Part 4

In October 1539, De Soto’s army entered the land of the Apalachees. According to Ranjel, they found “much maize and beans and squash and diverse fruits and many deer and a great diversity of birds and fish.” Like Narváez before them, they decided to winter at the fruitful spot, site of today’s Tallahassee.

They evicted the Indians of the main town, Anhaica, and settled down in the log and straw houses. Taking advantage of a high wind, the Indians burned most of the place. Later, the intense cold killed almost all of the despondent Indian slaves captured at the battle of Napituca. In spite of the misfortunes, De Soto decided to use Apalachee as a center for future explorations. He sent Juan de Añasco and 30 cavalrymen south through bogs and sniping Indians to Tampa Bay to bring up Calderón’s hundred soldiers and the three small ships. When the vessels arrived at the very harbor from which Narváez had sailed (as revealed by the remnants of the forge and the grisly piles of horse bones) De Soto dispatched the ships west under Francisco Maldonado to find a protected bay to which the reinforcements waiting in Havana could be brought the following summer.

Meanwhile another distraction arose. Working through a chain of interpreters, Juan Ortiz learned from an Indian captive that a truly rich country, Cofitachequi, lay to the northeast, in the vicinity of what is now Camden, South Carolina. Promptly, De Soto decided to take his regrouped army there.

They left on March 3, 1540. Because most of their captives had died, the men again had to carry their own rations and prepare their own meals. Spring-swollen streams blocked the way; one was so wide the men built a ferry and hauled it back and forth with hawsers. The cacique of Cofitachequi turned out to be a woman. Bedecked in furs, feathers, and the freshwater pearls that were common in the mussels of the southeast, she greeted them warmly. “Be this coming to these shores most happy,” she said according to one chronicler. “My ability can in no way equal my wishes, nor my services [equal] the merits of so great a prince; nevertheless, good wishes are to be valued more than the treasures of the earth without them. With sincerest and purest good will, I tender you my person, my lands, my people, and make you these small gifts.”

Anhaica: De Soto’s First Winter Camp, 1539-40

The only site linked with certainty to De Soto is _Anhaica_, once the principal town of the Apalachee Indians.

This numerous and powerful people resisted the Spaniards’ intrusion into their country in autumn 1539, harassing the march and burning villages to deny food to the army. At _Anhaica_ De Soto found an abandoned town of “250 large and good houses.” The Spaniards settled in and spent five months here. They scoured the countryside for provisions, seizing quantities of maize, pumpkins, beans, and dried persimmons. The Indians raided the town twice and set fires. When the army departed in spring, they carried enough maize to last them across 200 miles of wilderness.

The exact site of _Anhaica_ lay unknown for 450 years. It was discovered by accident in 1987 by archeologist Calvin Jones while searching in downtown Tallahassee, Florida, for a 17th-century Spanish mission. Digging on land planned for development, he and others recovered many 16th-century Spanish artifacts (iron, coins, olive jar fragments, beads, the mandible of a pig) in context with Apalachee pottery. Analysis left no doubt that this was the site of De Soto’s first winter camp.

She gave De Soto strands of freshwater pearls and let the men take more from tombs located in mounds raised above the ground. They were not very good pearls and had been discolored by being bored with redhot copper spindles. But they were the closest things to treasure the men had found so far, and De Soto filled a cane chest with 350 pounds of them.

Won by the pearls, the lush countryside, and the navigability of the Wateree-Santee Rivers, which drained southeast into the Atlantic, the men wanted to found a colony there. De Soto refused. There was not enough food at Cofitachequi for the army. Moreover, he was still hoping, in the words of the Gentleman of Elvas, for another windfall “like that of Atabalipa [Atahualpa] of Peru.”

The place to investigate, he heard, was off across the Appalachian Mountains to the northwest. Seizing the cacique who had befriended him, he forced her to enlist a portion of her subjects as porters and domestics for the disgruntled men. They moved rapidly through South Carolina into western North Carolina. By trails that had never before seen a horse, let alone a herd of pigs, they crossed the mountains into the tumbled region of the French Broad and Pigeon Rivers. There the cacique of the pearls managed to escape. As usual, there was no gold.

