USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 3
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It was a proud moment for De Soto, when he stood upon the soil of his Marquisate, and unfurled over his tent the standard of the Adelantado of Florida. He had reached the land of his hopes; and in the haughty daring of a conqueror, as if victory was already within his grasp, he soon ordered his ships back to Havana, that there might be no retreat but in death. The day after their landing, there was a grand review of the army. The troops, horse and foot, were drawn up in battle array, and dressed out in their gay and glit- tering armour. With their prancing steeds, floating pennons, gleaming lances, bright arquebuses, and slung cross-bows, they looked formidable and imposing.
19
DE SOTO'S AMBITION. HE MARCHES INLAND.
De Soto surveyed with a complacent eye, the gal- lant band who hailed him as their leader ; and his heart burned for conquests that should rival the glory of Cortez and the riches of Pizarro. Why should he not ? They each began their triumphs with a less numerous army,2 and with far less experience of Indian warfare ; and what had been done by the few, could certainly be excelled by the many. Hitherto all had been gaiety and pleasure ; the daring adventurers, caressed by the court, flattered by the nobles, admired by the popu- lace, rejoiced in the morning splendour of their fame ; little imagining how soon their sun of glory was to set amidst the perils of that very land in which they sought renown. They hoped to find in Florida palaces and cities-but, alas! they only found their graves.
Splendid was the martial array, as, under the ban- ners of their several leaders, they began their march on the first day of summer. It was the most imposing expedition which had yet reached these shores, and the Indians having never before seen a horse, believed that the horse and his rider formed one animal, and hung back in terror from the path of such supernatural and steel-clad men. Terror lent wings to the report of their arrival, and the dismal news rang through the southern forests, that the warriors of fire had invaded their land. Here they were so fortunate as to recover
2 Comparative view of the several forces of De Soto, Cortez and Pizarro, when they severally began the conquest of Florida, Mexico and Peru :
Authorities.
Men.
Horses.
Herrera,
900
330
De Soto.
Portuguese Relation,
600
213
Vega,
§ Prescott's Conquest of Mexico,
553
16
Cortez.
De Solis,
508
16
Pizarro.
Herrera,
185
.
·
37
Prescott's Peru,
·
.
180
27
·
.
1000
20
RECOVERS JUAN ORTIZ. ANOTHER POCAHONTAS.
a Spaniard, Juan Ortiz, who had accompanied the ex- pedition of Panfilo De Narvaez to Florida, but who had been twelve years a captive in the hands of the Indians.
His knowledge of the Indian language and customs, made him most valuable to De Soto, who immediately equipped him as an officer in the cavalry. To the honour of the female heart, wherever found, be it said, that his life, like that of Captain John Smith, eighty years after, was preserved by an Indian princess. Ortiz, when brought before the Indian King Ucita, was ordered by him to be bound to four stakes, and burned alive. But the daughter of the chief inter- posed and entreated him to spare his life, which he did, and appointed him keeper of the Temple of the Dead. Nor was this the only time her humanity saved him from death; for, three years afterwards, being deliv- ered for sacrifice to an Indian god, this same princess again rescued him, and aided him in his flight to another tribe. The story of Pocahontas, and her rescue of Captain Smith, has long been celebrated in history ; and the poet and the painter have been eloquent upon the lyre and canvass, in praise of the Virginia Prin- cess. But the double rescue of Ortiz by the daughter of the Floridian chief, influenced by no motive but compassion, and effected at personal hazard, not en- countered by Pocahontas, is worthy of an equally noble record, and demands an equal tribute of admiration.
The summer, the autumn, and the winter, were passed in their various expeditions in Florida ; during which they tarried a long while upon the Appalachee Bay, and discovered the commodious harbour of Pensa- cola. In March, 1540, De Soto and his company en- tered what is now the State of Georgia, at its south-
21
CROSSES THE OCMULGEE AND REACHES AYMAY.
west border, and travelling for the most part in a north-easterly direction, passed through the pine bar- rens of Lowndes, Ware and Irwin ; which they de- scribe as low and full of lakes, and in some places very high and thick groves, whither "the Indians that were in arms fled, so that no man could find them, and no horses enter in them ;" and by the last of March, came upon the Uchee town, near the Ocmulgee.
