by Richard Green

UNINVITED, UNWELCOME, DE SOTO AMONG THE CHICASAS

Just before sunrise, March 4, 1541.
Divided into many small groups, about three hundred Chicasa warriors crept silently through the savannahs to encircle and infiltrate the sleeping Spanish encampment-which until ten weeks before had been a Chicasa village.  They were about to execute the attack that had been detailed during the previous several days. Throughout much of the winter, as warriors had been paying what were ostensibly social visits on the Spanish, but were actually reconnaissance missions, in which they noted everything about camp life that could enhance their opportunity for a successful attack.

Their target was a Spanish force of perhaps four hundred fifty to five hundred men and two women. Their leader was the conquistador Hernando de Soto. Although he believed in the moral righteousness of abusing and killing non-Christians, he knew or suspected that despite their overtures of friendliness, the Indians deeply resented his presence and he sensed they were "engaged in evil intrigue." Before he had retired on the evening of March 3, De Soto told his men: "Tonight is an Indian night. I will sleep armed and with my horse saddled." And he instructed an aide to "take extra precautions with the sentinels.[1]

Crouching, the Chicasas crept forward, wearing feathers and war paint and carrying their weapons and little pots of smoldering herbs. They paused on the outskirts of the camp, listening and looking for signs of danger. Had they walked into a trap? De Soto had wanted extra precautions. Where were the sentries? The night-time sounds of the savannah were ordinary except for the Spanish horses grunting and snorting. As they neared the houses on the periphery of the camp, they could hear the soldiers sleeping inside.[2]

A drum beat signaled the attack.

As a teenager, Hernando de Soto sailed to the Americas and soon gained notoriety and a fortune by enslaving Central American Indians for profit. Although he became wealthy, the power over the new Spanish lands was controlled by Francisco Pizarro. So after several years, according to one historian, de Soto sailed back to Spain where King Charles I "did him the extreme honor of asking for a loan." For his part, De Soto wanted a royal commission to lead an expedition to the new world. Charles granted permission to explore Florida and conferred on de Soto the titles of governor of Cuba and Florida. He arrived in Cuba in 1538, deposited his new wife in Havana and a few months later in 1539 set sail for Florida. De Soto was intent on fulfilling his missions of finding enormous caches of gold, extending Spanish hegemony, subduing and using whatever people appeared, and building churches.[3]

De Soto's expedition was chronicled by three men who claimed to be eyewitnesses. Most subsequent publications dealing with the expedition are based largely on those narratives. The Spanish historian Oviedo copied part of a journal kept by De Soto's private secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel. Another journal is attributed to a Portugese soldier known only as "the Gentleman of Elvas." The third account was a report written for the king by an official, Luys Hernandez de Biedma, whose main duty was to ensure that Charles got his share of the profits.[4]

Although the accounts encompass both personal and cultural biases, the narratives are not uncritical of de Soto nor do they play down the misery of the soldiers. Furthermore, their descriptions of the same events often are similar. But the chroniclers recorded only what they observed and made few if any attempts to learn anything directly from or about the Chicasas themselves. That is regrettable to students of Chickasaw history, for despite a season of contact little was recorded about the tribe in the sixteenth century. But, some historians have assessed the narratives rather than merely reporting them, judging them in context as well as content. Those historians are the main sources in this paper.

Approximately six hundred fifty persons landed with de Soto on the western coast of Florida in 1539. Most were Spanish soldiers equipped with modern weapons, but the necessary auxiliaries, such as engineers and priests, and a few other nationalities and persons of other racial and ethnic origin were also present. Also included were dozens of horses for transportation and cavalry attack, hundreds of pigs (for pork) and numerous dogs trained in tracking and warfare. From mid-1539 through 1540, the expedition marched in a northerly direction, then westerly, cutting a swath through southeastern North America. De Soto and his men employed the same tactics and strategy on the Indians that had worked so well in South and Central America: deception followed by plundering, murdering, raping and enslaving.

