THE DISCOVERY OF THE PACIFIC, AND THE EARLY EXPLORATION
OF FLORIDA.
Illustration: BALBOA DISCOVERING THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
TO atone for the sudden check in the progress of discovery in
the North, mentioned in our previous chapter, we find the Spanish
vigorously prosecuting their explorations in the Gulf of Mexico,
bent, like other nations, on finding a new passage to India, though
convinced that it lay, not among the snow and ice of the Arctic
regions, but in more southerly latitudes.
Ignorant of the important fact, that the land barring their progress
westward formed part of one vast continent, one hardy Spanish mariner
after another wasted his strength in seeking for some channel between
the so-called islands hemming in his bark on this side and on that,
until at last the mystery was solved by a freebooter named Vasco Nunez
de Balboa, whose romantic story must be given here, forming as it does
an era in the history of the whole of the New World.
Nothing could well have been more inauspicious than the commencement
of the voyage of the first European who set eyes on the Pacific Ocean.
One of the earliest settlers in San Domingo, Vasco Nunez de Balboa
was so unsuccessful in his tilling of the soil that he soon found
himself in absolute destitution, and, hoping to elude his creditors,
he managed to hide himself in a vessel bound for the Caribbean Sea,
at that time a favorite resort of pirates and adventurers of every
description.
When out of sight of land, Balboa ventured forth from his cask, and,
falling on his knees before the captain, Enciso by name, entreated
him to protect him and let him share in the expedition. Enraged at so
flagrant a defiance of his authority as the concealment of a man on
board his ship, Enciso at first threatened to put our hero ashore on
some desert island and abandon him to starve, but finally, softened
by his eloquent pleadings, he consented that he should work out his
passage. To this leniency Enciso soon afterward owed the safety of
himself and all his people. His vessel was wrecked on the coast of
the Isthmus of Darien, and Nunez, who had visited the district in his
early wanderings, led the Spaniards to a friendly Indian village on
the Darien.
Life was, however, all Balboa chose to accord to the man to whom he
owed his own rescue from a miserable death. Arrived at the village,
he accomplished the deposition of Enciso, and his own appointment
to the supreme command. Then, having learned in various preliminary
excursions that, six days’ journey to the west, there lay another
sea, he led his men in the direction indicated, and, after literally
fighting his way, step by step, through tribes of hostile Indians, he
came, on the 15th of September, 1513, to the foot of a high mountain,
from which his guides assured him the sea could be seen.
Imbued, in spite of his rough freebooting nature, with something of
the true spirit of an explorer, Balboa now ordered his followers to
wait, while he made the ascent alone. Arrived on the brow of the hill,
he looked down, and beheld beneath him the wide-stretching ocean,
lighted up by the brilliant rays of a tropical sun. Forgetting his
lust of gain, and the crimes which had led him to his present position,
he now thought only of the solution by his means of the problem which
had so long baffled men of science of every nationality, and, falling
on his knees, he gave thanks to God that it had pleased Him “to
reserve unto that day the victory and praise of so great a thing unto
him.”
This act of worship over, Nunez summoned his followers to gaze upon
the wonderful sight and ordered them to pile up stones, as a token
that he took possession of the land in the name of his sovereign,
Ferdinand of Castile. His next step was to send twelve of his men――one
of whom was the great Pizarro, future conqueror of Peru――to find the
best route to the Pacific coast, himself following more leisurely with
the body of his forces.
Illustration: FRANCIS PIZARRO.
The twelve pioneers quickly came to the beach, and, finding a couple
of native canoes floating inshore, two of them, named Alonzo Martin
and Blazede Abienza, sprung into them, calling to their comrades to
bear witness that they were the first Europeans to embark upon the
southern sea. Thus, on September 29, 1513, was completed the first
discovery of the great Pacific Ocean, of which Columbus had heard
from the natives in his various voyages, though he had never been able
to reach it, and which, first crossed by Magellan in 1521, has ever
since been an inexhaustible field for the efforts of explorers, and is
associated with the names of Cook, Anson, D’Entrecasteaux, Vancouver,
Kotzebue, and many other great navigators of modern times.