Here, the chief of the country demanded of De Soto who he was, whence he came, whither he went, and what he sought. He replied, that he was a descendant of the sun, came from the land of the sun, was travelling through that country, and sought the greatest lord and richest province that was in it. He departed from this place on the 1st of April, leaving a high cross of wood standing in the market-place, and, telling them that the cross was in memory of the same whereon Christ, who was both God and man, and created the heavens and the earth, suffered for our salvation, exhorted them to reverence it; which, from fear, they promised to do.
Crossing the Ocmulgee, he came, on the 10th of April, to the Ogeechee. Now their praise of the land is great ; they say it is a fat country, beautiful and very fruitful, and very well watered, and full of good rivers. They wandered on, led about by the caprice or ignorance of their Indian guides, suffering much from want of proper food, and the excessive toils of the march, until they reached Aymay, on the 26th of April, which, because of its furnishing seasonable supplies of maize, the sol- diers named the town of Relief. Here four Indians were taken, and because neither would confess their acquaint- ance of other habitations, De Soto, to extort their know- ledge, ordered one to be burned; which cruelty soon drew from the others the intelligence, that two days'
22
GENEROSITY OF A PRINCESS ILL REQUITED.
journey from thence, there was a province called Cuti- fiachiqua. On his way to this place, he was met by the princess of this tribe, who told him : "I am sorry that provisions are so scarce; I will give you of my two store-houses, and two thousand bushels of maize. I will leave my own house, and half of the town shall be given up for quarters to your men." De Soto most court- eously returned thanks, expressing himself satisfied with what she pleased to give. While he was speak- ing, she took off a string of pearls, and cast it about the neck of the governor. De Soto, in return, presented her with a ruby ring. Thus the peace was ratified. The lady retired; and the Spaniards were loud in their praises of the demeanour and beauty of the Georgia princess.
This country is described as "very pleasant, and fat, with goodly meadows by the rivers." The people were brown, well made and well proportioned, and more civil than any others they saw. Here, in the burial-places of the Indians, they found baskets, made of reeds, full of pearls, and in such abundance, that they soon gath- ered three hundred and ninety-two pounds ; beside pikes, with copper heads, that looked like gold, and clubs, and staves, and axes, of the same metal. So charmed were the adventurers with this beautiful country, which was represented by the natives to be only two days' journey from St. Helena Sound, and was probably on the Savannah river, that they desired to inhabit it. De Soto objected ; and none would say aught when his resolution was taken. He departed from this place on the 3d of May, and illy requited the generosity of the lady of Cutifiachiqua, by taking her captive, and making her march on foot with his men, as a hostage, through the towns subject to her rule.
23
DE SOTO ADVANCES TO THE MISSISSIPPI.
But in a few days she effected her escape. In seven days' march, north-west of this, they reached the Cher- okee country, where he found rough and high hills. He had now got to the mountainous country ; and bending his course west, a little southerly, we find him on the 1st of June at Conesauga, in Murray county.
On the way, there met him twenty Indians, every one bearing a basket of mulberries, which, as well as nuts and plums, were said to be abundant. On the 5th of June, he entered the Indian town on the banks of the Etowah. Here he was informed, that towards the north there was a province named Chisca, where were mines of copper and gold. Accordingly, he sent to spy out that land two soldiers and some Indians ; but they returned without finding it, and represented the way to be so rough, and the mountains so high, that the army could not travel there.
Thence he journeyed to the Coosa river, passing through a town of that name, and advanced to Talipe; a large and well-fortified Alabama town, on one of the tributary branches of the Alabama river, which he reached on the 18th of September. From this point, after a very circuitous route, and through many dan- gers, they penetrated to the banks of the Mississippi, which, on account of its size, they called the Rio Grande. They pushed their discoveries into Arkan- sas, and the upper part of Louisiana, until at last, find- ing neither gems, nor gold, nor cities, and being entan- gled among the bayous and thickets of the Red river, they turned back, to seek again the sea, that they might return to their native land. Once more upon the banks of the Mississippi, their hearts rejoiced as they beheld its swift-flowing current. But their troubles were not
24
DE SOTO'S DEATH. LOUIS MOSCOSO.
ended. De Soto was here taken with a fever, and after seven days' sickness, expired on the 20th of May, 1542, three years from his first landing in Florida. He died in the prime of manhood, being only forty-two years old; lamented by all his followers, who loved him as a man, and honoured him as a chief. He was, says one who knew him,3 a man of comely presence, agreeable both on foot and horseback, very skilful at martial exercises, of a pleasant countenance, inured to hardships, brave, and always the first in any danger ; affable, generous, severe in punishing, but easy to for- give; always inclined to please, when it might be done without lessening his authority.
