USA > Mississippi > The pioneers, preachers and people of the Mississippi Valley > Part 3
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In obedience to the orders of Tuscaloosa, booths had been erected outside the walls for the accommo- dation of the army, while the chief house of the town had been set apart for De Soto and liis officers.
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Alighting, the proud chief moved haughtily off toward his people, to see, as he said, that all was in readiness for his guests. Not returning, and the houses seeming to be filled with warriors and young girls-many of whom were exceedingly beautiful- but no old people or children appearing, De Soto's apprehensions were quickened. Desirous of regain- ing the person of Tuscaloosa, he sent Juan Ortiz to announce that the Adelantado was waiting breakfast for the chief. Thrice was the message sent, but no chief appeared. At last a warrior, quitting one of the houses, shouted a threatening defiance to the Spaniards. Baltazar de Gallegos, who was near at hand, cut him down. The warrior's son attempting to avenge him, shared his fate. And now began the fight in frightful earnest. Indians swarmed from every lodge, and the earth seemed suddenly covered with them. De Soto and his men, fighting despe- rately, fell back outside the walls to where the horses were picketed. Gaining these, they flung themselves into the saddle and fiercely charged the foe. Back- ward and forward swept the tide of battle. Some- times, driven by flights of deadly arrows, the Span- iards retreat to the edge of the forest. Then rallying, they come thundering down, with the war cry " San- tiago and our Lady," upon the hordes of naked savages awaiting them. These, borne down by the terrible shock, retreat to the walls and close the
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ponderous gates, but send clouds of deadly missiles against their enemies. Hour after hour does the bat- tle rage. The mail, the weapons and the discipline of the Spaniards give them a fearful advantage against the naked bodies and undrilled array of the savages ; but the odds of numbers are overwhelming, two hundred against thousands-for Moscoso has not arrived. He and his men loiter in the shady glades, picking grapes and flowers, singing songs of dear old Castile, light of heart that they shall soon hear news from Cuba and receive abundant supplies-for it is now October, the month in which Maldinado is to be at Pensacola, and hence to that place is less than thirty leagues. As thus they loiter through the plea- sant woods, the sunny river peeping every now and then between the branches, the land seemed as lovely as the valley of the Xenil, outspread beneath the towers of the Alhambra.
But suddenly the distant sound of trumpet-calls, and shouts and savage war-cries are faintly heard, far in front ; and soon they discern a column of smoke slowly rising into the air in the distance. There is a battle !
The word is passed along the line; stragglers fall in, and at a rapid pace come up the reinforcements. The battle rages with redoubled fury ; the Spaniards dash at the gates and force them. The streets and the square are filled with combatants and corpses.
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The Christian's war-cry joins with the deafening shout of the Indians. They fall like grain before the mower's seythe under the swords and lances of their foemen ; yet no one cries for quarter. The only tar- gets which the steel clad Spaniards offer the Indian archers is mouth and eyes and the joints of the armor. The Indian women join their husbands and lovers in the fight, and are the fiercest of the throng. Everywhere De Soto is seen in the thickest of the mêlée. Rising in his stirrups to deal a fatal blow, an arrow strikes him in the thigh through the openings of his armor. Thenceforth he fights standing in his stir- rups. But the Spaniards have fired the town, and the flames spread fearfully, enwrapping every dwelling. As their forked tongues lapped up Maubila and its brave people, the sun, hidden by clouds of smoke, was casting a sickly glare from behind the tree-tops. The tragedy is finished. Nine hours did the battle rage. At least five thousand Indians are slain. Nor is the plight of the Spaniards envi- able. Eighty-two of their best warriors have fallen, while among the survivors seventeen hundred griev- ous wounds are distributed, and there is but one surgeon in the camp, and he unskilled. Forty-two horses, mourned as companions and friends, are slain. All the camp furniture, baggage and supplies, the pearls and trophies of savage wealth which had been placed in the houses or carelessly cast down
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about the walls, are consumed ; and worst of all, the wheaten flour and wine, preserved with sedulous care for the Eucharist, are burned also.
