The River That Buried De Soto

Fire at Chicaza

Hernando de Soto drives his horse toward the men setting his camp on fire. He strikes with his lance. Then his saddle slips, and he falls.

In the rush to mount, it has not been properly secured.

Around him, soldiers stumble through smoke, trying to find their weapons. Horses break loose. Others burn where they are tied.

This is how the Gentleman of Elvas describes the attack at Chicaza, in March of 1541. The army that survived Mabila is losing what little it managed to save.

And De Soto still intends to keep going down the long road that would eventually take the expedition to what would one day become Texas.

Last time, we left the expedition marching away from Mabila. Ships offered a possible escape on the Gulf Coast, but De Soto turned inland, looking for food and somewhere to spend the winter.

The march carried them across rivers defended by people who had good reason to keep an army out. The Spaniards built boats, forced crossings, and occupied settlements with stored corn.

By December, they reached Chicaza, in present-day Mississippi.

Following Charles Hudson's reconstruction, picture the country west of the Tombigbee River near Columbus, toward Starkville, though the principal town has not been securely located. This puts us farther south than some older accounts of the Chickasaw winter camp.

Snow fell. Men who had lost their clothing at Mabila were still building shelters when the cold arrived.

The chief visited, bringing food and skins. Relations were uneasy, but there was enough cooperation for the Spaniards to remain through the winter.

Then came the pigs.

De Soto had brought a herd to provide food for his expedition. According to Elvas, people began taking animals at night. When three men were caught, he had two executed and the third sent back with his hands cut off.

Spanish soldiers also stole from their hosts. In one remarkable episode, De Soto threatened to execute two of his own men for taking skins and blankets. Juan Ortiz helped save them by deliberately mistranslating a complaint from the chief into a request for their release.

That is Elvas's account. It shows how much could depend on the man doing the translating.

As spring approached, De Soto demanded two hundred carriers for the next march. Ranjel's account records an uproar among the people when the demand was made.

The promised departure became a night attack.

Warriors entered the camp and set houses alight. Men fled before they could saddle horses or put on armor. De Soto's attempt to counterattack ended with that loose saddle tipping him to the ground.

Elvas believed loose horses helped save the expedition. In the darkness, he says, the attackers mistook them for mounted soldiers gathering to charge.

The attackers withdrew, leaving the camp burning.

The accounts disagree on the losses. Elvas gives eleven Spanish dead and fifty horses killed, with hundreds of pigs burned. Biedma's figures differ, but his description of the survivors is plain: they had horses left, yet lacked saddles, lances, and shields.

Men wrapped themselves in skins or improvised coverings from plant material. They spent the nights beside fires, turning one side toward the heat while the other froze.

The army moved to nearby open ground and began repairing its equipment. Smiths worked on fire-damaged swords. Ash trees supplied new lance shafts. Another attack came, but this time the soldiers were ready and drove it off.

Toward the Mississippi

By late April, they could march again.

At Alibamo, they encountered a defended wooden enclosure. De Soto attacked. The defenders escaped across a watercourse beyond it, leaving wounded Spaniards who would die along the road.

Elvas records criticism within the army. The governor had attacked without first finding out how the defenders could retreat.

After more marching through woods and wetlands, the expedition reached Quizquiz, near the Mississippi River, in May.

For a modern reference, think of the river country south of Memphis. The precise crossing remains disputed, and the Mississippi has shifted its channel repeatedly since then.

From its eastern bank, the Spaniards watched muddy water carrying whole trees downstream. Across it lay towns whose inhabitants already knew how to travel, trade, and fight on that river.

Soon, a fleet of canoes approached.

Elvas describes warriors with painted bodies and feathered ornaments, shields protecting the paddlers, and a chief seated beneath a canopy. He counted two hundred canoes. We cannot verify that number, but the display plainly impressed him.

The chief sent fish and cakes made from plums. De Soto urged him to come ashore. He stayed in his canoe.

As the visitors pulled away, Spanish crossbowmen fired. Elvas says men were killed, yet the paddlers kept their places and withdrew in order.

The Spaniards spent weeks building four large boats. They had to get men, baggage, and horses across a powerful current while watching for an attack.

Eventually, the army crossed into what is now Arkansas.

Beyond the river, they dismantled their boats and saved the iron. De Soto was still marching toward reports of richer country.

Casqui and Pacaha

The expedition moved into the country of Casqui, along the Saint Francis River. Its principal town is widely identified with the site preserved at Parkin Archeological State Park, west of Memphis.

Here, towns stood among cultivated fields. The chief welcomed De Soto, although Spanish parties had already seized people and possessions in his territory.

Elvas describes two blind men being brought forward with a request that De Soto restore their sight. He answered that such power belonged to God, then ordered a tall wooden cross erected.

Biedma also records the cross and the Spaniards kneeling before it.

For Casqui, the visitors offered a possible advantage against a neighboring rival, Pacaha. His people accompanied the expedition into that rival's country.

Pacaha's town had substantial defenses, including a water-filled ditch. Its inhabitants fled as the Spaniards approached. Casqui's followers joined in the plundering and destruction.