His successor, Louis Moscoso, determined to con- ceal his death from the Indians, because De Soto had made them believe that the Christians were immortal; and he also feared that the knowledge of his death would cause them to attack their now weakened ranks ; for De Soto had acquired such an ascendency over their superstitious minds, by pretending to super- natural knowledge, that they durst attempt no expedi- tion against him while he lived. Three days after his death, he was buried at night at one of the gates of Guachoya, within the wall; and when the cacique of the country asked what had become of his brother, lord and governor, Moscoso told him that he was gone to heaven ; and because he was to stay there certain days, he had left him in his place. As the natives, however, were becoming suspicious, Moscoso ordered the body to be taken up at night, wrapped in mantles made heavy with sand, and hollowing an oak for a coffin, sunk all in the middle of the river.
3 Herrera, vi. 9.
.
25
DE SOTO AND ALARIC THE VISIGOTH.
Like Alaric, who ravaged the Roman empire, De Soto came from a far country to waste and to destroy. The one poured his barbarian hordes from the Alpine hills over the plains and valleys of Italy ; the other, crossing the Atlantic with destruction at his prow, and terror at his helm, desolated the fairest portions of the sunny South. The one had beaten down the iron- breasted legions of Rome, and hoisted his Visigothic banners on the Palatine, boasting that where he went the spot was cursed; the other had vanquished the stern warriors of the forest, thrown out his Castilian flag over conquered tribes, and scathed, with more than vandal barbarism, the aborigines of America. The one, scorning the pageant train, and hollow pomp, and marble bust, commanded his soldiers to hollow out his grave in the bed of the river Busento, which was turned from its course till he was interred, and then caused to flow back again in its original channel, that no man might know his secret resting-place ; the sepulchre of the other, to prevent a like discovery, was beneath the waters of the great father of western rivers. No pillar or mound marks the spot of either's grave ; but each left a lasting record of his deeds, and each, in his sphere, realized the boast of Attila, that he was " The Scourge of God."
The survivors of that once gallant band, now toil- worn and sick at heart, after more than a year's wan- dering, reached the Gulf of Mexico; and not one half those who landed in Florida, lived to enter the city of Mexico.
It is almost impossible to trace, with accuracy, the route of De Soto through Georgia; for so little did the narrators of this expedition understand the Indian lan- guages, and so migratory were the natives in their
-
26
DE SOTO'S ROUTE THROUGH GEORGIA.
habits, that but few of the names mentioned can now be identified.4 He found no settlements. Remains of ancient fortifications have been found in this State, made in accordance with military rule and arms ; coins and implements of various kinds, have been dug up in various places ; but it is very evident that the mounds, terraces, pyramids, and embankments, found upon the Altamaha, the Ogeechee, the Savannah, in the valley of Naucoochee, in De Kalb, upon the Chatta- hoochee and Etowah rivers, are not of Spanish origin. They are but portions of a series of ancient mounds
4 This is the opinion of all who have attempted to trace his course. McCul- loch (Researches) says, p. 523 : " I have found this inquiry concerning Soto's route attended with many circum- stances of difficulty and perplexity, not only from the uncertain orthogra- phy of the Indian names, often spelt three or four different ways, and maps also sufficiently inaccurate, but espe- cially from the vague and imperfect manner in which the route of the march is described. Sometimes estimates of the length of the journey are given in days' marches, and at other times in so many leagues, while again it is also evident, that no notice has been taken of other journies in any manner what- soever. The direction or course has been partially given for about the first half of their route, but in the latter part no such aid has been afforded to our research." Albert Gallatin writes : " It is extremely difficult to reconcile in all their details either of the two re- lations, (the Portuguese or Vega,) as they respect distances and courses, with the now well-known geography of the country."-Arch. Amer. ii. 102.
