In the American Grain Chapter Summary & Analysis - DeSoto and the New World Summary

DeSoto and the New World Summary

In alternating narrative voices, Williams details the "eventful journey" of DeSoto and his men. A third-person narrator tells readers of how DeSoto dispatched a unit toward the north to blaze the trail, left others as a garrison, sent some back to Cuba, and embarked with the rest from Espnritu Santo, in July of 1548, heading for the coast toward Anhaica Apalachi. There they suffered through the winter on what they "could take from the natives, miserably," Williams writes. In March of 1549, the Governor left for a place he was told was a "country toward the rising sun, governed by a woman, where there was gold in quantity. . ."

The Governor and his young accompaniment took months of harsh experiences, suffering lack of meat or salt, days of forced marching, and finally arrive in Florida, the writer announces. He had brought three sows; they turned into 300 swine. Though...
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