The discoverer of the Pacific, like so many of the heroes of his day,
did not live to reap the fruits of his work. He won the appointment
of _Adelantado_, or governor of the ocean he had been the first to
see――an office giving him, though neither he nor his sovereign was
aware of it, authority over some 80,000,000 square miles of land and
sea! But five short years after the eventful 13th September, he was
beheaded by order of the Spanish Governor of Darien, Peter ♦Anias, who
appears to have been jealous of his superior popularity, and to have
feared his growing power.
♦ ‘Anias’ used throughout, refers to Peter Arias
Illustration: DEATH OF MAGELLAN.
As was natural, the work of Balboa led to the fitting out of numerous
expeditions, not only to the southern seas, but to the districts north
of the Isthmus of Darien, which, according to native rumor, were rich
in gold and precious stones. Leaving the story of the progress of
discovery southwards for the present, we go on to the first successor
of Nunez entitled to rank among the heroes of the North, the Spaniard,
Juan Ponce de Leon, who, when Governor of Puerto Rico, was induced,
by the traditions afloat among the natives of the West Indies of the
existence of a Fountain of Youth in the North, to lead an expedition
in that direction, which resulted in the discovery of Florida.
Whether, at the time of his adventure, De Leon was old, and anxious to
regain his youth, or young, and eager to retain it, history does not
say. We only know that he made it the object of his life to discover
the marvelous region containing the magic fountain, and set sail for
that purpose with three caravels on the 3d March, 1512, accompanied
by a numerous band of gentlemen, eager to share with their leader the
glories of immortality.
After a month’s sail in a north-westerly direction, De Leon came in
sight of a country, “covered with flowers and verdure,” and, as it
happened to be Easter Sunday, he named the new land Pasena de Flores,
or Pasqua Florida, that being the Spanish name for the festival so
inseparably connected with floral decorations. On the 2d April the
explorers landed at the point now called Fernandina, considerably
further north than the modern boundary between Florida and
Georgia――the term Florida having been at first loosely applied to
all the districts on the north-east of the Gulf of Mexico. Owing
to the hostility of the natives, De Leon and his men were, however,
soon compelled to return to their ships, but they spent some time in
cruising up and down both sides of the peninsula, making flying visits
in-shore, in hope of extricating information from the Indians as to
the position of the coveted Fountain of Youth. In this quest their
failure was complete; but when at last compelled to return to Puerto
Rico, they were rewarded for their long wanderings by the discovery of
the Bahamas on their voyage back.
Illustration: A BAYOU IN FLORIDA.
As usual in such cases, De Leon received the appointment of Adelantado
of the country he had visited, weighted, however, with the condition
that he should colonize it. With this end in view, and perhaps
also with a hope of yet renewing his strength at the magic well,
he returned to Florida in 1521, only to fall a victim in a struggle
with some Indians who opposed his landing, and greeted their would-be
governor with a shower of poisoned arrows.
Between the first and last visit of De Leon to Florida, several heroes
of Central American discovery touched on the coast of the newly-found
district, on their way to and from Mexico; and in 1518, Francis Garay,
for some time Governor of Jamaica, cruised along the whole of the
shores of North America bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, passing the
mouths of the Mississippi, called by the Indians the Miche Sepe, or
Father of Waters, and by the Spaniards the Rio del Espirito Santo,
or the River of the Holy Ghost. Refraining from landing on account
of the “little hospitable” appearance of the country, Garay contented
himself with drawing a map of the coast-line, which he very accurately
describes as “bending like a bow,” adding that a line drawn from
the most southerly point of Florida to the northernmost headland of
Yucatan “would make the string of the bow.”
