Hernando De Soto: Mavilla and Missouri
The home of the cacica appears to have been situated close to the Atlantic seaboard, and to have been amongst the villages visited by De Ayllon twenty years previously, the natives having in their possession a dagger and a string of beads, probably a rosary, which they said had belonged to the white men. Unwilling to go over old ground, the Spaniards now determined to alter their course, and, taking a northwesterly direction, they reached, in the course of a few months, the first spurs of the lofty Appalachian range, the formidable aspect of which so damped their courage that they turned back and wandered into the lowlands of what is now Alabama, ignorant that in the very mountains they so much dreaded were hidden large quantities of that yellow metal they had sought so long and so vainly.
The autumn of 1540 found the party, their numbers greatly diminished, at a large village called Mavilla, close to the site of the modern Mobile, where the natives were gathered in considerable force; and it soon became evident that an attempt would be made to exact vengeance for the long course of oppression of which the white intruders had been guilty in their two years' wanderings.
Intending to take possession of Mavilla in his usual high-handed manner, De Soto and a few of his men entered the palisades forming its defences, accompanied by the cacique, who, meek enough until he was within reach of his warriors, then turned upon his guests with some insulting speech and disappeared in a neighboring house. A dispute then ensued between a minor chief and one of the Spaniards. The latter enforced his view of the matter at issue by a blow with his cutlass, and in an instant the town was in a commotion. From every house poured showers of arrows, and in a few minutes nearly all the Christians were slain. De Soto and a few others escaped, and, calling his forces together, the Spanish governor quickly invested the town.
A terrible conflict, lasting nine hours, ensued, in which, as was almost inevitable, the white men were finally victorious, though not until they had lost many valuable lives and nearly all their property. Mavilla was burnt to ashes; and when the battle was over, the Spaniards found themselves in an awful situations, - at a distance from their ships, without food or medicines, and surrounded on all sides by enemies rendered desperate by defeat. The common soldiers, too, had by this time had enough of exploration, and were eager to return to the coast, there to await the return of the vessels which had been sent to Cuba for supplies. Evading the poor fellows' questions as to his plans, however, De Soto, who had received secret intelligence that his fleet was even now awaiting him in' the Bay of Pensacola, but six days' journey from Mavilla, determined to make one more effort to redeem his honor by a discovery of importance. With this end in view he led his disheartened forces northward, and in December reached a small village, belonging to Chickasaw Indians, in the State of Mississippi, supposed to have been situated about N. lat. 32 deg 53', W. long 90 deg 23'.
In spite of constant petty hostilities with the Indians, the winter, which was severe enough for snow to fall, passed over peaceably; but with the beginning of spring the usual arbitrary proceedings were resorted to by De Soto for procuring porters to carry his baggage in his next trip, and this led to a second terrible fight, in which the Spaniards were worsted and narrowly escaped extermination. Had the Indians followed up their victory, not a white man would have escaped to tell the tale; but they seem to have been frightened at their own success, and to have drawn back just as they had their persecutors at their feet.
Rallying the remnant of his forces, and supplying the place of the uniforms which had been carried off by the enemy with skins and mats of ivy leaves, De Soto now led his strangely-transformed followers in a north-westerly direction, and, completely crossing the modern State of Mississippi, arrived in May on the banks of the mighty river from which it takes its name, in about N. lat. 35 deg.
Thus took place the discovery of the great Father of Waters, rolling by in unconscious majesty on its way from its distanct birthplace in Minnesota to its final home in the Gulf of Mexico. To De Soto, however, it was no geographical phenomenon, inviting him to trace its course and solve the secret of its origin, but a sheet of water, "half a league over," impeding his progress, and his first care was to obtain boats to get to the other side.
His succeeding movements may be epitomized. Building barges capable of carrying their horses, the Spaniards crossed the stream, and immediately opened hostilities with the Indians on the other side. They proceeded northward, constantly harassed by the natives, until they reached the region of the present State of Missouri, whose inhabitants took them for children of the Sun and brought out their blind to be restored to sight. After some missionary labors with these Indians, De Soto proceeded westward, and encamped for the winter about the site of Little Rock, in Arkansas, after having reached the highlands of southwest Missouri, near the White River.