McCulloch thinks that he identifies the following places : Anaica or An- hyca, where De Soto wintered, he places north of the Uchee river, in Decatur co .; Achalaqui, in Houston co .; Talomeco, in Monroe co .; Cho- nalla, in Hall co. ; and Ichiaha, or Chi- aha, is evidently the Etowah. Galla- tin suggests that Anaica is in the vi- cinity of the Ocklockne river, and Cofa- chiqui indeterminately on the Oconee or Savannah river. Bancroft (Hist. i. 46) is very indefinite upon the route of De Soto in Georgia. Leaving their winter quarters, he says, they " hastened to the north-east, crossed the Altamaha, passed a northern trib- utary of the Altamaha, and a southern branch of the Ogeechee, and at length came upon the Ogeechee itself." Then all is indistinct, until he makes him to pass from the head-waters of the Sa- vannah, or the Chattahoochee, to the head-waters of the Coosa ; then, with a mere mention of Cannesauga, he takes him out of Georgia. Upon this subject there is but little that is positive, while there is much that is conjectural.
27
MOUNDS AND RELICS-THEIR ORIGIN.
and relics, commencing in the State of New York, stretching along the western slope of the Alleghanies ; thence crossing this range to the eastward, they enter Georgia in Habersham county, and are terminated by the Atlantic in Florida; while the branch of the series, spreading over the valley of the Mississippi and the Missouri, is lost among the splendid ruins of Mexico and Central America.5
The ancient monuments of art, the identity of which can be fully settled, were not the product of a roving expedition, or the hastily thrown up entrenchments of migratory tribes. They are the substantial workman- ship of a permanent people-built, not for military, but civil and religious purposes. They are the remains of cities and temples, of which history has no record -tradition, no legend. A conjecture has been, indeed, thrown out, and sustained by well-digested evidence, that these were the works of the Toltec tribes, who led the great van of the Aztec migration from the North to Mexico; and whose migrations, according to the hieroglyphical records, occurred at successive dates, ranging from the middle of the seventh to the end of the twelfth century.
The pre-existence of a people in America, charac- terized by many of the elements of ancient civilization, centuries before its discovery by Columbus, is abun- dantly evident.6 What are all the tumuli and mural
5 Bradford, Antiq. America, 37, 60. nopsis of Indian Tribes, sect. v .; the Adair, Amer. Indians, 378.
chapter on the origin of Mexican civil- ization in Prescott's Conquest of Mex- ico, vol. i .; Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, vol. i. book ii., Cullen's translation, London, 1787.
Bradford, 63. Prof. Rafinesque on Ancient Annals of Kentucky, in Marshall's Hist. of Kentucky. Gene- ral Harrison's Historical Discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley of the This assertion derives further sup- Ohio, p. 46. See also Gallatin's Sy- port from the comparative craniology
28
EVIDENCES OF REMOTE CIVILIZATION.
remains scattered throughout the South and West, formed upon scientific principles, and some of them placed with all the skill of military engineering ? What are all the still existing temples and palaces, rich in their oriental architecture, teeming with the sculpture of antiquity, which are now found in Central America ? History has not preserved the record of a single fact concerning them. The very language of the inscriptions over their altars and porches is lost ; and yet, from those massive marble roofs, upheld by gigantic columns, carved all over with the curious de- vices of Shemitic art-from those court-yards, sur- rounded by heavy corridors and halls of banqueting, have grown up trees many centuries old, almost bury- - ing the ruins by their hanging branches, and ripping open the solid masonry by their spreading roots. Whence came the people who reared these struc- tures ? Where have they gone ? Echo reverberates the sound through those silent chambers and along those deserted walks, but gives back no answer, save that one word, "Gone." From the remains which still exist, we must conclude that millions of people there lived and moved in all the pride and splendour of a gorgeous magnificence ; but now, like Babylon, once " the glory of kingdoms," they are but the abodes
of the skulls found in these mounds, race, and probably to the Toltecan and those of the Toltecs and Aztecs family." The same fact is stated by Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, in a communication made to the "British Association for the Advancement of Science," at Liverpool, 1837. in Mexico and Peru. Vide Delafield's Enquiries into the origin of the Anti- quities of America ; also Crania Ameri- cana of Dr. Morton, who expressly de- clares, as the result of his persevering, McCulloch, in his Phil. and Hist. Researches, has also condensed much precise, and scientific collections and measurements, " that the cranial re- and valuable information on this sub- mains discovered in the mounds from ject. Peru to Wisconsin belong to the same
29
NATURE OF SPANISH COLONIZATION.
of " wild beasts and doleful creatures. Dragons are in their pleasant places, and the satyrs dance upon their walls." This is the " terra incognita " of Ameri- can History ; and as in the maps of old geographers they placed pictures of divers men and beasts over every unexplored country, so in this unknown region of antiquity we may paint upon its surface a variety of imaginary creations; but they will be, after all, imaginary still.