The next European to visit Florida was Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, who
set out with two ships from Cuba, in 1520, bound on a quest for a land
called Chicora, said to exist to the north of Florida, and to contain
within its limits a sacred stream, whose waters possessed powers
similar to those of the Fountain of Youth. Landing between 32° and 33°
N. latitude, De Ayllon was hospitably received by the simple natives,
who crowded on to his vessels, and gazed with wondering, child-like
eyes at all the new wonders before them. Leaving the poor creatures
unmolested until he had gained their confidence, the crafty Spaniard
amused himself for a time with excursions on the banks of a river
to which he gave the name of the Jordan, and when he had induced 130
Indians to go on board, he suddenly returned to the ships, and gave
orders for the anchors to be weighed, and set sail for Cuba.
The agony of the captives, when they saw the shores of their
native land receding from before them, and realized that return was
impossible, passed description. Only dimly did they understand that
their fate was to work for the white men; and when a fierce storm
arose, and one vessel was swallowed up, with all its inmates, by the
waves, the survivors may perhaps have thought that the home from which
their strange captors came was beneath the ocean. However that may be,
but few of the Indians on the second ship lived to reach New Spain,
and when there, their services were of little use to their master, who,
disappointed in his first venture, lost no time in organizing a new
and more formidable expedition, consisting of several vessels, having
on board a force of some five hundred men.
Illustration: HAVANA HARBOR (CUBA).
After much beating about on the coast north of Florida, during which
one pilot is said to have gone mad with vexation at being unable to
find the Jordan, De Ayllon landed at a spot near his first encampment,
and, to his surprise, was received with enthusiasm by the Indians,
who, proving themselves apt pupils of their first European teachers,
feasted him and his men until they were completely deceived.
On the fifth day after the landing, when the white men were sleeping
off the effects of their orgies, the Indians rose _en masse_ and
murdered them all. Then, turning their attention to the vessels lying
at anchor, they attacked the sailors with their poisoned arrows,
killing many of them, but failing to prevent the escape of a little
remnant, who carried home the story of the ill-fated expedition.
Whether De Ayllon himself perished on land or at sea is unknown;
but it is certain that he never returned, and, to quote a quaint old
chronicler whose narrative is among those preserved by the Hakluyt
Society, “he was lost ... leaving nothing done worthy of memorie.”
After this tragic conclusion of an unworthy career, Florida and its
people were left undisturbed for several years, though some further
details of the configuration of its eastern coast were given in 1524
by Verrazano of Florence, who sailed from the point of the peninsula
as far north as Cape Breton, and whose experiences on the Atlantic
seaboard are given below. The brief respite enjoyed by the unfortunate
natives was, however, but a lull before a more terrible storm of
invasion than any with which they had yet had to cope, for in 1528,
seven years after the death of De Ayllon, Pamphilo de Narvaez,
inflamed by the exaggerated accounts given by the survivors of
previous expeditions as to the wealth of Florida, obtained permission
from Charles V. of Germany to take possession of it in his name.
Leaving Spain in the autumn of 1527, with five ships and a force of
some 600 men, Narvaez arrived, after many delays, in the Bay of Tampa,
on the west coast of Florida, in February, 1528. Landing with half of
his forces, the leader at once commenced his march to the interior,
in spite of the remonstrances of some of the chief officers, who
feared that if he once lost sight of his vessels he would never see
them again. Remembering the experience of Cortes, Narvaez hoped to
find a second wealthy nation to plunder; but his disappointment and
dismay may be imagined when, instead of any indications of advanced
civilization, he met only with vast swamps and forests teeming with
naked savages, who, though they melted away at his approach, and
eluded his vengeance as if by magic, hung about in the rear of his
army, harassing his every movement, and picking up the stragglers for
private murder and tortures worse than death.
Buoyed up through all his miseries, however, by the rumors which met
him at every turn of the existence in the north of a district called
Apalachen, where gold was to be had for the asking, Narvaez still
pressed on, to be rewarded at last, after months of weary marching by
arriving at a miserable Indian village of some forty houses――supposed
to have been somewhere near the mouth of the Apalacha river,
flowing from the Apalachian mountains of Georgia――from which all the
able-bodied inhabitants had fled. “This,” said the Indian guides――who,
taken prisoners by the way, had been forced to give their unwilling
services to the intruders――“this is Apalachen; it is here that the
gold you long for is to be found.”
