.nps.gov/archive/ocmu/DeSoto.htm NPS-DeSoto].</ref>), is disputed only in minor details. His route beyond Mabila is contested. Swanton reported the de Soto trail ran from there through [[Mississippi]], [[Arkansas]], and [[Texas]]. Historians have more recently considered [[Archeology|archeological]] reconstructions and the [[oral tradition|oral history]] of the various [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] peoples who recount the expedition.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} Most historical places have been overbuilt and much evidence has been lost.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} More than 450 years have passed between the events and current history tellers, but some oral histories have been found to be accurate about historic events that have been otherwise documented.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}} The Governor Martin Site at the former [[Apalachee]] village of [[Anhaica]], located about a mile east of the present-day Florida state capitol in [[Tallahassee, Florida|Tallahassee]], has been documented as definitively associated with de Soto's expedition. The Governor Martin Site was discovered by archaeologist [[B. Calvin Jones]] in March 1987. It has been preserved as the [[DeSoto Site Historic State Park]]. The Hutto/Martin Site, 8MR3447, in southeastern [[Marion County, Florida]], on the [[Ocklawaha River]], is the most likely site of the principal town of ''Acuera'' referred to in the accounts of the ''entrada'', as well as the site of the seventeenth-century mission of Santa Lucia de Acuera.<ref>{{cite book|type=dissertation|last=Boyer III|first=Willet A.|title=The Acuera of the Oklawaha River Valley: Keepers of Time in the Land of the Waters|year=2010|publisher=University of Florida|url=http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0041966/boyer_w.pdf|access-date=7 December 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Boyer III|first1=Willet|title=The Hutto/Martin Site of Marion County, Florida, 8MR3447: Studies at an Early Contact/Mission Site|journal=The Florida Anthropologist |volume= 70|pages=122–139|date= 2017|issue=3 }} On-line as{{cite news|title=The Hutto/Martin Site of Marion County, Florida, 8MR3447: Studies at an Early Contact/Mission Site|url=https://www.academia.edu/35114403|access-date=7 December 2017|publisher=academia.edu|date=7 December 2017}}</ref> As of 2016, the Richardson/UF Village site (8AL100) in [[Alachua County, Florida|Alachua County]], west of [[Orange Lake (Florida)|Orange Lake]], appears to have been accepted by archaeologists as the site of the town of Potano visited by the de Soto expedition. The 17th-century mission of [[San Buenaventura de Potano]] is believed to have been founded here.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Boyer III |first1=Willet |title=Potano in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: New Excavations at the Richardson/UF Village Site, 8AL100 |publisher=The Florida Anthropologist 2015 68 (3–4)|date=2015}} On-line as{{cite news|title=Potano in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: New Excavations at the Richardson/UF Village Site, 8AL100|url=https://www.academia.edu/20665037|access-date=23 January 2016|publisher=academia.edu|date=23 January 2016}}</ref> Many archaeologists believe the [[Parkin Archeological State Park]] in northeast [[Arkansas]] was the main town for the indigenous province of [[Casqui]], which de Soto had recorded. They base this on similarities between descriptions from the journals of the de Soto expedition and artifacts of European origin discovered at the site in the 1960s.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/archinfo/parkin_site.pdf |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20081003085722/http://uark.edu/campus-resources/archinfo/parkin_site.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=3 October 2008 |title=The Parkin Site: Hernando de Soto in Cross County, Arkansas |access-date=19 September 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=1246| title = Parkin Archeological State Park-Encyclopedia of Arkansas| access-date = 19 September 2008}}</ref> Theories of de Soto's route are based on the accounts of four chroniclers of the expedition. * The first account of the expedition to be published was by the Gentleman of Elvas, an otherwise unidentified [[Portuguese people|Portuguese]] knight who was a member of the expedition. His chronicle was first published in 1557. An English translation by [[Richard Hakluyt]] was published in 1609.