Seventy years had passed since Columbus opened the way to the New World, and the Atlantic coast of North America was still uncolonized by any European nation. Every attempt of the Spaniards had failed ; and they deserved to fail. Their treatment of the Indians was cruel and oppressive. They regarded them as specially given to them by the God of nature for their use and convenience. They tried to make them converts to religion by force ; and, failing of this, they burnt their villages-destroyed their fields- menaced their aged and helpless-reduced to chains and slavery those whom they captured-and killed in open battle, or by midnight surprise, whole tribes and armies which met to defend the graves of their forefathers. The Spaniards found this country bloom- ing and beautiful-its inhabitants simple and unsus- pecting ; they changed the character of both, and tracked their way from the Atlantic to the Mississippi in fire and blood.
CHAPTER III.
FRENCH AND SPANISH SETTLEMENTS AND DISCOVERIES.
HITHERTO the exploration of America had been pros- ecuted for purposes of gain and conquest; but the disturbed state of religious affairs in France, created new desires of colonization, based on loftier and more peaceable motives.
Gaspard de Coligni, high-admiral of France, and one of the leaders of the Protestant or Huguenotic party, foreseeing the troubles which they were destined to undergo, through the rage of papal power, and the treachery of royal faith, sought in the New World a refuge from the persecutions of the old. The tenets of this body, styled "The Reformed Protestants of France," were Calvinistic in theology, and Presbyte- rian in polity. Under the preaching of Calvin and Beza, and through the circulation of the Bible of Oli- vetan, and the Psalms of Marot and Guadimel, the re- formed religion made great progress; penetrating even into the court of Henry II., and making converts among the counsellors of parliament, the nobles of the king- dom, and the princes of the blood !2
1 Holmes' Memoirs of the French ing's History of the Huguenots, i. 45, Protestants, Cambridge, 1826, pp. 3, 4, London, 1829. quoted from Quick's Synodica. Brown-
31
THE ADMIRAL DE COLIGNI.
Coligni, of princely descent, and brother to Odet, Cardinal of Chatillon and Bishop of Beauvais, was the first nobleman in France who dared to profess himself a Protestant, and espouse the Huguenotic cause. In conjunction with John Calvin, he attempted, in 1555, to settle a colony of French Protestants in Brazil, and fourteen missionaries were sent over by the Genevan Christians, to plant the Reformed Church among the Brazilian savages.2
The Chevalier de Villegagnon, who was selected to conduct this expedition, soon renounced the Hugue- notic faith, abused the confidence of his employers, and a total failure was the consequence. The few French who remained in Brazil were massacred by the Portu- guese, in 1558.
But Coligni was not the man whom failure made ir- resolute. Obstacles but increased his zeal, and spurred on his efforts. In the Assembly of Notables which convened at Fontainbleau, on the 21st August, 1560, Coligni, as soon as the business of the assembly was opened, went on his knees before the king, and pre- sented a petition from the Calvinists of Normandy for the free exercise of their religion.3 But the stand which he took in favour of the Protestants was unsuccessful. Edicts of greater severity than before were published. The King of Navarre deserted the Protestants after the conference of Poissy ; and though the well-known edict of the 7th January, 1562, was considered a tri- umph for the Calvinists, yet the massacres and out- rages committed on them at Vassy, Cahors, Toulouse, Amiens, and other places, proved that the queen-
2 Le Plutarque Français, etc., tom. 3 Browning, i. 81. Holmes, 6. ii. Southey's Hist. of Brazil, part i. c. ix.
32
COLIGNI RESOLVES TO COLONIZE FLORIDA.
mother, Catherine de Medicis, was performing a per- fidious part, and only dallying with the Protestants, in order the more effectually to compass their ruin.
Taking advantage, however, of this temporary lull, Coligni determined to prosecute his original design of founding a settlement in Florida,4 which the French claimed, under the title of discovery through Verraz- zano, in 1524. Two ships were fitted out, under com- mand of Jean Ribault of Dieppe, "so well furnished," says the historian of the expedition, "with gentlemen and with old soldiers, that he had means to achieve some notable thing, and worthy of eternal memory."
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