Hoping, presumably, to meet the ships coming from Havana with supplies and reinforcements, De Soto at last turned south through the land that Creek Indians later occupied in northern Alabama. As they traveled down the Coosa River, they entered a new chiefdom and there laid hold of a tall, disdainful leader named Tascaluza. De Soto demanded women and slaves. With pretended meekness Tascaluza provided the army with a hundred porters and then secretly sent word ahead to his warriors in the stockaded town of Mabila, from which today’s Mobile takes its name, to prepare an ambush. When the town came into sight, De Soto carelessly let the main part of the hungry army disperse to forage. Leaving the fettered bearers outside the entrance, the general and a handful of aides entered the village with Tascaluza. Hot words soon broke out, and the Indians hurled themselves at the enemy. The Spaniards clustered around their leader. Although five were killed and De Soto was knocked down a time or two, they managed to fight their way back outside. During the uproar the porters picked up the food, armaments, and other baggage they had been carrying and rushed inside the stockade with it, to join Tascaluza’s people.

Assembling his soldiers, De Soto launched attacks against all sides of the barricaded town. With axes and fire the yelling Spaniards smashed through the palisades. While the battle raged from house to house, the tinder-box town went up in flames. Realizing they were being defeated, some of the Indians threw themselves into the fire rather than surrender. The last survivor hanged himself with his bowstring. Reports of Spanish losses range from 18 to 22 killed and 148 wounded, including De Soto. Somewhere between 7 and 12 irreplaceable horses perished and 28 were injured. Indian losses were estimated by a chronicler at 2,500.

Since landing at Tampa Bay, the Spaniards had lost 102 men from all causes. The chest of pearls De Soto had hoped to send to Cuba as a lure for replacements had disappeared in the fire, along with most of the army’s spare clothing, weapons, and food. Yet when the interpreter, Juan Ortiz, told De Soto of Indian reports of ships in Mobile Bay a few days away, he ordered him to stay silent. He knew the men would desert if they thought they could reach the ships, and his pride could not tolerate that. Go home empty-handed, beaten, and disgraced? Never.

He rallied the army. For 28 days the healthy doctored the wounded with, said Garcilaso de la Vega, unguents made from the fat of dead Indians. Their commander moved among them, bolstering their spirits, so that when he ordered them to face north again, they obeyed, though they all knew that ships from Havana had been scheduled to meet them somewhere.

They followed the Tombigbee River into northeastern Mississippi to Chicaza, where they wintered (1540-41) among the Chickasaw Indians. When they made their usual request for porters, women, clothing, and food for the spring march, the Chickasaws responded one day at dawn by setting fire to the section of the town in which the invaders were bivouacked. The confusion was total—and perhaps a salvation for the Spaniards. Several terrified horses broke loose and stampeded wildly. Their squeals and the pounding of their hooves, and the sight of De Soto and a few others who had managed to get mounted bearing down on them with lances (before De Soto’s saddle turned and he fell heavily) frightened the Indians into flight.

De Soto in La Florida

De Soto was seeking another Peru in Florida. But after three years and thousands of miles, his futile quest ended in a watery grave in the Mississippi. For natives of the Southeast, the _entrada_ was also tragic. The warfare weakened chiefdoms, and Old World diseases ravaged populations. By the time the English and French began their invasions in the a 17th century, the complex mound-building chiefdoms of the region had vanished. They were replaced by the historic tribes whose diminished numbers were no match for westward-expanding Americans.

In his swing across the Southeast, De Soto’s men traveled over Indian trails and were sustained by Indian supplies. Without native help it is unlikely the expedition could have progressed much beyond the Florida interior. The encounters with native societies—chronicled by several participants—give the expedition significance beyond its own time. The journals combined with archeological and ethnographic data have enabled scholars to map much of the route and to rediscover the lost world of the once mighty chiefdoms of the Apalachee, Ichisi, Ocute, Coosa, Pacaha, and other groups.

This version of the route is based on the work of Professor Charles Hudson and others who have attempted to reconstruct the entire route. There is good scholarly consensus for some segments, but other parts of the route will remain in dispute unless new archeological evidence is forthcoming.

De Soto Expedition. Dashed line indicates uncertain route. *Known site, possibly visited by De Soto ·Uncertain Site From Havana, Cuba De Soto National Monument *Ucita ·Cale *Aguacaliquen ·Napituca 15 Sept 1539 Spaniards route Timacua Indians, take 200 prisoners *Auta *Anhaica Winter camp 1539-40 ·Toa *Ichisi Ocmulgee National Monument *Cofitachequl May 1540 Encounter with female ruler ·Xuala *Chiaha *Coosa Political center of an important Indian chiefdom ·Itaba Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site *Piachi ·Mabila? 19 Oct 1540 Major battle with Chief Tasculuza and his allies *Apafalaya Mound State Monument ·Chicaza Winter camp 1540-41 Spaniards beat off Indian attack in spring ·Alibamu *Quizquiz *Aquixo *Casqui Parkin Archeological State Park *Pacaha Scouting parties *Coligua *Calpista *Tanico ·Tula ·Autiempque Winter camp 1541-42 *Anilco ·Amihoya Winter camp 1542-43 Spaniards build boats to take them down the Mississippi ·Guachoya 21 May 1542 Death of De Soto Scouting parties Expedition continues under Moscoso after De Soto’s death *Chaguate *Naguatex ·Nondacao ·Aays ·Guasco Scouting parties

