Donald Sheppard's
Where Conquistadors went in North America Is the most extensive De Soto site on the web, with its many pages, and mirror site servers (at least 4 that I’ve detected), which tend to fill search engines crowding out other sites. Also, while it does give an excellent account of the four year-four thousand mile journey of the expedition its route re-construction is not at all accepted by most scholars and seems to have established itself in the explorer's Wikipedia entry as well. Charles Hudson’s route is controversial enough, this site ignores Hudson’s and compares itself to Swanton's 1939 reconstruction. Though I am quite skeptical about Shepard's conclusions, I've also been content to let the academics argue this one out. However I have noticed an unfortunate number of grade school sites using this site almost exclusively, and tending to mimic its claims.
Probably because of this quote 'One
internet link site proprietor sarcastically classified the Sheppard pages as "Alternate History", but at this point we move into the realm of outright fantasy.
' ; the first site I found debunking Sheppard's theories was William Saunders'
WEIRD HISTORY: THE HERNANDO DE SOTO EXPEDITION OF 1539-43
AND THE EXTREMELY STRANGE THEORIES OF DONALD E. SHEPPARD
Another, more recent site along the same lines, but not quite as humorous is here.
Debunking Donald Sheppard's Hernando de Soto Trail Hypothesis: FloridaHistory.com Errors Revealed
