Today we have more information about Scene 22 provided by Janeen Turk, senior curatorial assistant in American Art.

As he orchestrated a narrative for his massive panorama, Montroville W. Dickeson included a handful of pre-19th century historical moments. Scene 22: De Soto’s Burial at White Cliffs is one of these. Hernando de Soto, a Spanish explorer, was the first European to reach the Mississippi River. He and his men made it to the River in 1541 and then explored a bit farther west. By early 1542, they had returned to the Mississippi, just in time for de Soto to perish near the site of his greatest discovery. The story goes that de Soto had tried to convince the local Native Americans that he was a god, so his men buried him in the Mississippi River at night, to hide the fact that he was not immortal after all.
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