New information about the foreigners would circulate.

Neighboring communities might alter their own strategies.

The arrival of Europeans therefore created information even when it did not create permanent settlement.

The people of the Southeast were now part of a new Atlantic world.

They did not choose that change.

THE ATLANTIC WORLD REACHES INLAND

European colonization is often imagined as a coastal phenomenon at first.

But de Soto demonstrates how quickly European ambitions could move inland.