Your Memphian, however, is not at all content to date from 1820. He
begins the history of Memphis with the date May 8, 1541--a time when
Henry VIII was establishing new matrimonial records in England, when
Queen Elizabeth was a little girl, and Shakespeare, Bacon, Galileo and
Cromwell were yet unborn. For that was the date when a Spanish gentleman
bearing some personal resemblance to "Uncle Joe" Cannon--though he was
younger, had black hair and beard, was differently dressed and did not
chew long black cigars--arrived at the lower Chickasaw Bluffs, from
which the city of Memphis now overlooks the Mississippi River. This
gentleman was Hernando De Soto, and with his soldiers and horses he had
marched from Tampa Bay, Florida, hunting for El Dorado, but finding
instead, a lot of poor villages peopled by savages whom he killed in
large numbers, having been brought up to that sort of work by Pizarro,
under whom he served in the conquest of Peru. It seems to be well
established, through records left by De Soto's secretary, and other men
who were with him, and through landmarks mentioned by them, that De Soto
and his command camped where Memphis stands, crossed the Mississippi at
this point in boats which they built for the purpose, and marched on to
an Indian village situated on the mound, a few miles distant, which now
gives Mound City, Arkansas, its name.
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