De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery

The handbook traces three sixteenth-century Spanish expeditions across the North American borderlands, recounting their routes, encounters with diverse Indigenous societies, and the landscapes they traversed from coastal voyages to inland marches. It examines motivations and methods of the entradas, chronicles clashes, alliances, and the mixed consequences of exploration, and describes how journals and sites preserve these episodes. Chapters move from seafaring reconnaissance and overland campaigns to aftermath and commemorative places, and an appended guide links historic sites and national park units that mark the first European penetrations of the region.