A dismal night, indeed, was that after the battle of Maubila. Numbers of the wounded died before their hurts could be attended to. Eight days they remained, attending on the disabled, in wretched sheds within the town; and then, carrying them to huts constructed on the open ground without, they remained twenty days longer, ere the troops are in marching order, having recovered from the wounds of the battle, and measurably from a strange disease, occasioned by want of salt. This commenced with fever and speedily corrupted the whole body, end- ing, after three or four days, in a fatal mortification of the intestines. The use of the ashes of a certain plant was a preventive of this disorder ; yet it de- stroyed, says Garcilasso de la Vega, as many as sixty of the Spaniards in one year.
But whither shall they go ? Intelligence has reached the camp that Arias and Maldinado are arrived at Ochus, their appointed rendezvous, but seven days' march to the southeast, with provisions and supplies for founding a colony. At first, De Soto is filled with joy, for he sees at hand the means of establishing the settlement which he has always designed to make the headquarters for his further search after gold. But he is told that the army is
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full of murmurs at their endless and profitless hard- ships, and that his leaders and men are proposing to seize the opportunity, and sail for Mexico or Peru. There is gold for him who can win it ; here are only toil, wounds, danger, disease, death. The Adelantado sees that, once at the seacoast, his army will desert him. No new troops will undertake an enterprise already branded with failure; and he has no second vast fortune to embark in the undertaking. He has staked his all on this one throw-fortune, fame, hope, honor, life. Shall he now slink back to Cuba, a hundred of his brave companions dead, poor in purse, vanquished by the poverty and the savage- ness of these wild forests and grassy savannas ? These bitter reflections drive him to a desperate resolution, which he seems here deliberately to have formed, and silently to have adhered to until just before his death; namely, to send home no news of himself until he had found the rich regions which he had set out to seek. And, as if he had at the same time been hopeless of success, and acted merely in shame and desperation, his demeanor was thence- forth changed. Always stern and reserved, he grows now moody, silent, savage. The word of command is given, and the line of march resumed to the north- west, back into the wild forests, away from ships and home. And none dare demand a reason from the gloomy and severe commander
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They resumed their march Sunday, Nov. 18, 1540. Crossing the Black Warrior and Tombigbee rivers, they at length reached the heart of the Chickasaw country, in the northwestern part of Mississippi, where it was determined to winter in a village called Chicasa. De Soto, on one occasion, treated the natives to hog meat, whereupon they acquired sueli a taste for it that his pig-pens were constantly invaded. He punished some of the hog-thieves severely, and this, together with the robberies and assaults committed upon the persons and property of the Chickasaws, kindled the wrath of that warlike people, and they determined upon summary revenge. They attacked the village at night, firing the houses, and succeeded for a time in throwing the Spaniards into confusion. Many of the latter were slain, together with a number of horses, which were more dreaded than the Spaniards themselves. But the natives were routed, with great loss, before daylight. It was, however, a victory dearly purchased, for the Spaniards lost forty men, fifty horses, and three hundred of their four hundred swine, besides nearly all their remaining clothes and effects; and were left in such evil plight, that, had the Indians attacked them again the next night, they must have won an easy victory. Attributing this damaging surprise to the negligence of the camp-master, Luis de Moscoso, who had already been so dilatory at the battle of
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Maubila, De Soto deposed him, and appointed Bal- tasar de Gallegos in his stead. Removing to Chic- kasilla, a league distant, the Spaniards erected a forge, and re-tempered their swords which had been much injured by the fire, made saddles, horse-furni- ture, and lances, and wove mats of the long grass to shield them from the cold, which in March was still piercing. These mats, in their future wayfarings, served a valuable purpose, as bucklers, to protect them from the arrows of their enemies. At Chicka- silla they wintered, amid cold and snow, and in great want of clothing.
As the spring of the third year of the expedition opened, the fierce Chickasaws renewed their attacks, but were repulsed ; and on the 25th of April, the army set forward for a third summer of wandering after gold, marching northwestward. At the for- tress of Alibamo, on one of the head branches of the Yazoo, the Indians made a resolute stand. But the invincible Spaniards took it by storm, and put to the sword all who fell into their hands. Hence to the northwestern corner of Mississippi, or the south- western of Tennessee, they journeyed, through dark forests and deep swamps, until they struck a mighty river, which they named Rio Grande. Alvar Nuñez and the survivors of the expedition of Narvaez must have crossed it much lower down; but we are accus- tomed to name De Soto as the first European who
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set foot on the banks of the Mississippi-for this was their Rio Grande.