De Soto then tried to bring Pacaha's chief into an agreement too. That required dealing with two rulers who hated each other, each trying to secure the better position with the newcomers.

The Spaniards could force their way into towns. Deciding what happened afterward was harder. Local rulers had their own wars, obligations, and reasons to steer the expedition somewhere else.

De Soto stayed in Pacaha's country for weeks, sending out parties and asking about wealth farther away. Nothing they brought back satisfied him.

In late July, he turned back through Casqui and continued toward Quiguate, another populous province.

Through Arkansas

Then the march bent toward the uplands.

On the reconstructed route, Coligua lay near the White River around modern Batesville, at the edge of the Ozarks. Farther southwest, Cayas is associated with the Arkansas River valley, possibly the Carden Bottoms area below Dardanelle.

These locations are proposals, not a chain of proven campsites. They help us follow an army moving from the Mississippi lowlands into the hills and river valleys of Arkansas.

At Cayas, Elvas describes salt production. People washed salty sand, strained the water, and boiled it until salt remained. The Spaniards had reached communities with useful resources and productive farms, but still found no treasure to repay the expedition's expense.

De Soto went on to Tula, placed in the northern Ouachita country south of modern Fort Smith.

The people there resisted fiercely. Elvas describes fighting that continued until Spanish horses were too tired to run. When the main army occupied the abandoned town, warriors returned and attacked before dawn with bows and long wooden weapons resembling pikes.

De Soto answered by mutilating prisoners and sending them back with threats.

Even delivering those threats was difficult. The interpreters from Cayas did not understand Tula's language. For a time, the Spaniards depended on gestures.

Eventually, someone arrived who could bridge the gap. The expedition received buffalo hides, useful against the coming cold, and information about better supplies elsewhere.

Farther west, they were told, settlements were scattered. To the southeast lay a province with abundant corn.

An army with hungry horses could not spend the winter chasing rumors through country that would not feed it.

A Second Winter

De Soto turned toward Utiangue, also called Autiamque in the accounts. Hudson's route places this winter in the Arkansas River's alluvial country. Think broadly of central Arkansas and the river corridor near Little Rock, rather than treating any modern town as the confirmed location.

The Spaniards found stored corn, beans, nuts, and dried fruit. De Soto ordered a stockade built around the camp, separated from the houses to reduce the danger of another fire attack.

There was food, but the winter was severe. Elvas says snow kept them confined for a month. Horsemen opened a path to the woods so men on foot could bring back firewood.

During that winter, Juan Ortiz died.

We met him near the beginning of this expedition, a Spaniard who had survived years in Native Florida before joining De Soto. He had become the Spanish-speaking link in a changing chain of interpreters.

He did not know every language they encountered. Local people translated between neighboring languages until a message could reach him, and he could explain it to the governor.

Without him, that process became much harder.

Elvas says a young captive from Cofitachequi took his place, but struggled to understand what was asked. Questions that Ortiz could settle quickly now consumed hours. The army followed directions it had misunderstood and sometimes had to retrace days of travel.

The Road to Guachoya

By March of 1542, De Soto wanted contact with the outside world. He planned to reach the sea and send boats for reinforcements.

He still hoped to renew the expedition.

The march led down toward Anilco, in the lower Arkansas River country. People withdrew, taking provisions when they could. At night, they returned by canoe to recover corn the Spaniards had occupied.

From there, De Soto moved to Guachoya, near the meeting of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. For modern orientation, picture southeastern Arkansas around the Arkansas Post region, with the exact town site still uncertain.

Scouts sent toward the sea struggled through creeks, cane, and flooded country. They returned without finding a usable way out.

De Soto fell ill with fever.

Before taking to his bed, according to Elvas, he had sent a message to a powerful ruler called Quigualtam. He claimed to be a child of the sun and demanded a visit and gifts.

The answer was a challenge: if that claim was true, let him dry up the river.

Quigualtam would receive him in peace or war, but would not come at his summons.

De Soto was too sick to go.

De Soto’s Final Commands

He could still order violence elsewhere. Fearing an attack, he sent men against Anilco to frighten the surrounding communities. Warriors from Guachoya accompanied them against their enemies.

Elvas describes a slaughter of people who offered no effective resistance. His account condemns Spaniards who killed the old and young while others carried off women and children.

That attack came among De Soto's final commands.

As his condition worsened, he called his officers together. He asked forgiveness for wrongs he had done them and sought an orderly succession. At their request, he named Luis de Moscoso to command.

De Soto died on May 21st, 1542.

The Secret Burial

Moscoso tried to hide it. The Spaniards buried the body secretly, but local people noticed the disturbed ground.

According to Elvas, the men dug him up at night, weighted his wrappings with sand, carried him out in a canoe, and lowered him into the Mississippi.

The governor who had refused the road to the ships was gone. His surviving men still had to find their way to Mexico.

Moscoso would try the land route first. It would carry them into present-day Texas.

Next time, Moscoso leads the survivors into Texas, hoping they can walk to Mexico. But when the guides stop telling them what they want to hear and the corn starts running out, how far will they go before they turn back?