Unwilling even yet to own himself beaten, Narvaez took possession
of the village, and gave his men permission to remove their armor
and rest, intending the next morning to test the truth of the guides’
assurance that game and gold were plentiful in the neighboring
woods. But the craft of the Indian had once more supplied his want
of strength to cope with the white man. So soon as the Spaniards were
asleep in the miserable wigwams they had seized, the savages gathered
round them with stealthy tread, and set fire to their temporary
resting-places. Many who escaped the flames fell victims to the
poisoned arrows let fly with unerring aim from ambushes on every
side, and when the morning broke, the few survivors, including Narvaez
himself, determined to return to the sea by the shortest route they
could find.
A fortnight’s hard fighting with enemies and obstacles innumerable
brought a still further diminished remnant to the beach, far from the
place they had left their five vessels; and with the savages behind
them, and the sea before them, the luckless explorers resolved to
build some boats, and trust themselves to the mercy of the waves
rather than to that of man. Five crazy barks were constructed with
infinite difficulty, and in them the few men still alive embarked.
Not daring to venture into the open sea, the explorers, who knew
nothing of navigation, paddled slowly along the shores of the modern
state of Alabama, and in about six weeks reached the mouths of the
Mississippi in safety; but there a violent storm overtook them and
four of the boats, including that containing Narvaez himself, were
lost. The fifth, with Cabeca de Vaca (who was originally treasurer to
the expedition) on board, had a narrow escape; but the greater number
of men in her reached the land, where they were, strange to say,
kindly received by the natives. A little later, stragglers from the
other boats, who had saved their lives by swimming, arrived, and,
joining forces, the adventurers started for the western coast on foot,
hoping to reach the Mexican province of Sonora, which had already been
colonized by the Spaniards.
Four only of the original party survived to reach the western coast,
and these four, of whom Cabeca de Vaca――who seems to have borne a
charmed life――was one, were held in captivity by the Indians long
years before they were able to effect their escape. Great indeed was
the surprise of the colonists on the shores of the Gulf of California,
when the little party of bronzed and half-naked wanderers, speaking
their own tongue, appeared at the outposts of the little mining
settlement; and when their identity with the long-lost explorers was
proved, enthusiasm knew no bounds.
Eager to return to their own land, however, the heroes lost no time in
taking ship for Europe, and on the 13th August, 1537, nine years after
the starting of the original expedition, they arrived in Lisbon, to
meet there with a yet more eager reception than in Sonora.
The excitement caused by the wonderful tales of their captivity, told
by Cabeca and his comrades, was, as may be imagined, intense. Far
from damping the ardor of others for exploration and colonization,
the pictures called up by their narrative of hairbreadth escapes, of
the magic influence exercised on whole tribes of dusky warriors by a
single white man, of the weird growths of the tropical forests, and of
the wild beauty of the Indian maidens, created a passion for adventure
among the youth of Spain. When, therefore, the renowned Hernando
de Soto, who had been in close attendance on Pizarro throughout
his romantic career in Peru, asked for and obtained permission from
Ferdinand of Spain to take possession of Florida in his name, hundreds
of volunteers of every rank flocked to his standard. Narvaez had
failed for want of knowledge as to how to deal with the natives;
doubtless the land of gold could yet be found by those who knew how
to wrest the secret of its position from the sons of the soil; and
so once more a gallant company set forth from Spain to measure their
strength against the craft of the poor Indians of Florida.
Illustration: DE SOTO.