Archeological evidence from the time suggests that the tribes of the Southeast did communicate and occasionally form alliances. Considering de Soto's notoriety, it is highly likely that word spread that what he wanted from Indians was directions to the gold, their food and women to serve as the men's sexual outlet. The Indians considered de Soto and his men to be barbarians. But the Indians conceded that the Spaniards' large number, mobility on horseback, relatively sophisticated weapons, equipment and military skills made outright attacks and pitched battles unfeasible. For their ­part, the Indians had no metal weapons, only clubs, lances and arrows tipped with stone or pieces of antler. They used their weapons to fight guerilla style.[5] Their best strategy was to avoid de Soto if possible. That is why the expedition found so many villages abandoned and bare of food.[6]

But some tribes could not avoid contact, and knowing what De Soto wanted most, made up stories of gold and great wealth, always in the distance, away from their lands. De Soto assumed that the Indians were incapable of deception and that he was incapable of being had. He was wrong on both counts, which kept his expedition on a continuous wild-goose chase. During the second year, they arrived in the land of the great chief Tascalusa in present-day Alabama. De Soto issued his usual demands for Indians to carry his supplies and women. Although Tascalusa gave De Soto some men to serve as carriers, a violent incident involving the chief sparked a battle at the Indians' fortified town of Mabila. De Soto torched the town, which was encircled by a high wooden wall; hundreds of warriors were trapped inside of what became an inferno. According to Elvas, two thousand five hundred Indians perished.[7]

The Spanish headed west, having lost about one hundred men to disease and in battle. They were looking for the land of the Chicasa, which they understood had many fine fields of maize. They came upon a river, probably the Tombigbee, overflowing its bed. On the other side were Indians making threatening gestures. An emissary of de Soto crossed the river and told the chief of the region that they could become the governor's friends if they would allow the expedition to cross in peace. The answer was unequivocal and emphatic; the emissary was executed on the spot in full view of the Spanish.[8]

De Soto ordered a piragua or barge to be made. It was big enough to accommodate thirty men and several mounted horsemen and the crossing was made on December 17. Elvas says the Indians showered the men with arrows, but as the barge landed, and the cavalrymen prepared to charge, the Indians fled.[9]  Where this landing was made is not known. Some students of de Soto’s expedition believe it was in the vicinity of what is today Columbus, Mississippi.

Others believe it was considerably more to the north, southeast of today’s Tupelo, Mississippi.The Spanish marched to a Chicasa village of about twenty houses, arriving that same day to find it had been abandoned. Accounts of the village's name vary. Either it was a Chicasa village (with the name unknown to the Spanish) or it was named Chicasa by the former residents or the Spanish. Although the food store had been taken by the Indians, Elvas wrote that the reports of plentiful fields of maize were accurate. And since the weather had turned very cold and snowy, de Soto decided to winter at the village, which the Spanish augmented with several new struc­tures for housing.[10]

According to the theory of some archaeologists­, the Chicasa had recently abandoned several mid-size towns containing ceremonial mounds and were gradually migrating across the Tombigbee basin to the northwest. This transit, suggesting temporary shelters rather than a permanent home, makes it virtually impossible to pinpoint the location of the Chicasa village. The bitter cold and heavy snow recorded by the chroniclers during the winter of 1540-41 could mean that the inhabitants were experiencing what climatologists believe was a so-called Little Ice Age in the northern hemisphere in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[11]

When the Chicasa chiefs of the region realized that de Soto probably would not be departing until spring, they gathered to plot strategy.[12] How could they rid the barbarians from their land with the lowest loss of life? First, they would try to trick them into leaving. What brought the two sides together initially is not known. Either some Indians were kidnapped (a routine Spanish gambit) in a move to compel the cacique (chief) to meet with de Soto or the cacique came of his own accord. At any rate, he offered de Soto guides to take the expedition to the fabulous land he called Caluca.[13] When that ruse did not work, the cacique asked de Soto for help in putting down a rebellion at another village. The thinking was that if de Soto were to be agreeable, he would divide his force, thus making each part more vulnerable to a successful attack. Some Chicasa accompanied de Soto and thirty soldiers to this village of Sacchuma, which was-of course-­abandoned, and the Indians, play-acting to the hilt, feigned anger and burnt the village to the ground. Still, all of De Soto's forces remained vigilant, which kept the Chicasa from attacking.[14]

