While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Progress Northward. Contests With
The Natives. Vitachuco. Expedition To Cutifachiqui.
Departure For The West.
"The long
bare arms
Are heaved aloft, bows twang and arrows
stream;
Each makes a tree his shield, and every tree
Sends forth its arrow. Fierce the fight and
short
As is the whirlwind." Bryant.
De Soto now concluded to send his vessels
back to Cuba, and leaving a strong guard in
Hiriga's country, to proceed northward.
Favorable accounts were brought by his
emissaries from the adjoining district of
Paracoxi, and deluding hopes of procuring
gold invited to still more distant
exploration in Gale. Vasco Porcalho, wearied
and disgusted with hopeless and desultory
skirmishing among the swamps and morasses,
resigned his commission, and left with the
squadron.
The Spanish force, proceeding up the
country, passed with great difficulty the
extensive morass now known as the Wahoo
Swamp, and came to Gale in the southern
portion of Alachua. The inhabitants of the
town, which was large, and gave tokens of
thrift and abundance, had fled into the
woods, except a few stragglers who were
taken prisoners. The troops fell upon the
stored provisions, and ravaged the fields of
maize with the eagerness of famished men.
Leaving Gale on the 11th of August, De Soto
pressed forward to the populous town of
Ochile. Here, without pretence of coming as
friends, the soldiers fell upon the
inhabitants, and overpowered them by the
suddenness of their attack. The country was
under the rule of three brothers, one of
whom was taken prisoner in the town. The
second brother came in afterwards upon the
receipt of friendly messages from the
Spanish general, but the elder, Vitachuco,
gave the sternest and most haughty responses
to all embassies proposing conciliatory
measures. Appearing, at last, to be
convinced by the persuasion of his two
brothers, who were sent to him, he consented
to a meeting. With a large company of chosen
warriors, he proceeded to De Soto's
encampment, and, with due formality, entered
into a league of friendship. Both armies be
took themselves to the principal village of
Vitachuco, and royal entertainment was
prepared.
The treacherous cacique, notwithstanding
these demonstrations, gathered an immense
force of his subjects around the town, with
a view of surprising and annihilating the
Spaniards; but the vigilance of John Ortiz
averted the catastrophe.
Preparations were at once made to anticipate
the attack; and so successfully were they
carried out, that the principal cacique was
secured, and his army routed. Many of the
fugitives were driven into a lake, where
they concealed themselves by covering their
heads with the leaves of water lilies. The
lake was surrounded by the Spanish troops,
but such was the resolution of the Indians,
that they remained the whole night immersed
in water, and, on the following day, when
the rest had delivered themselves up, "being
constrained by the sharpness of the cold
that they endured in the water," twelve
still held out, resolving to die rather than
surrender. Chilled and stupefied by the
exposure, these were dragged ashore by some
Indians of Paracoxi, belonging to De Soto's
party, who swam after them, and seized them
by the hair.
Although a prisoner, with his chief warriors
reduced to the condition of servants,
Vitachuco did not lay aside his daring
purposes of revenge. He managed to circulate
the order among his men, that on a day
appointed, while the Spaniards were at
dinner, every Indian should attack the one
nearest him with whatever weapon came to
hand.
When the time arrived, Vitachuco, who was
seated at the general s table, rallying
himself for a desperate effort, sprang upon
his host, and endeavored to strangle him. "
This blade," says the Portuguese narrator, "
fell upon the general; but before he could
get his two hands to his throat, he gave him
such a furious blow with his fist upon the
face that he put him all in a gore of
blood." De Soto had doubtless perished by
the unarmed hands of the muscular and
determined chief, had not his attendants
rushed to his rescue, and dispatched the
assailant.
All the other prisoners followed their
cacique s example. Catching at the Spaniards
arms, or the "pounder where with they
pounded the maize," each set upon his master
therewith, or on the first that fell into
his hands. They made use of the lances or
swords they met with, as skillfully as if
they had been bred to it from their
childhood; so that one of them, with sword
in hand, made head against fifteen or twenty
men in the open place, until he was killed
by the governor's halberdiers." Another
desperate warrior, with only a lance, kept
possession of the room where the Indian corn
was stored, and could not be dislodged. He
was shot through an aperture in the roof.
The Indians were at last overpowered, and
all who had not perished in the struggle,
were bound to stakes and put to death. Their
executioners were the Indians of Paracoxi,
who shot them with arrows.
Napetaca, the scene of this event, was left
by the Spaniards in the latter part of
September. Forcing their way through the
vast swamps and over the deep and miry
streams that intercepted their path, and
exposed to the attacks of the revengeful
proprietors of the soil, they came to the
town of Uzachil, somewhere near the present
Oscilla River, midway between the Suwanne
and Appalachicola. Encumbered with horses,
baggage, and armor as they were, their
progress is surprising. Uzachil was deserted
by the Indians, and the troops reveled in
store of provision left by the unfortunate
inhabitants.