In April, 1541, they stood upon the bluffs which overlook that sublime stream, rushing from the iey regions of the north to a summer sea. This was the pioneer pilgrimage of European civilization to its banks, the advanced guard of that innumerable mul- titude which was here to be gathered together to make another attempt at solving the problem of man's relation to the earth, his neighbor and his God.
Building boats, they crossed the river, and after four days' march into the wilderness beyond, came to the village of Casqui, or Casquin, supposed to have been inhabited by the Kaskaskias Indians, afterward settled in Illinois. This village was in a province also called Casqui, and governed by a cacique of the same name. The chief inhabited a village about seven leagues further on, where he hospitably received the army, and provided it with provisions and quarters.
During the encampment here, the chief suppli- cated De Soto to pray to his God for rain, which was much needed. Hereupon the Spanish commander caused a vast cross to be erected, in a commanding situation, on a lofty hill near the river, and conse- crated it by a solemn religious ceremony, in which both Spaniards and Indians joined. Then De Soto
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endeavored to make Casqui understand how prayers should be offered to the one invisible God, and related to him the life and sufferings of Christ.
As the intonations of the Litany, and the solemn strains of Te Deum laudamus rose upon the air, the children of the forest took up the strain, with plain- tive voice and uplifted eyes, invoking the white man's God. Here, then, upon the shore of the Father of Waters, in the northeastern corner of Ar- kansas, was the symbol of our religion first planted, eighty years before a Puritan had touched the rock at Plymouth. And as if to substantiate the instructions of the Spanish commander, a plenteous shower of rain came down that very night.
De Soto delayed some days in the village of Cas- qui, and then set out northward, for the village of Pacaha or Capaha, who was at feud with Casqui, and whom the latter trusted to destroy by means of the Spaniards. He accompanied the latter, with his warriors, for that purpose ; and did actually destroy numbers of his people, and laid waste his town. But De Soto, on his arrival, at once put a stop to these proceedings, and, after considerable difficulty, induced Pacaha to return home, and issued orders that none should do any injury to the inhabitants of the province or to their possessions. In this place he rested forty days, during which he sent two men to a hill country, forty leagues westward, where, the
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Indians said, there was much salt, and much yellow metal. They returned, in eleven days, with a quan- tity of rock salt and some copper, but no gold. The Indians also said that northward, and beyond the line of their exploring trip, the country was cold, barren and overrun with buffaloes.
De Soto, therefore, resolved to return to the village of Casqui, and thence to strike southward for a coun- try which the Indians called Quigaute, and repre- sented as extensive and wealthy. Here he remained a little time, and then, turning westward, entered upon that long and dreary eircuit in the regions of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, which at last brought him back to the shores of the Mississippi, to die. He passed through Coligoa, at the foot of a moun- tain, beyond which he fancied there might be gold ; came to Palisema, in the country of Cayas ; to Tunica, where were found salt lakes, from which the army furnished itself with a quantity of good salt ; to Tula or Tulla, whose inhabitants, differing from all they had met before, were exceedingly ill-looking, har- ing immense heads, artificially narrowed at the top, and faces horribly tattooed ; whose ferocity was more brutal and untamable than that of any race they had met before, and who could not be ter- rified by threats and slaughter, nor cajoled by gifts. Thence they marched to Utiangue or Autiamque, where, fortifying part of a large village, the forlorn
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Spanish host went into winter-quarters for the third time. The cold was severe, the snow deep, and the attacks of the savages incessant; but as food and fuel were plentiful, the condition of the troops was on the whole quite comfortable.
In Autiamque died Juan Ortiz, the interpreter- an irreparable loss to De Soto, who thenceforth found very great difficulties in maintaining even a circuitous and obscure intercourse with the natives.
