USA > Arkansas > Biographical and historical memoirs of northeast Arkansas : comprising a condensed history of the state biographies of distinguished citizens a brief descriptive history of the counties, and numerous biographical sketches of the prominent citizens of such counties. V. 1 > Part 80
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At last eight scows were finished, furnished with sails and oars, and bearing crosses. Then loading their boats, the adventurers fearlessly launched out into the stream, and bending strongly on their oars, soon approached the shores of Arkansas, the people of which curiously noted the advancing fleet, but contrary to expectation, permitted the flotilla to land and disembark without a fight.
Ferdinand de Soto, the first governor of Arkan- sas, and his escort, landed about the latter part of May, 1541. An overwhelming weight of author- ity is to the effect that he immediately ascended the Mississippi. The expedition passed through the province of Aquixo, which embraced a large part of what is now Crittenden County.
The Indians had as a rule fled at the approach of De Soto, though a few were killed and some taken prisoners. Three days' journey from Aquixo was the province of Casqui, included within the limits of what is now Mississippi County. Tyronza Bayou was crossed on a bridge hastily constructed. Upon reaching the first town of Casqui many men and women were captured, and the place plundered. There was another town a mile and a half away.
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MISSISSIPPI COUNTY.
The country round about was described as high and dry, though bordering near the river. The historian speaks of the walnut trees, mulberry and plum trees, some red, and others of a grayish color, and that the fruit trees seemed to be planted in orchards. The venturesome tourists traveled two days through this province of Casqui, which was filled with towns.
At last they came to a large Indian village, containing more than four hundred dwellings, the name of which is unknown. Here the Spaniards were kindly received by the inhabitants.
The Casqui Indians of that day are generally conceded to be the Kaskaskias, afterward known as Illinois Indians. Mr. Bancroft has placed the village as high as Little Prairie, a short distance above the Arkansas State line. Mr. Milburn, in his lecture on De Soto, locates it in the northeastern corner of Arkansas.
The county seat of Pemiscot County, Mo., Caruthersville, is in Little Prairie. Guided by distances on a map it is about eighty miles on an air line from Memphis to Little Prairie; it is really over 100 miles by any traversable land route on the west side of the river. A command of foot soldiers encumbered as that of De Soto's evi- dently was might have ascended as high as Bar- field's Point, in Mississippi County, in five days' marching, a distance of about eighty-five miles from Memphis. It is true the country is level, and for- tunately for De Soto unusually dry at the time of his expedition, but the surface is in many places wet and swampy, and everywhere, even to this day, covered with cane and undergrowth except where under cultivation. To avoid the dense cane as much as possible De Soto would have been obliged to do what is still done by the people of this country when traveling up and down the river by land-keep as near the banks as possible; and in following this course Barfield might have been reached in five days; otherwise numerous nat- ural hindrances might have occurred.
It must be borne in mind that in identifying the places visited by De Soto, in the limits of what is now Mississippi County. it is not possible to pre- tend to mathematical exactness. That the province
of Casqui was partly, if not wholly, in Mississippi County, is fixed beyond doubt, and it seems clear that the first large town reached, in May, 1541. was at, or near what is now known as Barfield Point. Here, and in the surrounding country. the relics of bygone ages speak distinctly of a large and prosperous community. Here archæol- ogy throws its light upon the narrative of the Portuguese eye-witness of De Soto's expedition. Here, within the memory of living men of to- day, once stood immense mounds, encircled by trenches, but which have within the last forty years caved into the Mississippi River. On the largest of one of these an old settler by the name of Buford had erected his house, with a garden.
For many years hundreds of human skeletons have been lost in the Mississippi at this point. and a short distance south, in building the State levees, human skeletons were constantly being disinterred by the workmen.
Within the memory of living inbabitants. this country was high, dry and less alluvial than it is now. The clearing up of the country lying on the tributaries of the Mississippi above, the caving of the banks, and the New Madrid earthquake of 1812 have changed it into an overflowed country. Tra- dition handed down by the early settlers tells that formerly this country was little subject to inun, dation. This is confirmed by the large mounds still existing intact, in the overflowed and unin- habited parts of the county.
