The Burning of Mabila

A Warning Ignored

Hernando de Soto had been warned about the town ahead. Men were gathering there with weapons. The walls were being strengthened.

His officer, Luis de Moscoso, advised camping outside.

According to the Gentleman of Elvas, De Soto answered that he was tired of sleeping in the fields.

On October 18th, 1540, he walked into Mabila.

The Road to Coosa

Last time, the Lady of Cofitachequi escaped from Spanish custody. The army crossed the mountains into eastern Tennessee and rested at Chiaha, near modern Dandridge, while its horses recovered.

By late June, De Soto was ready to move toward Coosa. Two men sent to investigate reports of valuable metal were still away.

At Coste, generally placed near the meeting of the Tennessee and Little Tennessee rivers at present-day Lenoir City, Spanish soldiers began searching houses and taking possessions.

The townspeople fought back with clubs.

De Soto was inside the settlement with only a few men. Elvas says he picked up a club himself and sided with the townspeople against his soldiers, while secretly sending for reinforcements.

He then talked the chief into walking toward the Spanish camp. Once there, De Soto had him detained.

The chief would have to provide guides and carriers before he could leave.

The men sent toward Chisca returned without finding the hoped-for treasure. They described difficult mountains and little corn. Another promising report had produced no mine worth pursuing.

The army continued south into northwestern Georgia.

In July, the chief of Coosa came out to receive De Soto, carried on a seat by his attendants, wearing a feathered headdress and a garment of marten skins. People accompanied him with singing and flutes.

Hudson's reconstruction identifies his capital with the Little Egypt archaeological site, in the Carters Lake area on the Coosawattee River.

Coosa's influence extended across other chiefdoms, reaching into what are now Tennessee and Alabama. An agreement with its ruler could help the Spaniards obtain supplies over a considerable distance.

The country impressed them. Elvas describes towns linked by cultivated fields, with corn and beans in abundance. The chief gave up houses for the visitors to occupy.

De Soto placed him under guard.

People abandoned their homes and withdrew into the woods. Spanish parties went out after them, captured men and women, and brought them back in chains.

Some important prisoners were released at the chief's request. Others remained enslaved. Elvas describes people filing through their chains at night or slipping away when their guards stopped watching.

The army stayed until August 20th. When it left, the chief went with it.

Following the reconstructed route, we can trace the march toward the Etowah River near Cartersville, then toward Rome and down the Coosa valley into Alabama. These are useful modern reference points, although individual town identifications remain subject to debate.

By September, they reached Talisi, usually placed near present-day Childersburg. There, De Soto finally allowed the chief of Coosa to go home.

Holding a chief had become part of the expedition's routine. His people were expected to bring food, furnish guides, and replace exhausted carriers. The Spaniards could move on without building a dependable supply line of their own.

But each prisoner also gave the surrounding communities a reason to resist. At Coosa, people had fled. Farther along, Elvas describes armed men prepared to recover their chief if he asked them to act. Escorting a ruler through his own country did not mean that country had accepted Spanish authority.

Tascalusa

A different ruler was waiting farther south.

The Spaniards called him Tascalusa.

In October, they approached his residence at Atahachi, generally placed in the vicinity of modern Montgomery.

Tascalusa sat beneath a sunshade of painted deerskin. Elvas describes a tall, lean man with a grave expression, surrounded by his leading men.

Moscoso and his horsemen rode back and forth before him, making their animals prance. Tascalusa scarcely reacted. When De Soto arrived, he did not stand to greet him.

De Soto asked for people to carry the baggage and women to take with the expedition.

Biedma says Tascalusa refused the demand for carriers with a sneer. The Spaniards detained him, as they had detained other rulers along the way.

Tascalusa told them that what they wanted could be supplied at Mabila, a town under his authority.

They would have to go there.

Ranjel's account describes hundreds of carriers already handed over, with women still promised at Mabila. The details differ, but all three accounts leave us with a ruler being compelled to accompany an army that expected his people to serve it.

De Soto gave him a horse to ride. Attendants continued carrying his sunshade and cushion.

The outward ceremony survived. His freedom did not.

Inside Mabila

On the road to Mabila, the warnings became harder to ignore.

Spaniards went missing near a river crossing. De Soto demanded answers and threatened Tascalusa. Reports reached the expedition that armed men were assembling in the town ahead.

Elvas says Tascalusa had sent word to gather warriors, while claiming that his messengers were arranging provisions and carriers.

We have no surviving account from Tascalusa himself. The written descriptions come from the invading army. Even so, Biedma directly connects the chief's captivity with the hostility that followed.

Mabila's precise location remains disputed. For a modern map, think inland Alabama, in the broader country southwest of Selma. Archaeological work in Marengo County has identified evidence associated with the province, but locating the province and identifying the battlefield are different problems.

On the morning of October 18th, De Soto arrived ahead of much of his army.

Some soldiers had fallen behind to gather food. Others were still coming up the road. The governor entered with Tascalusa and a small party while the rest of the column approached.