It was a disaster, nevertheless. Twelve soldiers and a white woman still with the army—she was pregnant—were dead as were several score pigs and 57 horses, the latter mourned as deeply as the men, for they were the army’s true strength. But once again, they rallied, improvised forges for retempering their weapons, replaced the shafts of their lances, and learned to patch their clothing with woven grasses, pounded bark, and pieces of Indian blankets.

On May 9 or so, 1541, after more battles, they reached the Mississippi at—no one knows, but it seems to have been south of Memphis. While they were marveling at the river’s size (this is from Elvas), 200 dugout canoes approached in perfect order. In each canoe warriors, painted with ochre and bedecked with plumes of many colors, stood erect, protecting the oarsmen with feathered shields and bows and arrows. The chief man of the fleet sat in his canoe underneath an awning and likewise each lesser chief in his canoe. The Spaniards had seen panoply before—bearers carrying their caciques on feathered litters while flute players marched beside—but nothing like this. Misunderstood stories of such spectacles, as we will see later, caused considerable trouble for the expedition Mendoza sent north under Coronado during this same period.

A brief parley between the cacique and De Soto ended when nervous crossbowmen, misreading what was going on, shot five or six of the Indians. At once the fleet withdrew, still in perfect order, “like a famous armada of galleys,” wrote Elvas. What follows passes understanding. In spite of clear warnings not to proceed, De Soto decided to go ahead. During the next hot, humid month, the men felled trees, sawed them into planks, and constructed barges. To avoid detection, they crossed the river, with the horses aboard, in the pre-dawn darkness of June 18 and moved northwest.

They spent most of the summer and fall wandering around western Arkansas. Many scholars believe they may have traveled up the Arkansas River almost to eastern Oklahoma before going into their 1541-42 winter quarters in a town (Autiamque) once again commandeered from the Indians. Though the weather was severe, the men stayed fairly snug. Their slaves built a strong stockade around the camp and dragged in ample supplies of firewood. Local Indians provided them with buffalo robes to use as overcoats and to sleep on, and showed them how to snare the rabbits that frequented the nearby cornfields.

During the long days inside the stockade, De Soto at last faced up to his situation. He had lost half his force. Not all had died in battle. A few, despairing of seeing the end of the quest, had deserted to live with the Indians, and the number would increase if he persisted in wandering as he had been doing. Of the original 223 horses, only 40 remained, most of them lame for want of shoes. The death of Juan Ortiz that winter deprived him of his best, if very uncertain, means of communication with the Indians. Reluctantly he decided to turn back to Mississippi. There he intended to build two brigantines and, manning them with his most trustworthy men, send one to Havana and one to Pánuco in hope that one would be able to lead reinforcements back to those who would wait for them at the river.

They reached the roily Mississippi somewhere near the mouth of the Arkansas River. By that time a deadly fever, perhaps malaria, was gnawing at De Soto. Knowing death was near and bitterly resenting the arrogant hostility of the Indians with whom he tried to treat in his extremity, he ordered two of his captains to go out with lancers and infantry and make an example of the nearby town of Anilco. Not expecting an attack, for they had not been among those taking the lead in defying the Spaniards, the unarmed townspeople clustered about in curiosity. A wanton butchery followed. “About one hundred men were slain,” wrote Elvas. “Many were allowed to get away badly wounded, that they might strike terror into those who were absent.” Eighty women and children were taken prisoner.

By the time the bloodletting was over, De Soto could not rise from his bed. After confessing his sins and making his will, he named Luis de Moscoso as his successor. On May 21, 1542, he died.

To keep the Indians from knowing the fate of the great Child of the Sun, as he had been describing himself to them, his followers buried him near the entrance to the town and rode horses back and forth to destroy signs of the digging. The Indians were suspicious, however, and so Moscoso had the corpse disinterred, lest the Indians dig it up and mutilate it. A handful of men then stealthily wrapped the body in a shroud, weighted the burden with sand, and in the darkness of the night rowed out onto the river and dumped it overboard.

