the towne were no way hindered from doing vs all the mischiefe they
could: so that twise they stroke mee to the ground with infinite
number of great stones, which they cast downe: and if I had not beene
defended with an excellent good headpiece which I ware, I thinke it
had gone hardly with me: neuerthelesse my companie tooke mee vp with
two small wounds in the face, and an arrowe sticking in my foote, and
many blowes with stones on my armes and legges, and thus I went out of
the battell very weake. I thinke that if Don Garcias Lopez de Cardenas
the second time that they strooke mee to the ground had not succoured
mee with striding ouer mee like a good knight, I had beene in farre
greater danger then I was. But it pleased God that the Indians yeelded
themselues vnto vs, and that this citie was taken: and such store of
Maiz was found therein, as our necessitie required....
It remaineth now to certifie your Honour of the seuen cities, and of
the kingdomes and prouinces whereof the Father prouinciall[2] made
report vnto your Lordship. And to bee briefe, I can assure your
honour, he sayd the trueth in nothing that he reported, but all was
quite contrary, sauing onely the names of the cities, and great houses
of stone: for although they bee not wrought with Turqueses, nor with
lyme, nor brickes, yet are they very excellent good houses of three or
foure or fiue lofts high, wherein are good lodgings and faire chambers
with lathers instead of staires, and certaine cellars vnder the ground
very good and paued, which are made for winter, they are in maner like
stooues: and the lathers which they haue for their houses are all in a
maner mooueable and portable, which are taken away and set downe when
they please, and they are made of two pieces of wood with their
steppes, as ours be. The seuen cities are seuen small townes, all made
with these kinde of houses that I speake of: and they stand all within
foure leagues together, and they are all called the kingdome of
Cibola, and euery one of them haue their particular name: and none of
them is called Cibola, but altogether they are called Cibola.
And this towne which I call a citie, I haue named Granada, as well
because it is somewhat like vnto it, as also in remembrance of your
lordship. In this towne where I nowe remaine, there may be some two
hundred houses, all compassed with walles, and I thinke that with the
rest of the houses which are not so walled, they may be together fiue
hundred. There is another towne neere this, which is one of the seuen,
& it is somwhat bigger than this, and another of the same bignesse
that this is of, and the other foure are somewhat lesse: and I send
them all painted vnto your lordship with the voyage. And the parchment
wherein the picture is, was found here with other parchments. The
people of this towne seeme vnto me of a reasonable stature, and
wittie, yet they seeme not to bee such as they should bee, of that
judgement and wit to builde these houses in such sort as they are.
For the most part they goe all naked, except their priuie partes which
are couered; and they haue painted mantles like those which I send
vnto your lordship. They haue no cotton wooll growing, because the
countrey is colde, yet they weare mantels thereof as your honour may
see by the shewe thereof: and true it is that there was found in their
houses certaine yarne made of cotton wooll. They weare their haire on
their heads like those of Mexico, and they are well nurtured and
condicioned: And they haue Turqueses I thinke good quantitie, which
with the rest of the goods which they had, except their corne, they
had conueyed away before I came thither: for I found no women there,
nor no youth vnder flfteene yeeres olde, nor no olde folkes aboue
sixtie, sauing two or three olde folkes, who stayed behinde to gouerne
all the rest of the youth and men of warre. There were found in a
certaine paper two poynts of Emralds, and certaine small stones broken
which are in colour somewhat like Granates very bad, and other stones
of Christall, which I gaue one of my seruaunts to lay vp to send them
to your lordship, and hee hath lost them as hee telleth me. We found
heere Guinie cockes, but fewe. The Indians tell mee in all these seuen
cities, that they eate them not, but that they keepe them onely for
their feathers. I beleeue them not, for they are excellent good, and
greater then those of Mexico. The season which is in this countrey,
and the temperature of the ayre is like that of Mexico: for sometime
it is hotte, and sometime it raineth: but hitherto I neuer sawe it
raine, but once there fell a little showre with winde, as they are
woont to fall in Spaine.
