Hernando De Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas [Hardcover]

David Ewing Duncan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 1996

For the first time, a book that tells the truth about Hernando de Soto's legendary expedition across what would become the United States, where he squandered a fortune in gold won in the conquest of Peru, and drove himself slowly mad searching for a second Inca empire. Maps and line drawings.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ruthless conqueror of Central America and Peru's Inca empire, the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto is sometimes portrayed as a saintly bearer of civilization, while other biographers see a brutal butcher. To freelancer Duncan, this son of an impoverished Spanish squire?who became fabulously wealthy by looting gold and selling or working to death thousands of slaves in Panama and Nicaragua?was, above all, a gambler and insatiably ambitious megalomaniac. From 1539 to 1543, de Soto and his army of 600 men trekked 4000 miles through 10 future Southeastern U.S. states, seeking a nonexistent second Inca empire laden with gold. Instead they stumbled upon the Mississippians, a sophisticated culture of city- and mound-building natives. The Spaniards' systematic plunder, murder, warfare and enslavement of the Indians brought the collapse of their civilization. De Soto died of fever in 1542 at the age of 42; more than half his men were killed by the Mississippians. Drawing on expedition logs, colonial archival manuscripts, eyewitness accounts and recent archaeological finds, Duncan strips away decades of mythmaking to plumb the conquistador mentality in a vibrant, gripping biography. Illustrated.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

To many people in the Deep South, Hernando de Soto is still viewed as a pathfinder who opened up the region to Europe's "civilizing" influence and settlement. To Native Americans, however, he is the destroyer who plundered and murdered in an obsessive search for gold. In this comprehensive and beautifully written book, Duncan views Soto as a man perfectly representative of and well suited for his times; he was a brutal man in a brutal era. Duncan traces Soto's career from his boyhood as an impoverished hidalgo in Spain to his early exploits as a companion of Balboa and Pizarro in their New World conquests. He concludes, of course, with Soto's futile and ultimately fatal entrada through what is now the southeastern U.S. To Duncan, Soto remains an enigma; he was incredibly ruthless and often unnecessarily cruel, yet he inspired his followers to great feats of courage and endurance. Duncan's scholarship and documentation are impeccable, and his chronology unfolds like a superbly crafted novel. It is an exciting, vivid reminder of the human drama unfolding against the broad historical canvas. Jay Freeman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 570 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (March 12, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517582228
• ISBN-13: 978-0517582220
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #842,832 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Young author produces a masterpiece, January 17, 2003

By 

J. Gillespie "gettingthere" ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hernando De Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas (Hardcover)

Although Hernando De Soto: A Savage Conquest in the Americas is a biography, it reveals as much about the hideous cruelty the Spanish inflicted upon indigenous peoples as it does about the great conquistadors. In doing so, author David Ewing Duncan allows the reader to balance the triumphs of Soto with the vast human destruction he left in his wake. Neither an apologia nor a polemic, this book stays close to the facts and represents the best in popular history.

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, De Soto unfolds like a riveting novel as it follows the explorer from his impoverished youth to his anti-climatic death near the Mississippi River. To anyone interested in the European conquest of the Americas (or in the decimation of the Indians and their cultures) this book is a must read.

In addition to Soto, the author chronicles the achievements and savageries of such other notables as Cortez, Pizarro, Balboa, and Coronado. The book cleverly references and analyzes the works of American and Spanish historians, including those who were present as the conquerors murdered, raped, pillaged, enslaved, proselytized and bravely explored in South, Central and North America. Where there is a disparity in the record Duncan examines the conflict and suggests the account he considers the more reliable. At times the contemporary American Soto enthusiasts and the Spanish historians who are referenced throughout the book prove almost as intriguing as their subject matter.

Given the tremendous undertaking this work represents, Duncan manages to produce a highly readable and lively book. Even if the author can't help but reveal his personal revulsion at Soto's blatant inhumanity, Duncan also is objective enough to acknowledge flashes of true heroism and bravery. The Soto that the author presents is a historic Indiana Jones figure who descends into a Conrad-like Heart of Darkness.

The book cleverly incorporates maps, charts, paintings, and other graphics into the text. Further, although it may be tempting to skip the footnotes due to the length of the text, the reader is well advised not to do so. Buried in these footnotes are clever thoughts, insights and explanations.

This book richly deserves five stars and a second look by anyone who skipped it when it was first released.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing, unbelievable history of one of the Spanish explorers of the Americas!, July 10, 2011

By 

Sarah Rogers - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas (Paperback)

Hernando de Soto was only 42 years old when he died. But in those 42 years he participated in and then led many explorations of Central, South and North America in the early 1500's. He and his fellow soldiers also brutally killed thousands of native peoples, captured and sold into slavery others, and took food, lodging, other necessities and, most importantly, gold and silver wherever he found them.

"Hernando de Soto, A Savage Quest in the Americas" is a no-holds-barred, well researched history on the life of one of Spain's most famous, and notorious, conquistadors. It follows him from his hardscrabble life as a boy in Spain, to his joining an expedition to the New World at age 14, to fame as a captain under Pizarro in the conquering of the Inca in Peru.

He triumphantly returns to Spain where he lobbies for a commission to explore and colonize North America and, of course, find more gold. Soto's savage quest in the Southeastern US is a look at one of the earliest explorations of the area, the sophisticated people who lived there and the impact of the Spanish explorers on the future of the new nation.

This is an incredible story of bravery, obsession and greed. It is not the kind of history that's taught in school. But it is part of the history of the Americas and it helps put in perspective how the New World grew and why some things are the way they are today.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gold lust, January 22, 2010

By 

Dick Marti (Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas (Paperback)

One common thread of the Cortes, Pizarro, and Soto expeditions is that they were diven by lust for gold and wealth in land and slaves. Soto participated in the Pizarro expedition and won a large share of the incredible pile of gold stolen from the Incas in Atahualpa's "ransom". Soto finanaced his North American trek with his Peruvian gain, apparently fully expecting to reap similar gain there. All he got were a few pounds of burned pearls and a grave in the Mississippi River.
There was no interest by Soto (or Cortes or Pizarro) in doing any real exploration that would have resulted in usable maps, descriptions of the country or its inhabitants and their culture. He failed to establish a colony. Soto wasn't interested in any of that. The accounts we have of Soto's trek were hardly more than daily jottings that were so vague that modern researchers don't know more than a handful of places where the army actually stopped to rest. The actual route requires a broad pen, rather than a fine point, to draw on a map. The author does a fine job of weaving the several extant accounts into an understandable whole