Ferdinand de Soto: The Discoverer of the Mississippi

"Careful investigation has revealed De Soto to me as by no means so bad a man as I had supposed him to have been. And I think that the candid reader will admit that there was much, in his heroic but melancholy career, which calls for charitable construction and sympathy." -John S.C. Abbott, Preface, 1873

American historian John S.C. Abbott wrote Ferdinand de Soto-The Discoverer of the Mississippi (1873) as part of his American Pioneers and Patriots series. Ferdinand (aka Hernando) de Soto (...