DeSoto's Midwestern Trail
by Donald E. SheppardThe late Dr. Glenn A. Black, a famous Indiana archaeologist, speculated in Angel Site: An Archaeological, Historical and Ethnological Study that Hernando de Soto's people described Angel Mounds Site perfectly. He wrote (on page 549, volume 2), "It would appear on the basis of archaeological evidence that this site could well have been the "principal town" of almost any one of the "provinces" through which De Soto passed." Dr. Black preceded that statement with 50 pages of comparisons of artifacts found at Angel Mounds with artifacts AND topography described by De Soto's people at Aquixo (Angle Mounds), Pacaha (Terre Haute), and Casqui (Vincennes), all in Indiana.
The dated argument by 1930's scientists, that DeSoto's people described only Mississippian Mound Societies in the Southeast, was crushed by Dr. Black's careful examination of Angel Mounds - in all respects similar to Southeastern Mounds, the very ones used by 1930's scientists to "prove" that DeSoto's people spent four years exploring only the Southeastern portion of today's America. Indiana has been deprived of knowledge of its native culture by such assertions by powerful scientists ever since. Historians, for the most part, have surrendered to that power, but anyone reading the available source material today, with knowledge of twentieth century technology and America's topography, would conclude that all, save Dr. Black, completely missed the mark on DeSoto's trail.
The fact that no other Spanish expedition was ever dispatched after DeSoto's to explore deep into North America, is, in itself, argument enough to reason that DeSoto's army had done so, given that Spain and Portugal successfully explored and colonized ALL of the New World elsewhere. Had DeSoto found what he was looking for in North America, we would all be speaking Spanish today.