After recruiting themselves two days at this village of Casqui, De Soto's Spaniards proceeded to the chief town of this people and residence of the Cacique, or chief of the province, which ap- pears to have been situated in the same neighbor- hood, or, as is believed, near Blythesville in the country known as Chickasawba, about fifteen miles west of Barfield, on Pemiscot Bayou. The latter is an arm of the Mississippi-a broad, beautiful sheet of water.
This is still a high, dry body of land, now in- habited by about 2,500 industrious, thrifty people. Near the bayou, and a short distance from Blythes- ville, is an enormous artificial mound.
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HISTORY OF ARKANSAS.
There are no hills in the river bottom below Cape Girardeau, and if, as is highly probable, Chick- asawba was the locality where the town of Casqui, chief of the Casquins was situated, it was on the mound just mentioned where De Soto erected his great cross fifty feet in hight. As a circumstance tending to confirm this view, Mr. Joseph Fassit, an old citizen of the county, states that a large wooden beam was taken from that mound a few years before the late war. Remembering that the region now being described was undoubtedly vis- ited by De Soto; that Bancroft, the most painstak- ing of American historians, locates the site of these towns in about the same region; and that William Henry Milburn fixes them in the northeast corner of Arkansas, one will be better able to judge the facts here stated.
The Spaniards were received at this town in a very handsome manner. The Cacique, attended 1 by a large retinue personally, gave them a formal welcome, and then conducted them into the town, where they were provided with good quarters and a supply of food.
It was now about the beginning of June, and besides excessive heat the inhabitants had been afflicted by a long drought which threatened to cut off the crops. They were an agricultural peo- ple, just as their successors of to-day, and those living there at this time have annual frights on the subject of droughts at about the same per- iod of the year. The church at Blythesville has often been vocal with prayers and supplications for rain, about the 1st of June. The chief, seeing the kind of men the Spaniards were, concluded that their God must be greater than his, and asked De Soto to petition for rain, that the crops might be saved. The Indians had been continually en- gaged in prayers and incantations, but heaven seemed deaf to their entreaties. De Soto agreeing to their request, the great cross was erected upon a high mound, and the Indians assembled around it in vast numbers, silently and reverently gazing on the sacred symbol. Spaniards and Indians, to the number of two thousand, gathered and knelt around the cross, and amid the forest the sublime strains of te deum laudamus broke the stillness
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of that hot, dry day in June, 1541. Though not the kind of services to which the good people of this section are now accustomed, it was Christian worship, and is strongly suggestive of Sunday, and the religious exercises peculiar to that day.
A knowledge of the locality, the highlands of Chickasawba, and the great mound and the broad sheet of water to the north, brings this scene of Spanish soldiers and hospitable Indians, congregat- ed together 348 years ago, like a picture to the mind. Soon they were breaking up and dispersing from their religious assembly, Spaniards and In- dians mingling together conversing by signs, Indian maidens and children shyly looking at the splendid specimens of Spanish manhood, in their helmets, breast plates and arms glittering in the sun, as they sauntered in groups through the town. No doubt there could be seen the thoughtful, uneasy looks of the old men and women of the tribe, feel- ing instinctively the far reaching effects that must follow this armed invasion by a superior race from beyond the sea. The Cacique presented two blind men to De Soto, and asked him, nothing doubting. to restore them to sight, from which circumstance can accurately be inferred what the natives actually thought of the bold cavalier, mistaking him doubt- less for something little, if any thing, below a god. De Soto caused another cross to be made and set up in the highest part of the town, and then pro- ceeded to explain to the savages, the mysteries of the Christian religion. It is stated that a plentiful shower of rain soon blessed the parched fields of these Indians.
From the town of Casqui the Spaniards advanc- ed to Pacaha, but a day's march, and the limit of the journey northward. Here, on June 19, 1541. De Soto and his men found the chief town situated on a lake, with a stream of water flowing through it, and into the Mississippi. "He lodged." says the Portuguese narrator, "in the town where the Cacique used to reside, which was one great, walled. and beset with towers, many loop-holes being in the towers and walls. In the town was a great store of old maize, and quantities of new in the fields, while within a league and a half were great towns all walled. Where the governor was lodged
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was an extensive lake, that came nearly to the walls, entering into a ditch which went round about the town, and wanting but little to completely environ it. From the lake to the great river was made a weir, by which the fish came into it, and these the Cacique kept for his recreation and sport. With nets that were found in the town all took as they would, and no matter what was taken, no want was perceived. There was also a large supply of fish in many other lakes thereabout."
