In 1539, Hernando de Soto and his army of some 600 men landed in Florida. Fresh from the successful conquest of the fabulously wealthy Inca in Peru, Soto had high hopes of finding fame and fortune in North America. For three years he traveled through the hardwood forests and swamps of the Southeastern United States before dying and being buried in the Mississippi River. The remnants of the expedition returned to Mexico without an ounce of gold.
Ever since, local historians have claimed he passed through their county, and there are several towns so named. Anthropologists and historians have put forth various routes, leading occasionally to bitter disputes. More recently, archaeologists have joined the debate, looking, sometimes successfully, for material remains of the expedition to confirm Soto’s presence. Several sites in Florida, Georgia, and Arkansas have produced evidence compatible with Soto’s passage.
In this volume, archaeologist Dennis Blanton relates the story of his decade-long exploration of the Glass site in southeastern Georgia for the Fernbank Museum in Atlanta. Blanton was looking for the Catholic mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahica that Spanish records located on the Okmulgee River near its junction with the Oconee. San Isabel flourished from about 1610 to 1640 and was the most remote of the early missions in the region. Since missions were always located within, or adjacent to, large Native villages, Blanton began his search at recorded village sites. After some false starts, he began to work at the Glass site in a timber farm on the river that evidenced high concentrations of Native pottery, lithics, and other artifacts. Soon after work began, a high school student participating in the dig found a glass bead called a facet chevron, which was made in Italy. Other European artifacts were soon uncovered, proving the Spanish had indeed been there. However, further study revealed the beads were made before 1550, way too early for the mission. Further analysis led to the conclusion that the Spanish artifacts and the village dated to the first half of the 1500s, probably to Soto’s expedition. If so, the Glass site is a new benchmark for tracing his route that conflicts with the two most accepted theories.
Conquistador’s Wake is a delightful narrative of an archaeologist’s search for new information and the techniques and hardships that go with it. This is not a scientific report on Blanton’s project. Instead it is a real life story of archaeology in action, with all of the excitement of new discoveries that challenge accepted theories. Told in an engaging style that reads more like a novel than a treatise, it will excite arm-chair archaeologists and fascinate professionals as well.