The snow and cold are woont to be great, for so say the inhabitants of
the Countrey: and it is very likely so to bee, both in respect to the
maner of the Countrey, and by the fashion of their houses, and their
furres and other things which this people haue to defend them from
colde. There is no kind of fruit nor trees of fruite. The Countrey is
all plaine, and is on no side mountainous: albeit there are some
hillie and bad passages. There are small store of Foules: the cause
whereof is the colde, and because the mountaines are not neere. Here
is no great store of wood, because they haue wood for their fuell
sufficient foure leagues off from a wood of small Cedars. There is
most excellent grasse within a quarter of a league hence, for our
horses as well to feede them in pasture, as to mowe and make hay,
whereof wee stoode in great neede, because our horses came hither so
weake and feeble. The victuals which the people of this countrey haue,
is Maiz, whereof they haue great store, and also small white Pease:
and Venison, which by all likelyhood they feede vpon, (though they say
no) for wee found many skinnes of Deere, of Hares, and Conies. They
eate the best cakes that euer I sawe, and euery body generally eateth
of them. They haue the finest order and way to grinde that wee euer
sawe in any place. And one Indian woman of this countrey will grinde
as much as foure women of Mexico. They haue most excellent salte in
kernell, which they fetch from a certaine lake a dayes iourney from
hence....
The kingdome of Totonteac so much extolled by the Father prouinciall,
which sayde that there were such wonderfull things there, and such
great matters, and that they made cloth there, the Indians say is an
hotte lake, about which are fiue or sixe houses; and that there were
certaine other, but that they are ruinated by warre. The kingdome of
Marata is not to be found, neither haue the Indians any knowledge
thereof. The kingdome of Acus is one onely small citie, where they
gather cotton which is called Acucu. This is a town whereinto the
kingdom of Acus is conuerted. Beyond this towne they say there are
other small townes which are neere to a riuer which I haue seene and
haue had report of by the relation of the Indians. I would to God I
had better newes to write vnto your lordship: neuerthelesse, I must
say the trueth: And as I wrote to your lordship from Culiacan, I am
nowe to aduertise your honour as wel of the good as of the bad. Yet
this I would haue you bee assured, that if all the riches and the
treasures of the world were heere, I could haue done no more in the
seruice of his Maiestie and of your lordshippe, than I haue done in
comming hither whither you haue sent mee, my selfe and my companions
carrying our victuals vpon our shoulders and vpon our horses three
hundred leagues; and many dayes going on foote trauailing ouer hilles
and rough mountaines, with other troubles which I cease to mention,
neither purpose I to depart vnto the death, if it please his Maiestie
and your lordship that it shall be so.
Three dayes after this citie was taken, certaine Indians of these
people came to offer mee peace, and brought mee certaine Turqueses,
and badde mantles, and I receiued them in his Maiesties name with all
the good speaches that I could deuise, certifying them of the purpose
of my comming into this countrey, which is in the name of his
Maiestie, and by the commaundement of your Lordship, that they and all
the rest of the people of this prouince should become Christians, and
should knowe the true God for their Lorde, and receiue his Maiestie
for their King and earthly Soueraigne: And herewithall they returned
to their houses, and suddenly the next day they set in order all their
goods and substance, their women and children, and fled to the hilles,
leauing their townes as it were abandoned, wherein remained very fewe
of them. When I sawe this within eight or tennes dayes after being
recouered of my woundes, I went to the citie, which I sayde to bee
greater then this where I am, and found there some fewe of them, to
whom I sayde that they should not be afrayd, and that they should call
their gouernour vnto mee: Howbeit forasmuch as I can learne or gather,
none of them hath any gouernour: for I sawe not there any chiefe
house, whereby any preeminence of one ouer another might bee gathered.
I would haue sent your lordshippe with this dispatch many musters of
things which are in this countrey: but the way is so long and rough,
that it is hard for me to doe so; neuerthelesse I send you twelue
small mantles, such as the people of the countrey are woont to weare,
and a certaine garment also, which seemeth vnto me to bee well made: I
kept the same, because it seemed to mee to bee excellent well wrought,
because I beleeue that no man euer sawe any needle worke in these
Indies, except it were since the Spaniards inhabited the same. I send
your Lordshippe also two clothes painted with the beasts of this
countrey, although as I haue sayde, the picture bee very rudely done,
because the painter spent but one day in drawing of the same. I haue
seene other pictures on the walles of the houses of this citie with
farre better proportion, and better made.