Because the chiefs could not agree on a new plan of attack, they thought it best to keep the Spanish in one place during the winter for two reasons. First, if they helped to feed and clothe the Spanish, they would not be so likely to bother the Chicasa in their camps. Second, by feigning friendship, they could observe the Spanish to learn the most effective ways to attack them in the spring if De Soto lived up to his reputation for making intolerable and outrageous demands prior to his departure.[15] Therefore, the cacique and two other chiefs, Alimanu and Niculasa, brought the Spanish food and clothing. During this time, the Chicasa were exhibiting remarkable restraint and patience considering the rage they must have been feeling. The invaders had expropriated their homes and much of their food supply at the beginning of a harsh winter. If the Spanish were miserable that winter, the Chicasa probably suffered even more. The tension in the Indian villages must have been palpable day after day.[16]

If the tension among the Chicasa and between the tribe and the Spanish was not already high enough, an incident that winter further imperiled the uneasy peace. Three Indians were apprehended trying to steal a few of de Soto's prized hogs. Their motive, Elvas wrote, was an overfondness for pork. But it is much more likely, says historian David Duncan, that the three were "desperate for food." Two were executed. The third man's hands were cut off and he was returned to the cacique as a warning. No reprisals were made despite the fact that the Spanish had looted their food supply, imperiling the Chicasa in the dead of winter.[17]

By late February or early March, the snow was gone and the temperature moderating. De Soto told the cacique that he intended to depart. Then, adhering to his usual practice, he demanded two hundred carriers and a supply of women. In his account of the expedition, Ranjel reported that the Indians "raised such a tumult among themselves that the Christians understood it" and extended the deadline to March 4.[18] On the night before the departure, De Soto mounted his horse and, riding among the Chicasa, found them "evilly disposed," and ordered increased vigilance. The Spanish camp gradually settled down for the expedition's last night there. But the Chicasa did not sleep. They were preparing for a massive pre­dawn firestorm.

Even before the drum beat signaled the attack, the warriors had set fire to part of the village. The woven herbs that they carried with them smoldering in pots had only to be waved overhead to burst into flame. Some warriors touched their flaming weapons to the straw roofs, while others, having attached bits of the herbs to the points of arrows, shot them to ignite ­houses in the distance. In virtually no time the Spanish were caught in a fiery conflagration. Despite de Soto's pronouncement that he would sleep armed with his saddled horse nearby, he and his soldiers had retired that evening "without precautions and unarmed."[19] The only explanation for the failure of the sentries to spot the advancing Chicasa was provided by de Soto's private secretary, Ranjel: "The Master of the Camp put on the morning watch three horsemen, the most useless ... in the army.”[20] But why were the Spanish not prepared for an attack they believed was coming? The most likely reason was arrogance, manifested in the belief that they could not be defeated by Indians.

Roused from sleep by smoke and drumbeats, De Soto threw a saddle on his horse, mounted, and with lance in hand, managed to mortally wound a Chicasa. But since the saddle was not cinched tightly enough, the force of the blow loosened the saddle and propelled him backward onto the ground. That Chicasa was the only Indian to die during the battle, so great was the confusion and panic among the Spanish. Ranjel and Elvas both wrote that the "Christians," unarmed and gasping for breath, tried to escape through gaps in the fire. Many were cut down at those points by bowmen.