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando de Soto into Florida Published at Evora in 1557 |url=https://archive.org/details/anarrativeofthee34997gut|publisher=Internet Archive|access-date=25 November 2013}}</ref> * Luys Hernández de Biedma, the King's factor (the agent responsible for the royal property) with the expedition, wrote a report which still exists. The report was filed in the royal archives in Spain in 1544. The manuscript was translated into English by Buckingham Smith and published in 1851.<ref>{{cite book|last=Altman|first=Ida|title=The Hernando de Soto Expedition: History, Historiography, and "Discovery" in the Southeast|year=1997|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-7122-7|pages=3–4|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zzGphaI83EUC&q=Luys+Hern%C3%A1ndez+de+Biedma&pg=PA3|editor=Patricia Kay Galloway|access-date=25 November 2013|chapter=An Official's Report: The Hernandez de Biedma Account}}</ref> * De Soto's secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel, kept a diary, which has been lost. It was apparently used by [[Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés]] in writing his ''La historia general y natural de las Indias''. Oviedo died in 1557. The part of his work containing Ranjel's diary was not published until 1851. An English translation of Ranjel's report was first published in 1904. * The fourth chronicle is by [[Inca Garcilaso de la Vega|Garcilaso de la Vega]], known as ''El Inca'' (the Inca). Garcilaso de la Vega did not participate in the expedition. He wrote his account, ''La Florida'', known in English as ''The Florida of the Inca'', decades after the expedition, based on interviews with some survivors of the expedition. The book was first published in 1605. Historians have identified problems with using ''La Florida'' as a historical account. [[Jerald T. Milanich|Milanich]] and [[Charles M. Hudson|Hudson]] warn against relying on Garcilaso, noting serious problems with the sequence and location of towns and events in his narrative. They say, "some historians regard Garcilaso's ''La Florida'' to be more a work of literature than a work of history."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Milanich|first1=Jerald T.|last2=Hudson|first2=Charles|title=Hernando de Soto and the Indians of Florida|year=1993|pages=6–8|publisher=University Press of Florida|location=Gainesville|isbn=0-8130-1170-1}}</ref> Lankford characterizes Garcilaso's ''La Florida'' as a collection of "[[legend]] narratives", derived from a much-retold oral tradition of the survivors of the expedition.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lankford|first=George E.|title=The Expedition of Hernando de Soto West of the Mississippi 1541–1543|year=1993|page=175|publisher=University of Arkansas Press|location=Fayetteville|isbn=1-55728-580-2|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EIt0uRRwPPMC&q=reliability+Garcilaso&pg=PA160|editor=Young, Gloria A |editor2=Michael P. Hoffman|access-date=16 November 2013|chapter=Legends of the Adelantado}}</ref> Milanich and Hudson warn that older translations of the chronicles are often "relatively free translations in which the translators took considerable liberty with the Spanish and Portuguese text."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Milanich|first1=Jerald T.|last2=Hudson|first2=Charles|title=Hernando de Soto and the Indians of Florida|year=1993|pages=8–9|publisher=University Press of Florida|location=Gainesville|isbn=0-8130-1170-1}}</ref> The chronicles describe de Soto's trail in relation to [[Havana]], from which they sailed; the [[Gulf of Mexico]], which they skirted while traveling inland then turned back to later; the [[Atlantic Ocean]], which they approached during their second year; high mountains, which they traversed immediately thereafter; and dozens of other geographic features along their way, such as large rivers and swamps, at recorded intervals. Given that the natural geography has not changed much since de Soto's time, scholars have analyzed those journals with modern [[Topography|topographic intelligence]], to develop a more precise account of the De Soto Trail.<ref name=HUDSONKNIGHTS /><ref name=HUDSONFORGOTTEN>{{Cite book|title=The Forgotten Centuries-Indians and Europeans in the American South 1521 to 1704|editor1-last=Charles|editor1-first=Hudson|editor1-link=Charles M. Hudson (author)|editor2-last= Chaves|editor2-first=Tesser Carmen|year=1994|publisher=University of Georgia Press}}</ref>
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