De Soto, who was in the first place appointed Governor of Cuba, that
he might turn to account the resources of that wealthy island, sailed
from Havana, with a fleet of nine vessels and a force of some six or
seven hundred men, on the 18th May, 1539, and cast anchor in Tampa Bay
on the 30th of the same month. Landing his forces at once, the leader
gave orders that they should start for the interior immediately, by
the same route as that taken by his unfortunate predecessor; and the
men were eagerly plowing their way through the sandy, marshy districts
immediately beyond the beach, driving the natives who opposed their
progress before them, when one of those romantic instances occurred,
in which the early history of the New World is so remarkably rich.
A white man on horseback rode forward from among the dusky savages,
who hailed the approach of the troops with wild gestures of delight,
and turned out to be a Spaniard named Juan Ortiz, who had belonged
to the Narvaez expedition, and had been unable to effect his escape
with his comrades. In his captivity among the Indians he had acquired
a thorough knowledge of their language, and his services alike as a
mediator and a guide were soon found to be invaluable.
The story of his adventures, as told by Ortiz, rivaled even that of
Cabeca in thrilling interest. He had been captured soon after the
landing of his party by a chief named Ucita, who decided that he
should be burned alive by a slow fire, as a sacrifice to the Evil
Spirit. A rough stage was therefore set up on four posts; Ortiz, bound
hand and foot, was laid upon it; the fire was kindled beneath him,
and he resigned himself to the lingering agonies of a shameful death.
Around him on every side gathered his enemies, eager to watch his
dying contortions. Their shouts of triumph rung upon his ears, and
broke in upon his muttered prayers to the God who alone could help him
in his extremity.... Was he dreaming that the bitter cries were hushed
in answer to his appeal?――that those whose duty it was to feed the
flames were pausing in their task? No, it was no dream; the daughter
of the chieftain was kneeling at her father’s feet, pleading, in tones
as soft as ever fell from the lips of Spanish maiden, for the life of
the stranger. It was but a little gift she asked, and, in granting it,
would not her father win honor among the tribes? Would not a living
prisoner of a strange race be a brighter gem in a chieftain’s crown
than the corpse of a dead enemy? Touched by his child’s entreaties,
or more convinced by her arguments, Ucita relented. Ortiz was removed
from the stage, and informed by signs that he must henceforth consider
himself as a slave. In captivity therefore he remained, to be the hero,
three years later, of a second romantic adventure, when he was again
condemned to be burned, and again rescued by the chieftain’s daughter,
who warned him of his danger in time, and led him to the camp of
another chieftain, under whose protection he remained until the
arrival of his fellow-countrymen. How the devotion of the Indian
girl was rewarded we have been unable to ascertain, for, with the
characteristic egotism of the Spanish adventurers, Ortiz dwells in
his narrative only on his own escapes, and with his acceptance of the
second chieftain’s protection, or rather his entry into his service as
a slave, the poor maiden disappears from the story.
Led by Ortiz, De Soto and his army made their way, slowly and with
difficulty, in a north-easterly direction, till they came to the east
of the Bay of Apalachen, a little beyond the mouth of the Flint, where
the peninsula of Florida joins the mainland of the United States.
Here the camp was pitched for the winter; messages were sent to Cuba
for fresh supplies of men and provisions, and exploring parties were
dispatched to reconnoiter the land on either side. The discovery
of the harbor of Pensacola on the west was the only result of any
importance achieved, and early in the spring of the following year,
1540, the march was resumed, this time under the guidance of a native,
who said he would take the white men to a far country, governed by a
woman, and abounding in a yellow metal, which was used for making all
manner of ornaments, etc. This metal could be none other than gold;
and, with fresh hope in their hearts, the explorers pressed on.
Following a north-easterly direction, the wanderers soon entered the
district now known as Georgia, and, crossing the Altamaha river on
its way to the Atlantic, they left the low alluvial lands and swamps
of the coast on their right, and struggled on over the rough hilly
country gradually sloping up to the Blue Ridge mountains belonging
to the Alleghany or Apalachian range, the El Dorado for which they
were seeking ever receding as they advanced, while their course was
everywhere marked by blood and pillage.