Let it be remembered that this region of country abounds in lakes, and that, on the map attached to Part II, of the Historical Collections of Louisiana, drawn and printed at an early period during the last century, Big Lake, on the borders of Mississippi County, Ark., and Dunklin County, Mo., are marked as the extreme northern limit of De Soto's expedition; thus the reader will have some solid reasons to believe that the movements of De Soto in 1541, in this county, have been properly traced. The country in and around Big Lake, or Mich-i-gam-ias, its Indian name, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, still bears upon its surface traces of a wide but now extinct population; and precisely such a ditch as described by the Portuguese narrator can now be traced near the home of Mr. Sam Hector, of Big Lake.
There is no doubt that the lake spoken of in the extract just quoted, is other than Big Lake, the ancient Mich-i-gam-ias of the early French explor- ers. It would be tedious to give a detailed de- scription of this locality and of the conduct of the Spanish brigands under De Soto during their forty days' stay at this place.
After robbing and plundering the unhappy peo- ple of Pacaha, or Big Lake, they proceeded in a southwesterly course, in search of a land called Colgoa, where gold was reported to be plenty.
After the remnants of the ill starred expe- dition had effected their escape from the limits of the present State of Arkansas, the aborigines were left to their own devices, without making even a passing acquaintance with a single European of whom there is in any account, until in June, 1673, 130 years after the Spanish rule, they were visited by a small party of French, led by one of the
noblest and most self-sacrificing men that ever blessed by his presence, example and teachings any people-Father James Marquette, the first ex- plorer of the Mississippi.
The first village visited by Marquette in the limits of the State, was that of the Mich-i-gam-ias. This was, it is thought, located at or near Barfield Point.
On the autograph map of Father Marquette. on which he delineates the Mississippi as far as he explored it (extending no farther than the village of Arkansa), this village is placed at about the same distance below the mouth of the Ohio, that the Ohio is placed below the mouth of the Mis- souri. In his narrative he says he found the Ohio about forty leagues below the mouth of the Mis- souri. If the distance by the river was measured he was much mistaken, for it is 194 miles. If by an air line he was about correct, it being some 120 miles, or forty leagues. On an air line from the mouth of the Ohio to Osceola is about 100 miles; by the river, 160. Marquette, it must be recol- lected, did not know but judged the distance from his knowledge and experience in such matters, and of course could not be very exact. The village of Michigamias was about ten leagues above Arkan- sa, which latter was on the east side of the river. In a foot note to Marquette's account of the for- mer place, the writer on the authority of Charle- voix states that the Michigamia dwelt on a lake, not far from the St. Francis River. Big Lake is within fifteen miles of the St. Francis River, and on the ancient French map, already referred to, it is called Lac Michagamias. The same lake is mentioned by Smyth in his tour down the Mis- sissippi, in 1774, as Michagamias lake or river. Marquette on his map marks this village on the west bank of the Mississippi, but shows another settlement immediately back from the river, with the same name, and about eighteen miles west from the village on the river. It is therefore concluded that Big Lake was the main settlement, and that the village on the river was a settlement of the same people.
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a single river below the Ohio, though if he had passed the St. Francis or White Rivers, or seen or heard of the Arkansas, or had passed the Chicka- saw Bluffs, he would have been almost certain to have mentioned or marked them on his maps. Marquette learned from the Indians that the Mis- sissippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico; such however was his strict veracity, that he would not extend on his map the line marking the river a mile beyond what he had seen with his own eyes. As with his intelligence and learning he would not have passed a mighty stream like the Arkansas without seeing it, especially if the village of Ar- kansa, as has been assumed, was located at or near its mouth, he could not have traveled the distance between the mouth of the Ohio and that of the Ar- kansas and then made the mistake of putting the Arkansa village the same distance below the Ohio, that he put the Ohio below the Missouri.
Marquette, after preaching the gospel to the Indians in this county, on the 17th of July of the same year, 1773, bade them an affectionate farewell, and returned to the French settlement in Illinois. The report that he carried off his discoveries resulted in the expedition of La Salle and his faith- ful lieutenant, Henry De Tonti.