I send your honour one Oxe-hide, certaine Turqueses, and two earerings
of the same, and fifteene combes of the Indians, and certain tablets
set with these Turqueses, and two small baskets made of wicker,
whereof the Indians haue great store. I send your lordship also two
rolles which the women in these parts are woont to weare on their
heads when they fetch water from their welles, as wee vse to doe in
Spaine. And one of these Indian women with one of these rolles on her
head, will carie a pitcher of water without touching the same with her
hand vp a lather. I send you also a muster of the weapons wherewith
these people are woont to fight, a buckler, a mace, a bowe, and
certaine arrowes, among which are two with points of bones, the like
whereof, as these conquerours say, haue neuer beene seene.
[1] From Coronado's letter to Mendoza, dated August 3, 1540,
Mendoza being Viceroy of Mexico, by whom Coronado had been sent
out. Coronado's expedition was a great disappointment to all
concerned in it, inasmuch as it resulted in failure to find the
fabled "seven cities of Cibola." He had 300 Spaniards with him and
800 Indians. Instead of finding great towns, as promised by Marcos
and others, he discovered only a poor village of 200 people,
situated on a rocky eminence. The expedition, however, in spite of
this failure, remains one of the most important exploring
expeditions ever undertaken in America. Opinions differ as to how
far north Coronado went, some maintaining that he reached a point
north of the boundary line between Kansas and Nebraska. His letter
was printed by Hakluyt in Volume III of his "Voyages," and may be
found in the "Old South Leaflets." Mr. Thwaites says of the
expedition:
"Disappointed, but still hoping to find the country of gold,
Coronado's gallant little army, frequently thinned by death and
desertion, for three years beat up and down the southwestern
wilderness: now thirsting in the deserts, now penned up in
gloomy canons, now crawling over pathless mountains, suffering
the horrors of starvation and of despair, but following this
will-o'-the-wisp with a melancholy perseverance seldom seen in
man save when searching for some mysterious treasure. Coronado
apparently twice crossed the State of Kansas. 'Through mighty
plains and sandy heaths,' says the chronicler of the expedition,
'smooth and wearisome and bare of wood. All that way the plains
are as full of crookback oxen (buffaloes) as the mountain Serena
in Spain is of sheep. They were a great succor for the hunger
and want of bread which our people stood in. One day it rained
in that plain a great shower of hail as big as oranges, which
caused many tears, weaknesses, and vows.' The wanderer ventured
as far as the Missouri, and would have gone still farther
eastward but for his inability to cross the swollen river.
Cooperating parties explored the upper valleys of the Rio Grande
and Gila, ascended the Colorado for two hundred and forty miles
above its mouth, and visited the Grand Canon of the same river.
Coronado at last returned, satisfied that he had been victimized
by the idle tales of travelers. He was rewarded with contumely
and lost his place as governor of New Galicia; but his romantic
march stands in history as one of the most remarkable exploring
expeditions of modern times."
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was born at Salamanca, in Spain,
about 1500, and died in Mexico some time after 1542. He is believed
to have gone to Mexico in 1535 with Mendoza, the viceroy, who, in
1539, made him governor of a province.
[2] Marcos is here referred to.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY DE SOTO
(1541)
PARKMAN'S ACCOUNT[1]
Hernando de Soto was the companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru.