His own conduct to the unfortunate natives giving him no right to
expect any thing but treachery from them, De Soto soon began to
entertain suspicions of the fidelity of his guide. Perhaps, after all,
he was only leading him into an ambush of dusky warriors. He would
try and extract further information from some of the captives in his
hands. Four poor creatures were therefore brought before the leader
for examination, and the first questioned replied that he knew of no
such country as that so eagerly sought.
Enraged at this answer, so unlike what he hoped for, De Soto ordered
the wretched man to be burned alive, and the sight of his terrible
death so inspired his companions that, when their turn came to be
examined, they vied with each other in the descriptions they gave of
the fertility and wealth of the land on the north. Again deceived, and
that with a readiness only to be accounted for by the consuming lust
for gold which blinded his understanding, the leader ordered the march
to be resumed, and in the spring of 1540 he was met by an Indian queen,
who, hearing of his approach, had hastened to welcome him, hoping
perhaps to conciliate him, and save herself and her subjects from the
usual fate of the natives at the hands of the white men.
Very touching is the account given by the old chroniclers of the
meeting between the poor cacica and De Soto. Alighting from the litter
in which she had traveled, carried by four of her subjects, the dusky
princess came forward with gestures expressive of pleasure at the
arrival of her guest, and taking from her own neck a heavy double
string of pearls, she hung it on that of the Spaniard. Bowing with
courtly grace, De Soto accepted the gift, and for a short time he kept
up the semblance of friendship; but having obtained from the queen
all the information he wanted, he made her his prisoner, and robbed
her and her people of all the valuables they possessed, including
large numbers of pearls found chiefly in the graves of natives
of distinction. We are glad to be able to add that the poor queen
effected her escape from the guards, taking with her a box of pearls
which she had managed to regain, and on which De Soto had set especial
store.
The home of the cacica appears to have been situated close to the
Atlantic seaboard, and to have been among the villages visited by De
Ayllon twenty years previously, the natives having in their possession
a dagger and a string of beads, probably a rosary, which they said
had belonged to the white men. Unwilling to go over old ground,
the Spaniards now determined to alter their course, and taking a
north-westerly direction, they reached, in the course of a few months,
the first spurs of the lofty Apalachian range, the formidable aspect
of which so damped their courage, that they turned back and wandered
into the lowlands of what is now Alabama, ignorant that in the very
mountains they so much dreaded were hidden large quantities of that
yellow metal they had sought so long and so vainly.
The autumn of 1540 found the party, their numbers greatly diminished,
at a large village called Mavilla, close to the site of the modern
Mobile, (N. lat. 30° 40′, W. long. 80°), where the natives were
gathered in considerable force; and it soon became evident that
an attempt would be made to exact vengeance for the long course of
oppression of which the white intruders had been guilty in their two
years’ wanderings.
Intending to take possession of Mavilla in his usual high-handed
manner, De Soto and a few of his men entered the palisades forming its
defenses, accompanied by the cacique, who, meek enough until he was
within reach of his warriors, then turned upon his guests with some
insulting speech, and disappeared in a neighboring house. A dispute
then ensued between a minor chief and one of the Spaniards. The latter
enforced his view of the matter at issue by a blow with his cutlass,
and in an instant the town was in a commotion. From every house poured
showers of arrows, and in a few minutes nearly all the Christians
were slain. De Soto and a few others escaped, and, calling his forces
together, the Spanish governor quickly invested the town.
A terrible conflict, lasting nine hours, ensued, in which, as was
almost inevitable, the white men were finally victorious, though not
until they had lost many valuable lives and nearly all their property.
Mavilla was burned to ashes; and when the battle was over, the
Spaniards found themselves in an awful situation――at a distance from
their ships, without food or medicines, and surrounded on all sides by
enemies rendered desperate by defeat. The common soldiers, too, had by
this time had enough of exploration, and were eager to return to the
coast, there to await the return of the vessels which had been sent
to Cuba for supplies. Evading the poor fellows’ questions as to his
plans, however, De Soto, who had received secret intelligence that his
fleet was even now awaiting him in the Bay of Pensacola, but six days’
journey from Mavilla, determined to make one more effort to redeem his
honor by a discovery of importance. With this end in view, he led his
disheartened forces northward, and in December reached a small village
belonging to Chickasaw Indians, in the state of Mississippi, supposed
to have been situated about N. lat. 32° 53′, W. long. 90° 23′.
