PROFESSOR EMERITA HELPS EDIT BOOK

Most history books credit Hernando De Soto with discovering the Mississippi River but say little about his wife, Isabel de Bobadilla, who kept the expedition running from her headquarters in Cuba.

Illuminating de Bobadilla's role was one of Frances Crowley's contributions to "The De Soto Chronicles," a new two-volume book that unifies the many personal accounts of the Spanish explorer's expedition to Southeastern North America in the mid-16th century.

Frances Crowley will be honored Tuesday at a reception marking the publication of the book. The event will be held from 3:30-5 p.m. in the program lounge at the University Center, with a ceremonial presentation at 3:45 p.m.

The reception is sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages in cooperation with the Spanish Club. Crowley is professor emerita of foreign languages at Southeast Missouri State University.

In the book's second volume, Crowley provides a historical introduction to a translation of "La Florida of the Inca" by Garcilaso de la Vega. The translation, an account of the expedition by a man trying to prove he was related to De Soto, has never before been published.

De Soto spent four years foraging for minerals through Florida, George, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.

When he left Cuba to begin the exploration, De Soto put his wife in control of the expedition's business. He gave her unlimited authority, including the right "to buy ships for the purpose of the conquest of La Florida," according to the translation.

"She had complete and absolute power," Crowley said.

"...None of the historians have made a lot of her. But what happened in those four years in Cuba?" she asked.

Florida, the Spanish word for "flourishing," was the name given to about one-third of the current U.S. at the time. De Soto landed in 1539 with 600 soldiers and 100 servants.

Of the 600 soldiers, 311 survived when the expedition returned to Spain in 1543. Its leader had died the previous year near the banks of the Mississippi.

The book is especially noteworthy for its eyewitness accounts of the region's Mississippian culture, the most advanced native civilization in North America. Many historians have speculated on the connections between De Soto's conquest of Florida and the Mississippians' disappearance.

Crowley says the book doesn't provide information to prove or disprove those theories, but "Some of this (the vanishing culture) was happening before he came to the U.S."

Crowley became involved in the book project after meeting one of the book's principal editors through her frequent lectures at the University of Lima during the 1980s. Crowley previously wrote a book about de la Vega.

The "De Soto Chronicles," published by the University of Alabama Press, sells for $50 and will be available at the University Book Store.