The cacophony of shrieking animals and screaming humans, along with the nauseating smells of burning flesh contributed to a chaotic rout. One of the expedition's two women, Francisca de Hinestrosa, left her husband's side and ran back into a flaming house to retrieve her pearls. The fire quickly engulfed the structure and she was consumed inside.[21] She was one of twelve to fourteen (the accounts vary) to die during the battle; many more were wounded or burned and probably died later. In addition, fifty-seven horses and some four hundred pigs (of five hundred) died during the battle. Furthermore, fire destroyed most of their military gear, weapons and clothing.[22] Many of the survivors were left literally naked, Elvas observed.

Bad as it was for the Spanish, it could have been much worse. The chroniclers all agreed that the Chicasa could have wiped out the entire expedition. But for some reason the attack was cut short. Biedma called it "a great mystery of God.”[23] In one account, it is alleged that the Chicasa did such a good job of creating confusion that they became enveloped in it, perhaps mistaking horses frantic to escape the flames for attacking lancers. But according to historian Mary Ann Wells, extermination "was not normal Chicasa strategy. The Indians seemed only to want the Spaniards to understand how unappreciated their continued demands were and at the same time to deliver an avenging assault to speed the Europeans' departure."[24]

The village was utterly destroyed. The Spanish salvaged what little they could from the ashes of their camp and de Soto ordered a move two or three miles away to another abandoned Chicasa village on an open plain. There they tended to the wounded and the business of rejuvenating themselves into a semblance of an expedition. Again, the chroniclers noted that had the Chicasa attacked at this time, not a man would have survived. But in keeping with the overall Chicasa strategy of minimizing their own losses, the Chicasa probably believed that the Spanish had been critically crippled and would have no choice but to move on. But when they did not, the Chicasa attacked on March 15, again just before dawn.
[25]

This attack was not nearly as sophisticated as the first one. For one thing, De Soto's sentries and soldiers and cavalrymen were ready and during the battle there were deaths and casualties on both sides.[26] For another, the Chicasa probably had a very limited objective: to demonstrate emphatically to de Soto that he must leave their land.

Within days, the Spanish moved out for good, forever weakened, and demoralized, according to Elvas. Now, instead of searching for gold and riches, they were trying to find a water route to the Gulf of Mexico and their best chance of escape. De Soto would not make it back; he died of some infectious disease near the banks of the Mississippi River in May 1542.[27]

Endnotes

1. Narratives of the career of Hernando De Soto in the Conquest of Florida, as told by a Knight of Elvas and in a relation by Luys Hernandez de Biedma, factor of the Expedition, Edward G. Bourne, editor, based on the diary of Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto's private secretary, (New York: Allerton Book Co., 1922), 133.
2. David Duncan, Hernando De Soto, A Savage Quest in the Americas, (New York: Crown Publishers, 1995), 398.
3. Mary Ann Wells, Native Land, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), 1994, 12-14.
4. Ibid., 13.
5. Patricia Galloway, "The Emergence of Historic Indian Tribes in the Southeast," Ethnic Heritage in Mississippi, Barbara Carpenter (ed.), (Jackson: University Press of MS., 1992), 6.
6. Patricia Galloway, Choctaw Genesis 1500-1700, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 108.
7. Wells, 17-18.
8. Narratives of the career of Hernando De Soto in the Conquest of Florida, As told by a Knight of Elvas and in relation to Luys Hernandez de Biedma, (New York,1866), 92. Hereafter Narratives.
9. Duncan, 395.
10. Wells, 18.
11. Duncan, 396.
12. Galloway, 118.            
13. Ibid., 119.
14. Narratives, 93.
15. Galloway, 119.
16. Wells, 21; Duncan, 396.
17. Duncan, 397.
18. Ranjel, 133.
19. Ibid.
20. Ranjel, 133.
21. Narratives, 96.
22. Arrell Gibson, The Chickasaws, (Norman: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 32.
23. Duncan, 399.
24. Wells, 23. 
25. Ranjel, 135.
26. Wells, 23; Duncan, 400.
27. Wells, 27.