Marauding parties of the Spaniards succeeded
in seizing many prisoners, both men and
women, who were chained by the neck, and
loaded with baggage, when the army re
commenced their march. The poor creatures
resorted to every method to effect their
escape; some filing their chains in two with
flints, and others running away, when an
opportunity offered, with the badge of
slavery still attached to their necks. Those
who failed in the attempt were cruelly
punished.
The natives of this north-western portion of
Florida evinced no little skill and good
management in the construction of their
dwellings and in their method of
agriculture. The houses were pronounced
"almost like the farm houses of Spain," and
some of the towns were quite populous.
Making a halt at Anhayca, the capital town
of the district of Palache, De Soto sent a
party to view the seacoast. The men
commissioned for this service discovered
tokens of the ill-fated expedition of
Narvaez at Ante, where the five boats were
built. These were a manger hewn from the
trunk of a tree, and the bones of the horses
who had been killed to supply the means of
outfit.
De Soto, about the last of November, sent a
detachment back to the bay of Espiritu
Santo, with directions for two caravels to
repair to Cuba, and the other vessels, which
had not already been ordered home, to come
round by sea and join him at Palache. Twenty
Indian women were sent as a present to the
general s wife, Donna Isabella.
In one of the scouting expeditions, during
the stay at Palache, a remarkable instance
of self-devotion was seen in two Indians,
whom the troops came upon as they were
gathering beans, with a woman, the wife of
one of them, in their company. "Though they
might have saved them selves, yet they chose
rather to die than to abandon the woman."
"They wounded three horses; whereof one
died," before the Spaniards succeeded in
destroying them.
Early in March 1540, the Spanish forces were
put in motion for an expedition to Yupaha,
far to the north-east. Gold was still the
object of search. A young Indian, who was
made prisoner at Napetaca, alleged that he
had come from that country, and that it was
of great extent and richness. He said that
it was subject to a female cacique, and that
the neighboring tribes paid her tribute in
gold, "whereupon he described the manner how
that gold was dug, how it was melted and
refined, as if he had seen it done a hundred
times, or as if the devil had taught him;
inasmuch that all who understood the manner
of working in the mines, averred that it was
impossible for him to speak so exactly of
it, without having seen the same."
It would be foreign to our present subject
to follow De Soto in this tour; and, indeed,
the position of many of the localities which
are described by his historians, and the
distances and directions of his wearisome
and perilous journeying, must, at the
present day, be matters of conjecture. It
may not, however, be amiss to mention
briefly the accounts preserved of the
appearance of some of the tribes through
whose dominions he passed before his re turn
to the north-western districts of modern
Florida.
As he moved northward, a marked change was
perceived in the buildings. Instead of the
grass-covered huts, which served well enough
in the genial climate of the peninsula, the
people of Toalli had "for their roof little
canes placed together like tile; they were
very neat. Some had the walls made of poles,
so artificially inter woven, that they
seemed to be built of stone and lime." They
could be thoroughly warmed in the winter,
which was there pretty severe. The dwellings
of the caciques were roomy and commodious,
and were rendered conspicuous by a balcony
over the entrance. Great skill was shown by
these people in the manufacture of cloth
from grass or fibrous bark, and the deer
skins, of which they made leggins and other
articles, were admirably well dressed and
dyed.
The most remarkable of the countries visited
on this Northern exploration, was
Cutifachiqui, supposed to have been situated
far up the Chatahoochee, which was governed
by a female. The Spaniards were astonished
at the dignity and refinement of the queen.
Her reception of De Soto reminds one of
Cleopatra s first meeting with Anthony, as
described by the great dramatist. She was
brought down to the water in a palanquin,
and there seated in the stern of a canoe,
upon cushions and carpets, with a pavilion
overhead. She brought presents of mantles
and skins to the general, and hung a
necklace of large pearls about his neck.
The Indians of the country were represented
as " tawny, well-shaped, and more polite
than any before seen in Florida." Their
numbers had been greatly reduced, two years
previous, by a pestilence, and many deserted
dwellings were to be seen around the town.
The accounts given of the quantity of pearls
obtained here, by searching the places of
sepulture, are incredible.
Departing from Cutifachiqui, De Soto had the
ingratitude to carry the queen along with
him, compelling her even to go on foot. " In
the mean time, that she might deserve a
little consideration to be had for her
still," she induced the Indians by whose
houses the cavalcade passed, to join the
party, and lend their aid in carrying the
bag gage. She succeeded, finally, in making
her escape.
We must now dismiss De Soto and his band
upon their long journey through the western
wilderness. He died upon the Red River, and
those of his companions who escaped death
from exposure, disease, or savage weapons,
years after the events above described, made
their way down the Mississippi to the gulf,
and thence reached the Spanish provinces of
Mexico.
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Indian Races of North and South America, By Charles De Wolf Brownell, 1865
