EUROPEAN EXPLORATION
1500-1542The first white man to see the Mississippi River was a spanish explorer named Hernando De Soto.
Spain had already found rich gold and silver deposit in South America.De Soto landed in florida in june 1539.That winter he and some 700 men began the march North in search of great wealth.For four years DeSoto explored what are now the states of Georgia, South and North Carolina,Tennessee and North Alabama and Mississippi.But there was no gold or silver to be found.
From the biginning DeSoto and his men suffered great hardships.Many died of cold and starvation many were killed in indian attacks.
May 8,1541DeSoto reached the Mississippi.He called it :the Rio Grande,"Great River" in spanish.With about half of his men alive,he crossed the wide Mississippi,muddy river,still in search of treasure.
After another year of fruitless search in what now are the states of Arkansas and Texas,DeSoto returned to the Mississippi.But he had caught a fever and soon died, fearful of indian attack,his men buried him in the river,telling the indians that DeSoto was a god and his body had gone to the sky.
March 1543The survivors of Desoto's expedition buitlt boats,sailed down the river to the Gulf,and reach the coast of Mexico,which was a spanish colony.
June 17,1673Two french explorer discovered the upper mississippi.Father Jacques Marquette(1637-1675),a Jesuit missionary,and explorer louis Joliet (1645-1700) set out to find the Great River reported by indians in the area.
From the Northern shore of Lake Michigan,the two men and their guides traveled over 600 miles before reaching the river.Marguette grandly named it riviere de la conception(literally translated as "river of conception"),but it continued to be called by the simpler indian name of mississippi.
CAHOKIA
Cahokia was first settled around 650 during the late woodland period,but mound building did not begin there until about 1050 at the beginning pf the Mississippian cultursl period.The site was abandoned before 1400.The inhabitants left no written records and the city's original name is unknown.The name "Cahokia"refers to an unrelated clan of illiniwek people living in the area when the first french explorers arrived in the 1600's.
Cahokia was the most important center for the peoples known today as Mississipians whose settlements ranged across what is now the Midwest,Eastern and Southeastern United States.Cahokia maintained trade links with communities as far away as the Great Lakes to the North and the Gulf Coast to the South.
Cahokia was abandoned a century or more before Europeans in North America in the early 1500's.