When the spring returned, there remained, of the magnificent host of a thousand men, only three hun- dred soldiers, besides non-combatants ; and of three hundred and fifty horses, only forty, and many of these lame and useless, and all unshod during the year past, for want of iron. Fatigue, sickness, priva- tion, and the weapons of the fierce savages of the Mo- bilian and Muscogee races, had destroyed the rest. And even this scanty remainder were destitute and discouraged. The disastrous fires of Maubila and Chicasa had devoured clothing, arms, and wealth. They were now dressed in skins, and their weapons were, in many cases, such as they had wrought out themselves. His goodly armament thus worn out and wasted in endless hostilities with the savages, and thus rapidly diminishing, and his hopes of gold so long disappointed, even the obstinate and perse- vering courage and hopefulness of De Soto began to fail ; and he at length decided to return to the Mis-
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sissippi, fortify himself there, build vessels, and send to Cuba for supplies and men.
The troops accordingly set forward from Auti- amque on Monday, March 6, 1542, being now the fourth year of their wanderings ; and going through Ayas, or Ayays, and Tultelpina, reached Amilco, capi- tal of the province of that name, and standing in the midst of a country more fertile and populous than any they had yet seen, except Cosa and Appalache. Hence they proceeded to Guachoya, on the Missis- sippi, apparently at the mouth of the Arkansas, where De Soto proposed to establish himself and build his vessels.
Setting the necessary preparations on foot, De Soto, having heard of a certain powerful chieftain called Quigalta, or Quigaltanqui, ruling a vast province on the opposite side of the Great River, sent an embassy to him, to say that he, De Soto, was the child of the sun; that all men along his road had hitherto obeyed and served him; and requiring Quigalta to accept his friendship and come to him, bringing something valuable in token of love and obedience. But the chief dryly and sourly answered, that if De Soto were the child of the sun, he might dry up the river, and he would believe him ; and as to the rest of the message, that he was wont to visit nobody, but that all were wont to visit him, and pay tribute to him. That, therefore, if De Soto desired to see him, it was
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best that he should cross the river himself and come ; that if he came in peace, he should be received with special good will; but if in war, he, Quigalta, would wait for him in the same place, and would not shrink one foot back for him or any other.
But when the messenger came back with this keen and haughty reply, the Adelantado was already on a sick-bed, confined with a slow fever. Ill as he was, he was irritated at the bold savage, and still more that he was unable to cross the river and seek him, to abate his pride. But the Indians were so nume- rous and so fierce, his own forces now so reduced, and the current of the vast river so furious and dangerous, that he was fain to think upon fair means, instead of foul.
And even while lying here, sick and discouraged, while the fever grew upon him, De Soto performed an action most characteristic of the deliberate, bloody- minded, brutal carelessness with which the Spaniards of that day regarded the Indians. Many reports came in of proposed attacks upon the camp, some- times from one side of the river, sometimes from the other. In order, therefore, to intimidate the tribes about him, De Soto determined to devote one of them to destruction, and accordingly, sending a suffi- cient force, surprised the town of Amilco. The fierce troopers burst into this peaceful and unsuspecting village, with orders not to spare the life of any male;
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and not only was this ernel order fulfilled, but sun- dry of the soldiers slew all who came in their way, though the surprise was so complete that not an arrow was shot at any Christian. This savage butch- ery was an astonishment even to the Indian allies who accompanied the troops, and served no good turn ; and it was afterward noticed that those most active in it showed themselves cowards where true valor was needed, and that shameful deaths were visited on them in retribution.
But all the earthly projects of De Soto now drew to a close. Deeply feeling his fatal error in wandering so far from the sea, grieved at the losses and sufferings of his men, harassed with anxious fore- bodings as to the future, and his powerful frame at last undermined and shattered by the destructive eli- matic fever, he now sinks rapidly ; and helpless and hopeless, one of the noblest cavaliers of the age lies dying in a rude Indian wigwam. Instead of gaining vast treasures, he has lost them, and found no more. Instead of founding an empire, he has exterminated a savage tribe or two, but has scarcely retained his au- thority over the relics of his small and shattered army. Instead of winning world-wide renown, he has dis- appeared from view in those vast western wilder- nesses, and for years has not even been heard of by Christian men. A sad and disastrous close for an expe- dition whose outset was so splendid and so hopeful !