De Soto’s plan to build boats for bringing in reinforcements died with him. The men’s one desire now was to leave this country that had brought them only misery. But how? Remembering Narváez’s fate, they were reluctant to try to build enough boats to carry them home by sea. Instead they decided to march overland to Pánuco in northern Mexico. They clung to the decision for four months, fighting off Indians when they had to and living off the country as they had been doing ever since the landing at Tampa Bay. Then, as the subtropical growth began to give way to the desert scrub of south central Texas, they encountered, in a village of poor huts, a woman who said, or they thought she said, that she had seen Christians at a place nine days’ travel away and that “she had been in their hands, but had escaped.” Moscoso sent a squad of cavalrymen with her in the direction she indicated, but when she contradicted herself, or they thought she did, they abandoned the quest.

The Spaniards were losing heart. They could not live off this land of semi-nomadic Indians where little maize grew. As winter approached, the idea of travel by sea no longer seemed so forbidding. Wheeling around, they regained the Mississippi in two months of hard travel over the same trails they had come and in December seized, for use as their fourth winter quarters (1542-43), an Indian town (Aminoya) a little upstream of the one which they had destroyed seven months before.

Good timber surrounded the village, and the few artisans still alive had clung to their tools. They made more nails out of their meager supply of horseshoes and other iron, contrived ropes out of bark, and sails out of shawls collected from the Indians. To escape a flood that sent the river out of its banks, they put their horses on anchored rafts and saved themselves by climbing to the tops of their huts. Indians kept paddling around their refuge in canoes. Suspicious of their intent, Moscoso had one of his men seize a native. Under torture the fellow said that 20 chiefs of the surrounding tribes were conspiring to attack the invaders. A sign would be the approach of Indians bearing gifts of fish to lull the camp into relaxing its guard. When the native chiefs showed up with fish as predicted, the Spanish laid hold of them, cut off each man’s right hand, and sent the victims back to their villages to report that their scheme was known. Although some of the chiefs persisted in their intrigues, Moscoso, very much on guard now, was able to outwit them, force submission, and acquire through it all more heaps of shawls out of which to make sails.

By July the fleet was ready—seven brigantines and several Indian-style war canoes lashed side by side. They loaded the vessels with casks of fresh water and several hundred bushels of corn scoured from a countryside that could ill afford the loss. During the last days of work they killed and ate the poorest of the horses. The soundest, 22 all told, were put aboard, as were a hundred slaves. The rest of the Indians they had dragged along with them were turned loose in this country where the tribes were hostile to them.

The river journey was a series of violent, if intermittent, battles. Indians from towns they passed swarmed after them in canoes, raining arrows on them. Ten Spaniards and an unknown number of slaves died, and because the horses were slowing their flight, Moscoso at last put ashore at a defensible spot, killed them, and dried the meat.

After 17 days they reached the Gulf, turned west, and on September 10, 1543, after weeks of combatting fretful seas, contrary winds, thirst and hunger, 311 survivors (again not counting captive Indians) reached the Pánuco River. Said Elvas: “Many, leaping ashore, kissed the ground; and all, on bended knees, with hands raised above them and their eyes to Heaven, remained untiring in giving thanks to God.”

One of the most extraordinary marches in the annals of the New—or Old—World had come to a profitless end.

Piachi, Village in the Coosa Chiefdom

After crossing the Great Smokies, De Soto in August 1540 entered the territory of a rich chiefdom called Coosa. It dominated an area from the French Broad River in North Carolina into central Alabama. De Soto’s chronicler described this country as “Thickly settled in numerous and large towns, with fields between, extending from one to another, [it] was pleasant and had a rich soil and fair river margins.”

One of the subject towns was _Piachi_ (the King Site to archeologists), on the banks of the Coosa River in northwest Georgia. De Soto and his expedition spent a day here in early September 1540. The chronicles are silent on the visit, but from the archeological work of David Hally and others, as interpreted by artist L. Kenneth Townsend, we have a good idea of life here.

_Piachi_ was about 5 acres in extent, protected by a palisade and ditch. Inside were about 50 domestic structures and a central plaza with several larger buildings perhaps used for ceremony. Nearby were several tall poles, from which scalps or war trophies probably hung. About 350 persons lived here, less than half the number of the main town of Coosa or the substantial village of Itaba (Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site to the north). A good part of the villagers’ living came from growing corn, which they stored in cribs. As the Spaniards traveled from village to village, they expected the Indians to yield up food, guides, porters, and women. Without this sustenance, the expedition could not have covered the territory that it did.

Where the Fables Ended