La Salle, under the orders of Gov. Frontenac, fitted out an expedition consisting of some fifty odd French and Indians, proceeded to explore the Mis- sissippi to its mouth, and to take possession of the entire country in the name of the French king.
On the 24th of February. 1682, he with his command threw up a fort and built a cabin, on the first Chickasaw Bluff, the present Fort Pillow, to which he gave the name of Prudhomme, after Peter Prudhomme, one of his men, who, after being lost eleven days while hunting, at length came up in a half starved condition and rejoined his comrades :
at this fort, where La Salle was awaiting him.
Here La Salle erected on the bluff a great cross, and the arms of France, and took possession of the country in the name of his king. This fort was known to the French inhabitants of Louisiana as . late as 1825 as Fort Prudhomme. These men must have hunted all over the present area of Mississippi County.
During the eighteenth century there is little or no information to give of occurrences in this local- ity. In the spring of 1722 the French historian, Charlevoix, passed down the Mississippi, stopped for a while in this country, and visited the Indians. Catholic missionaries and French trappers and traders constantly visited the country from the post on Arkansas River and carried on a lively trade with the Indians. And here and there, there may have been a cabin home in the wilderness, but no permanent settlements of any kind were made.
In 1785 the Spanish governor at New Orleans sent an officer and a company of men to New Mad- rid to take command of this section of country, which was included in his military district. The main business of this officer was to rigorously en- force the Spanish revenue laws, in exacting trib- ute from all American boats descending the Missis- sippi. *
In the country called Canadian Reach, of which Barfield Point is the center, a few French and Spanish traders carried on a lively trade with the Indians from the back country. There is no | knowledge of a single clearing for farming pur- poses owned by a white man in this country dur- ing the last century.
At the time of the cession of Louisiana by France to the United States. in 1803, the country between the mouth of the St. Francis and the town of Cape Girardeau was occupied by remnants of the Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Cherokees and Chickasaws, in all about 500 families. These Indians often attacked boats descending the river. plundering them and even committing murders. t The Indian population of Mississippi County was located about Barfield, Chickasawba, Big Lake, Little River and Shawnee Village, generally the same places where the white settlements were first made.
* Mississippi County was included in the New Mad- rid district until 1799. In that year New Madrid was at- tached to Upper Louisiana, now the State of Missouri. and Mississippi County fell to the jurisdiction of the Spanish commandant, Don Carlos de Villemont, at Arkan. sas Post. then a town of about 150 inhabitants, and pro- tected by a garrison of Spanish soldiers. The inhabi- tants were French-Canadians. - HI. M. Me Veigh.
+ Martin's History of Louisiana.
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The first two white settlers in this county, of whom there is any knowledge, were a man named Carsons and William Kellums; they were hunters, and lived and hunted peaceably with the Indians. Carsons' Lake Township and Kellums' Ridge took their names from these men, who were here as early as 1812, at which time the country was vis- ited by the great earthquakes, generally known as the New Madrid earthquakes.
An Arkansas journal published soon after this event gives the following account of how the In- dians sought to avert the danger of the shocks by reviving an almost obsolete religious rite among the aborigines, in imploring the Great Spirit to avert his wrath. These Indians lived in the coun- try now known as Mississippi County.
" After a general hant had taken place to kill deer enough for the undertaking, a small hut was built to represent a temple or place for offering sacrifice. The ceremony was introduced by a pre- paratory cleansing of the body and face. After neatly skinning their deer, they suspended them by the fore feet so that the head might be directed toward the heavens before the temple, as an offer- ing to the Great Spirit. In this attitude they re- mained for three days, which interval was devoted to such penance as consisted in absolute fasting, at night lying on the back on fresh deer skins. turning their thoughts exclusively upon the happy prospect of immediate protection that they might conceive dreams to that effect-the only medium of intercourse between them and the Great Spirit -and lastly, gravely and with much apparent piety, imploring the attention of the Great Spirit to their helpless and distressed condition, acknowl- edging their absolute dependence on him, entreat- ing his regard for their wives and children. declar- ing the fatal consequences that must ensue by withholding his notice, namely, the loss of their wives and children, and their total disability to master their game, arising from their constant dread of his anger; concluded in the full assurance of asserting that their prayers were heard. Their object was accomplished by a cessation of terrors, and game becoming again plentiful and easily overcome. On the lapse of three days thus dedi-
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