He had come to America a needy adventurer, with no other fortune than
his sword and target. But his exploits had given him fame and fortune,
and he appeared at court with the retinue of a nobleman. Still, his
active energies could not endure repose, and his avarice and ambition
goaded him to fresh enterprises. He asked and obtained permission to
conquer Florida. While this design was in agitation, Cabeça de Vaca,
one of those who had survived the expedition of Narvaez, appeared in
Spain, and for purposes of his own, spread abroad the mischievous
falsehood that Florida was the richest country yet discovered. De
Soto's plans were embraced with enthusiasm. Nobles and gentlemen
contended for the privilege of joining his standard; and, setting sail
with an ample armament, he landed at the Bay of Espiritu Santo, now
Tampa Bay, in Florida, with six hundred and twenty chosen men, a band
as gallant and well appointed, as eager in purpose and audacious in
hope, as ever trod the shores of the New World. The clangor of
trumpets, the neighing of horses, the fluttering of pennons, the
glittering of helmet and lance, startled the ancient forest with
unwonted greeting. Amid this pomp of chivalry, religion was not
forgotten. The sacred vessels and vestments with bread and wine for
the Eucharist were carefully provided; and De Soto himself declared
that the enterprise was undertaken for God alone, and seemed to be the
object of His especial care. These devout marauders could not neglect
the spiritual welfare of the Indians whom they had come to plunder;
and besides fetters to bind, and bloodhounds to hunt them, they
brought priests and monks for the saving of their souls.
The adventurers begun their march. Their story has been often told.
For month after month and year after year, the procession of priests
and cavaliers, crossbowmen, arquebusiers, and Indian captives laden
with the baggage, still wandered on through wild and boundless wastes,
lured hither and thither by the ignis-fatuus of their hopes. They
traversed great portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi,
everywhere inflicting and enduring misery, but never approaching their
fantom El Dorado. At length, in the third year of their journeying,
they reached the banks of the Mississippi, a hundred and thirty-two
years before its second discovery by Marquette. One of their number
describes the great river as almost half a league wide, deep, rapid,
and constantly rolling down trees and drift-wood on its turbid
current.
The Spaniards crossed over at a point above the mouth of the Arkansas.
They advanced westward, but found no treasures--nothing, indeed, but
hardships, and an Indian enemy, furious, writes one of their officers,
"as mad dogs." They heard of a country toward the north where maize
could not be cultivated because the vast herds of wild cattle devoured
it.[2] They penetrated so far that they entered the range of the
roving prairie tribes; for, one day, as they pushed their way with
difficulty across great plains covered with tall, rank grass, they met
a band of savages who dwelt in lodges of skins sewed together,
subsisting on game alone, and wandering perpetually from place to
place. Finding neither gold nor the South Sea, for both of which they
had hoped, they returned to the banks of the Mississippi.
De Soto, says one of those who accompanied him, was a "stern man, and
of few words." Even in the midst of reverses, his will had been law to
his followers, and he had sustained himself through the depths of
disappointment with the energy of a stubborn pride. But his hour was
come. He fell into deep dejection, followed by an attack of fever, and
soon after died miserably. To preserve his body from the Indians, his
followers sank it at midnight in the river, and the sullen waters of
the Mississippi buried his ambition and his hopes.
The adventurers were now, with few exceptions, disgusted with the
enterprise, and longed only to escape from the scene of their
miseries. After a vain attempt to reach Mexico by Land, they again
turned back to the Mississippi, and labored, with all the resources
which their desperate necessity could suggest, to construct vessels in
which they might make their way to some Christian settlement. Their
condition was most forlorn. Few of their horses remained alive; their
baggage had been destroyed at the burning of the Indian town of
Mavila, and many of the soldiers were without armor and without
weapons. In place of the gallant array which, more than three years
before, had left the harbor of Espiritu Santo, a company of sickly and
starving men were laboring among the swampy forests of the
Mississippi, some clad in skins, and some in mats woven from a kind of
wild vine.
Seven brigantines were finished and launched; and, trusting their
lives on board these frail vessels, they descended the Mississippi,
running the gantlet between hostile tribes, who fiercely attacked
them. Reaching the Gulf, tho not without the loss of eleven of their
number, they made sail for the Spanish settlement on the River Panuco,
where they arrived safely, and where the inhabitants met them with a
cordial welcome. Three hundred and eleven men thus escaped with life,
leaving behind them the bones of their comrades strewn broadcast
through the wilderness.
