THE NATIVE VILLAGE THAT HID HERNANDO DE SOTO’S FIRST CAMP IN AMERICA

Goods could be exchanged.

Information could travel.

The Spanish, however, were often more concerned with crossing rivers than understanding the networks that rivers supported.

For them, the landscape was an obstacle on the way to somewhere else.

For Native communities, it was home.

That difference in perspective appears repeatedly in the de Soto story.

A RIVER COULD BE A BARRIER TO AN ARMY.

THE SAME RIVER COULD BE A HIGHWAY TO THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED BESIDE IT.