Mabila was enclosed by a strong wooden wall. Inside, the Spaniards were received with singing and dancing.

Ranjel describes soldiers noticing bundles of bows and arrows being concealed among palm leaves. They also saw people hidden inside the houses.

Tascalusa withdrew into one of those buildings.

When De Soto called for him, he refused to come out. In Elvas's account, he said he would travel no farther. The Spaniards could leave peacefully, but they could not force him out of his country.

De Soto tried to continue the exchange through another leading man.

Then Baltasar de Gallegos seized that man's garment. The man pulled away. Gallegos struck him with his sword.

That is how Elvas describes the moment the fighting began.

Warriors rushed from the houses, shooting arrows. De Soto and the men around him scrambled toward the outside of the town. Elvas says the governor fell more than once and had to be helped up. Men were killed before they could escape.

Others remained trapped inside.

The retreat also left the baggage exposed. Native carriers had put their loads down near the wall. Mabila's defenders brought them inside, removed their chains, and gave them weapons.

People who had been forced to carry Spanish possessions were now fighting the men who had enslaved them.

The defenders took the baggage with them. Spare clothing, pearls, and other supplies were suddenly beyond Spanish reach.

Some soldiers had even packed their weapons among those loads. They now faced a battle without them.

The Assault

Outside, De Soto mounted a horse and counterattacked. Warriors who had followed the retreating Spaniards fell back toward the walls, where their archers could cover them.

The rest of the expedition began arriving.

Elvas says the officers debated whether to attack the town or leave it. Men were still inside, and much of the expedition's property was in enemy hands.

De Soto ordered an assault.

The best-protected soldiers dismounted and formed into four groups. Horsemen covered the outside. Men carrying fire were assigned to burn the houses.

An arquebus shot gave the signal.

The Spaniards forced their way in, but the defenders repeatedly drove them back. Archers could shoot from shelter while the attackers struggled through the settlement.

A priest, a friar, and others trapped in a house held off men trying to break in. Elvas describes a sword at the doorway and bars used to strike anyone who entered. A relief party eventually reached them.

The fighting lasted for hours. Wounded men kept fighting alongside others who were becoming exhausted.

As the houses caught fire, defenders lost their shelter. Those who tried to flee outside faced Spanish horsemen. Elvas describes riders driving people back through the gates.

Women fought too. Ranjel's account makes clear that the people caught in the destruction included children.

By the time the fighting ended, Mabila had burned.

Elvas estimated about twenty-five hundred Native dead. Ranjel's account gives an even higher figure. These are Spanish estimates, not reliable counts, but the accounts agree that the loss of life was enormous.

Tascalusa's fate is uncertain. Elvas reports that other leaders persuaded him to escape during the battle. Ranjel says they never learned whether he was alive or dead. We cannot safely give him a final scene in the flames.

The Cost of the Fire

The Spanish figures differ as well. Elvas records eighteen dead and a hundred and fifty wounded. Ranjel gives twenty-two dead and a hundred and forty-eight wounded. Biedma counted more wounded than either.

Even the lower figures meant that a large part of the army needed care. Horses had been killed or injured, and replacements were nowhere close.

The fire had also consumed the clothing, church supplies, and pearls stored inside the town.

De Soto's own men had set the fires. They destroyed the houses to reach the defenders, knowing that their possessions were burning with them.

The pearls mattered beyond their immediate value. Elvas says De Soto had intended to send them to Cuba as evidence that the expedition had found something worth pursuing. They might encourage more people to come.

Now he had wounded men, damaged equipment, and little to show for the journey.

For nearly four weeks, the army remained near Mabila while the injured recovered enough to travel.

Biedma says surviving Native women were forced to care for the wounded. Even after the town's destruction, the Spaniards continued taking labor from its people.

Losing spare clothing was especially serious with winter approaching. The expedition was far from the settlements that had equipped it. Anything burned at Mabila would have to be replaced with whatever the soldiers could obtain along the road.

Turning Away from the Ships

The coast offered a possible way out.

Remember Francisco Maldonado, who was supposed to meet the expedition with ships at Ochuse, generally identified with Pensacola Bay?

Elvas says De Soto learned that Maldonado was waiting there, about six days' journey away. He asked Juan Ortiz to keep the news quiet.

According to Elvas, De Soto feared the reputation his expedition would acquire if word reached Cuba without gold, silver, or even the pearls to justify the expense. He decided against sending news until he found a richer country.

Biedma emphasizes another concern: winter was coming, and De Soto wanted a place with sufficient food for winter quarters.

Whatever weight we give those explanations, his decision is clear. He did not lead the army to the ships.

In mid-November, the column left Mabila and marched inland again, toward the country the Spaniards called Chicaza, in present-day northern Mississippi.

The army would have to get through another winter before it reached the Mississippi River. Beyond that river lay the western chiefdoms, and eventually the road into Texas.

Next time, the Spaniards will lose much of what Mabila spared. De Soto will cross the Mississippi, keep searching, and finally leave his surviving men with a journey he cannot finish.