In spite of constant petty hostilities with the Indians, the winter,
which was severe enough for snow to fall, passed over peaceably; but
with the beginning of spring, the usual arbitrary proceedings were
resorted to by De Soto for procuring porters to carry his baggage in
his next trip, and this led to a second terrible fight, in which the
Spaniards were worsted, and narrowly escaped extermination. Had the
Indians followed up their victory, not a white man would have escaped
to tell the tale; but they seem to have been frightened at their own
success, and to have drawn back just as they had their persecutors at
their feet.
Rallying the remnant of his forces, and supplying the place of the
uniforms which had been carried off by the enemy with skins and mats
of ivy leaves, De Soto now led his strangely transformed followers in
a north-westerly direction, and, completely crossing the modern state
of Mississippi, arrived in May on the banks of the mighty river from
which it takes its name, in about N. lat. 35°.
Thus took place the discovery of the great Father of Waters, rolling
by in unconscious majesty on its way from its distant birthplace in
Minnesota to its final home in the Gulf of Mexico. To De Soto, however,
it was no geographical phenomenon, inviting him to trace its course
and solve the secret of its origin, but a sheet of water, “half a
league over,” impeding his progress, and his first care was to obtain
boats to get to the other side.
Illustration: DE SOTO DISCOVERING THE MISSISSIPPI.
The Chickasaw Indians, relieved, doubtless, at the prospect of
getting rid of the intruders, gladly led them to one of the ordinary
crossing-places, but the native canoes found there were not fit for
the transportation of horses, and a month was consumed in building
barges, during which visits were paid to the strangers by Aquixo, the
cacique of the Dakota tribe dwelling on the other side of the Miche
Sepe, who would gladly have made friends with his white brother, had
not De Soto met his advances by killing the first of his followers who
landed near his camp.
By this short-sighted policy the Spanish leader once more defeated
his own purpose, and when the transit of the Mississippi was at
last effected, his march along the western banks was harassed by
the constant hostility of the natives. In the course of the summer,
however, after a dreary struggle through the morasses above the
landing-stage, he came to the dryer and loftier regions of Missouri,
where the natives took him and his men for Children of the Sun, and
brought out their blind to be restored to sight.
Illustration: SCENE ON THE MISSISSIPPI AT THE PRESENT DAY.
For once, De Soto refrained to inflict any injury on the simple
believers in his divine mission. Perhaps some dim vision of what he
might have been to the untutored savages, had he been true to his
own creed, flitted across his mind. In any case, we find the stern,
unrelenting, bloodthirsty man assuming for a moment the character of a
preacher of the Gospel, pointing to a cross he had set up on an Indian
mound, and telling the Indians to pray only to God in Heaven for what
they needed. Nay more, he condescended to try to explain to them the
mystery of the Atonement, and was so far successful, that chief and
subjects kneeled with him and his men at the foot of the sign of our
redemption, and listened without interruption to the prayers put up to
the God of the white men.
The service over, De Soto asked for instructions as to the best route
to follow in his untiring quest for gold; and, acting in accordance
with the answers he received, he seems to have turned away from the
Mississippi, and, in August, 1541, to have reached the highlands of
the south-west of Missouri, near the White River, crossing which,
he journeyed southward through Arkansas, and set up his camp for the
winter about the site of the present Little Rock (N. lat. 34° 45′, W.
long. 92° 13′). Bent on resuming his researches in the ensuing spring,
though worn out by continual wanderings and warfare, and deprived by
death of his chief helper, Juan Ortiz, the indomitable explorer now
endeavored to win over the Indians by claiming supernatural powers,
and declaring himself immortal; but it was too late to inaugurate a
new policy. The spot chosen for encampment turned out to be unhealthy;
the white men began to succumb to disease; scouts sent out to explore
the neighborhood for a more favorable situation brought back rumors
of howling wildernesses, impenetrable woods, and, worst of all, of
stealthy bands of Indians creeping up from every side to hem in and
destroy the little knot of white men.
