Excerpt from Invasion of the Territory of Alabama, by One Thousand Spaniards, Under Ferdinand De Soto, in 1540 The history of Alabama, from the early period of 1540 until the close of the year 1820, has been written by the undersigned. If now published, it would form two volumes of five hundred pages each. He is now engaged in revising it for publication. It has been a work of immense labor, and attended with considerable outlay in money. Ifhe had known, in the first instance, the cost and difficulty in procuring oral information; the time required to collect manuscript, documentary and book evidence, and to reduce the whole into historical form, he would scarcely have imposed upon himself such a task. But now that it is accomplished, by rescuing from oblivion the most important information, he does not regret the completion of a work which must be a benefit to his countrymen and to posterity. The undersigned has not written the History of Alabama for pecuniary gain. His time and labor have been given voluntarily and freely to the public. All he asks is the return of the actual outlay, by the sale ofthe work. He feels assured that the people of Alabama, ho possess a commendable state pride, Will favor the enterprise to that extent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.