The French visit the Mississippi plain. They are the first since the Spaniard Hernando de Soto more than a century earlier. They are no longer able to see any visible remains of the large villages (aside from earthen mounds) of the rich agricultural kingdoms that had arisen along the river over the centuries. Two years before De Soto’s arrival, the local population had been exterminated by a smallpox epidemic, which disintegrated society. The epidemic was likely brought by Indian traders with ties to the Caribbean, where the Spanish already existed.