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And now his last hour draws nigh, and with the steady courage of a soldier and a Christian, for such he was to the best of his ability, whatever were his faults, Hernando de Soto calmly prepares to close up all worldly transactions, and to die. He makes his will ; requests his officers to elect a captain to suc- ceed him, and when they, in turn, desire him to choose, appoints Luis Moscoso de Alvarado, remem- bering only the virtues and ability of that captain, and no longer preserving anger for the errors for which he had removed him from his place of camp- master. He causes the officers and troops to swear obedience to their new leader, and then, calling them to him by twos and threes, and the soldiers by twen- ties and thirties, thanks them for their love and loy- alty to him, expressing his regret at leaving them unremunerated for all their toils ; charges them to remain at peace with each other, and asks pardon for any wrong or offence of which he may have been guilty toward them ; and so, with tenderness, he bids them all farewell. Thus, resigning his soul to God, and confessing his sins, three years absent from Donna Isabella, and in the forty-third year of his age, on the 21st of May, 1542, perished in the wilderness, Her- nando de Soto.
Anxious to conceal his death from the natives, and thus to preserve the spell of his name, his companions, with whispered prayers, and silent but fast-falling
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tears, buried him in the darkness in a pit, near the village of Guachoya, where they were encamped. But fearing lest the body should be discovered by the savages, and subjected to inhuman outrage, they dis- interred it the following night, and, having prepared a coffin of evergreen oak, bore it to the middle of the Great River and sank it in a hundred feet of water. A sullen plunge, a murmured Requiescat in pace ! from priest and cavalier, and the canoes return to land. The army mourned as if every man had lost a father.
Nevertheless, they resolved to abandon his plans and strike westward, thus hoping to reach Mexico ; not seeming to know that their latitude was far north of that. Westward for months they wandered through swamp and canebrake, now in luxuriant meadows and again in waste howling wildernesses. Waylaid by savages, famishing, nearly naked, they kept on until the eye was filled with mountains tow- ering to heaven. Back in haste; no Mexico is here. Returning, they are overtaken by fall rains, and winter rigors. Jaded, dispirited, miserable, their numbers reduced to three hundred and fifty, they reach Minoya, on the Mississippi, late in the year. Here they summon all their remaining energies and resources, and gird themselves for a last desperate struggle with fate. By spring they have built seven brigantines, of short and thin planks, insufficiently nailed together,
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undecked, and calked only with bark and grass. In these, on the second day of July, 1543, they depart, three hundred and twenty-two Spaniards all told, taking twenty-two of the horses alive, and the rest salted for provisions ; and leaving the wretched inha- bitants of Minoya starving to death for want of the maize which the Spaniards had used for subsistence and for provisioning their vessels. They also leave at their place of embarkation five hundred Indian slaves, retaining a number, including twenty or thirty women. Committing themselves to the current, they float down the river for nineteen days and nights, beset a great part of the way by a flotilla of canoes filled with hostile Indians who kept up incessant assaults upon them, by which they lost all their surviving horses and over fifty men ; having now no weapons left except a few swords and shields, and being thus helpless against the arrows of the savages. This voy- age down the river was subsequently computed at five hundred leagues.
They reach the Gulf, and here trusting themselves in their frail brigantines to the treacherous deep, after a painful and eventful voyage, they reach the river and village of Panuco in Mexico. They are kindly received, and Mendoza, the viceroy, causes them to be brought to Mexico, where they are treated with much attention and honor. Less than three hundred survivors of that gallant expedition which
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four years before had set out from Cuba with much music and rejoicing, now apppeared, haggard, black- ened, with tangled hair, skins of wild beasts almost their only covering, a wretched band of wrecked, despairing men. And even now, the hearts of nearly all lust for Florida again. Each curses his fellow as the cause of his leaving that land, which they aver to be the goodliest on which the sun shines. Fierce words and fiercer blows are given, and thus amid execrations and contentions these worthies disappear from history.
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