[1] From Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World." By
permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Hernando de Soto
was born in Badaios, Spain, in 1500, and died near the Mississippi
River, probably on May 21, 1542. Before discovering the Mississippi,
he had been in Panama and Nicaragua; had been active with Pizarro
in the conquest of Peru, from which he returned very rich to
Spain, and in 1587 had been appointed Governor of Cuba and
Florida, with orders to explore and settle the country. It was
while engaged in the latter work that he discovered the
Mississippi.
De Soto's route has been determined only approximately. He is
believed first to have made a circuit northward from Tampa,
through Florida into Georgia and perhaps into Carolina, thence
going westward to Alabama and Mobile Bay. From the latter he
turned northward again, thence going westward to the Mississippi,
which he is believed to have crossed at Chickasaw Bluffs, in May,
1541. From this point he went northward and almost reached the
Missouri. He then turned southward, and reached the junction of
the Red River and Mississippi, where he died of malaria fever. Of
his men 250 perished from disease or in combat with the Indians.
[2] The bison, or buffalo, is here referred to.
THE DEATH OF DE SOTO
(1542)
BY ONE OF DE SOTO'S COMPANIONS[1]
The Governor fell into great dumps to see how hard it was to get to
the sea; and worse, because his men and horses every day diminished,
being without succor to sustain themselves in the country: and with
that thought he fell sick. But before he took his bed he sent an
Indian to the Cacique of Quigalta to tell him that he was the child of
the sun, and that all the way that he came all men obeyed and served
him, that he requested him to accept of his friendship and come unto
him, for he would be very glad to see him; and in sign of love and
obedience to bring something with him of that which in his country was
most esteemed....
By the time the Indian returned with his answer, the Governor had
betaken himself to bed, being evil handled with fevers, and was much
aggrieved that he was in case to pass presently the river and to seek
him, to see if he could abate that pride of his, considering the river
went now very strongly in those parts; for it was near half a league
broad, and sixteen fathoms deep, and very furious, and ran with a
great current; and on both sides there were many Indians, and his
power was not now so great, but that he had need to help himself
rather by slights than by force. The Indians of Guachoya came every
day with fish in such numbers, that the town was full of them....
The Governor felt in himself that the hour approached wherein he was
to leave this present life, and called for the king's officers,
captains, and principal persons, to whom he made a speech. Baltasar de
Gallegos answered in the name of all the rest. And first of all
comforting him, he set before his eyes how short the life of this
world was, and with how many troubles and miseries it is accompanied,
and how God showed him a singular favor which soonest left it: telling
him many other things fit for such a time. And touching the Governor
which he commanded they should elect, he besought him, that it would
please his lordship to name him which he thought fit, and him they
would obey. And presently he named Luys de Moscoso de Alvarado, his
captain-general. And presently he was sworn by all that were present,
and elected for governor. The next day being the 21st of May, 1542,
departed out of this life the valorous, virtuous, and valiant captain,
Don Fernando de Soto, Governor of Cuba, and Adelantado of Florida:
whom fortune advanced, as it useth to do others, that he might have
the higher fall. He departed in such a place, and at such a time, as
in his sickness he had but little comfort: and the danger wherein all
his people were of perishing in that country, which appeared before
their eyes, was cause sufficient why every one of them had need of
comfort, and why they did not visit nor accompany him as they ought to
have done. Luys de Moscoso determined to conceal his death from the
Indians, because Fernando de Soto had made them believe that the
Christians were immortal; and also because they took him to be hardy,
wise, and valiant; and if they should know that he was dead, they
would be bold to set upon the Christians, tho they lived peaceably by
them.
As soon as he was dead, Luys de Moscoso commanded to put him secretly
in the house, where he remained three days; and moving him from
thence, commanded him to be buried in the night at one of the gates of
the town within the wall. And as the Indians had seen him sick, and
missed him, so did they suspect what might be. And passing by the
place where he was buried, seeing the earth moved, they looked and
spake one to another. Luys de Moscoso, understanding of it, commanded
him to be taken up by night, and to cast a great deal of sand into the
mantles, wherein he was wound up, wherein he was carried in a canoe,
and thrown into the midst of the river.