Charles M. Hudson


Charles Melvin Hudson, Jr. was an anthropologist, professor of anthropology and history at the University of Georgia. He was a leading scholar on the history and culture of Native Americans in the Southeastern United States, and also published a book mapping the expedition of Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in the mid-16th century in the Southeast.

Life

Born in 1932, Hudson grew up on a farm in Owen County, Kentucky, and attended local schools.
He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. After the war, he used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of Kentucky, receiving a bachelor's degree in anthropology in 1958. He pursued graduate studies in anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, earning an M.A. and a Ph.D..
Upon earning his doctorate, he became a faculty member in the anthropology department at the University of Georgia. He served there for 35 years, until his 2000 retirement, as a professor of anthropology and history. In retirement, Hudson returned to Kentucky. He died there on June 8, 2013.

Scholarly work

Hudson published The Southeastern Indians, a comprehensive overview of the region's native peoples.
He was perhaps best known for his extensive research of Hernando de Soto's 1539–1543 expedition across the Southeast. In 1984, Hudson and fellow researchers Marvin T. Smith and Chester DePratter mapped the route taken by de Soto's expedition by using written accounts of expedition members, and matching them with geographic features and the results of continuing excavations of archaeological evidence of Indian settlements. Hudson and his colleagues argued that the sites of these settlements formed a chain across the Southeast that marked the path that would have been taken by the expedition.
His other works included Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun, a detailed account of the de Soto expedition.
A strong advocate of fostering close ties between the disciplines of anthropology and history, Hudson was one of the founders of the Southern Anthropological Society. He served as president of the organization in 1973–74. In 1993–94 he served as president of the American Society for Ethnohistory.

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Influence

Hudson's work has had a major influence on subsequent scholars of American Indians in the Southeast. He is frequently cited by various historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, including the following:
In his retirement, Hudson began writing historical novels.