Thus driven to bay, De Soto, who was now himself either attacked by
disease or broken down by all he had undergone, determined at least
to die like a man; and, calling the survivors of his once gallant
company about him, he asked pardon for the evils he had brought upon
those who had trusted in him, and named Luis Moscoso de Alvarado as
his successor.
On the following day, May 21, 1542, the unfortunate hero breathed his
last, and was almost immediately buried secretly without the gates
of the camp, Alvarado fearing an immediate onslaught from the natives
should the death of the hero who had claimed immortality be discovered.
The newly-made grave, however, excited suspicion, and, finding it
impossible to prevent it from being rifled by the inquisitive savages,
Alvarado had the corpse of his predecessor removed from it in the
night, wrapped in cloths made heavy with sand, and dropped from a boat
into the Mississippi.
The midnight funeral over, all further queries from the natives, as to
what had become of the Child of the Sun, were answered by an assurance
that he had gone to heaven for a time, but would soon return. Then,
while the expected return was still waited for, the camp was broken up
as quietly as possible, and Alvarado led his people westward, hoping,
as Cabeca had done before him, to reach the Pacific coast.
But long months of wandering in pathless prairies bringing him
apparently no nearer to the sea, and dreading to be overtaken in the
wilderness by the winter, he turned back and retraced his steps to the
Mississippi, where he once more pitched his camp, and spent six months
in building boats, in which he hoped to go down the river to its
outlet in the Gulf of Mexico. In this bold scheme he was successful.
The embarkation into seven roughly-constructed brigantines took place
on the 2d July, 1543, and a voyage of seventeen days, between banks
lined with hostile Indians, who plied them unceasingly with their
poisoned arrows, brought a few haggard, half-naked survivors to
the longed-for gulf. Fifty days later, after a weary cruise along
the rugged coast of what is now Louisiana and Texas, a party, still
further reduced, landed at the Spanish settlement of Panuco, in Mexico,
where they were received as men risen from the dead.
In spite of the disastrous conclusion of so many expeditions to the
ill-fated “Land of Flowers,” there were not wanting many adventurers
still eager to try their fortunes in the newly-discovered districts.
The first hero of note to succeed De Soto was a Dominican priest named
Louis Cancello, who, with a number of his brethren, determined to
endeavor to convert the natives to Christianity, and, as an earnest
of their peaceful intentions, took with them to Florida a number of
natives who had been carried off as slaves by their predecessors.
Martyrdom was, however, their only reward. The Indians, who had been
taught in a long series of severe lessons to look upon white men
as their natural enemies, fell upon the missionaries, who were the
first to land, and put them to death. With the fate of their leaders
before them, the minor members of the party lost no time in effecting
their escape, and the freed slaves alone reaped any profit from the
trip. Not more successful was an imposing expedition headed by Don
Tristan de Luna in 1559. Although provided with an army of 1,500
men, and accompanied by a large body of missionaries eager to convert
the natives; the weapons, alike temporal and spiritual, of the new
adventurers were powerless against the prejudices of the Indians and
the ravages of fever. Those of the explorers who escaped the evil
effects of the climate fell victims to the vengeance of the sons of
the soil, and but few survived to tell the tale of the failure of the
most carefully organized of all Spanish attempts at colonization north
of the Gulf of Mexico.
We shall meet yet again, however, with the Spanish in Florida; but
it was now the turn of the French to gain a footing in the New World,
and before we complete the tale of Spanish discovery in the North, we
must give a brief account of the adventures of the Gauls in the great
exodus of the Western nations, in which they bore so important――though
so fitful――a part.
Illustration: (‡ Spanish warships coming ashore)