The same work also contains Smith’s translation of _Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto_ by an anonymous Hidalgo (gentleman or knight) of Elvas, Portugal, first published in Portugal in 1557 by a survivor of the long march. Smith’s translation, somewhat modified, reappeared in Gaylord Bourne’s two-volume _Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto_ (New York, 1904). Bourne’s volumes also contain reminiscences by Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s secretary, and Luis de Biedma, the latter a spare account. The longest and lushest of the De Soto tales is _The Florida of the Inca_, the Inca being Garcilaso de la Vega, son of a Spanish father and an Incan mother. He drew his information from the oral accounts of three of De Soto’s soldiers and used his active imagination to embellish what he heard. The first complete English translation, by John and Jeannette Varner, appeared in 1951 (reprinted by University of Texas Press, 1980). Miguel Albornoz has published a novelized biography, _Hernando de Soto, Knight of the Americas_, translated by Bruce Boeglin (New York, 1986).
Some secondary material, which uses anthropological, archeological, and geographic research to shed light on the early explorations, should be mentioned. One instance: _Final Report of the United States De Soto Commission_, John R. Swanton, chairman (Washington, D.C., 1939). The commission sought to retrace De Soto’s zigzagging route. Jeffery P. Brain’s new edition of the _Final Report_ for the Smithsonian Press (Washington, D.C., 1985) revises Swanton’s conclusions in many places. Another interesting formulation is “De Soto Trail: National Historic Trail Study, Draft Report” (NPS, 1990). In an appendix Charles Hudson offers a new reconstruction of De Soto’s route. The articles in _First Encounters: Spanish Explorations in the Caribbean and the United States, 1492-1570_, Jerald T. Milanich and Susan Milanich, eds., (Gainesville. 1989), fill out our understanding of New World societies during the first decades of exploration.
Still the best introduction to Coronado and his expedition is Herbert E. Bolton’s classic biography, _Coronado: Knight of Pueblos and Plains_ (1949). George P. Hammond and Agapito Rey have brought together in _Narratives of the Coronado Expedition_ (Albuquerque, 1940) all the primary documents, including testimony from Coronado’s trial, that anyone except specialists needs to know about the first Spanish _entrada_ into the American Southwest. The chief items are the _Relacións_ of Juan de Jaramillo and Pedro de Castañeda. Castañeda’s _Relación_ also appears in Hodges and Lewis.