North Americans will probably always take a special interest in the
adventures of the army of the Spanish commander De Soto, apart from the
general charm of the subject, for it is to the chronicles of the same
that they are indebted for the very earliest accounts of the Indian
nations, who, in the sixteenth century inhabited the territory now
comprising the southeastern quarter of the United States.
The route pursued by the expedition during the years 1539 to 1543 has
long been the subject of much discussion, but no satisfactory conclusions
have been arrived at concerning the matter as a whole. Indeed there can
scarcely be said to be a single point on the entire line of march which
has been established beyond cavil. It is not now my intention to add
to the mass of general comment, but merely to treat of a certain point
of the route which personal enquiry and exploration in the field have
enabled me to make up my mind about in all surety.
This point is the location of the particular village of the Chickasaws in
northeastern Mississippi, where De Soto went into camp on December 17,
1540, and of the smaller village to the northward whither he retreated
about the first week in the ensuing March, after the fierce night attack
of the natives which almost ruined the Spaniards.
Before proceeding to give my own conclusions as to the true position
of these villages, it is but proper to furnish an abstract of the
descriptions given by the old writers, together with the opinions of the
modern historians of Mississippi and of other people now inhabiting the
northeastern counties of the State. The various authorities (excepting
the popular views) will be quoted in the order in which they have
appeared in printed form before the world.
The anonymous “Gentleman of Elvas” one of the Portuguese volunteers, an
eye-witness, comes first. His work, the “True Relation” etc., appeared in
1557. He says that Chicaza was a small town of twenty houses, and that
the land was thickly inhabited, and that it was fertile, the greater
part being under cultivation. Also that the Spaniards removed from that
town where they wintered to the one where the cacique was accustomed to
live, half a league off, because it was in the open country, on a prairie
favorable for them.
The second authority is Garcilaso de la Vega, “the Inca,” who, however,
was only a compiler, writing in 1591, from information given by three
separate members of the little army. His book, “La Florida del Ynca”
etc., first appeared in 1605. It furnishes a more elaborate account of
the Chicaza transactions than the proceeding one, and to the following
effect. The place had two hundred fires and was situated on a hill
extending north and south, which was watered by many little brooks
covered with nut, oak, and other similar trees. In order to lodge more
commodiously they built themselves houses with wood and straw that they
procured from the neighboring villages. Three days after the fight
referred to, the General ordered the force to advance a league, search
for wood and straw, and build a town to be named Chicacilla.
Factor Biedma’s account of the expedition, first published (in French)
in 1841, is a very brief one. In the Chicaza affair, Buckingham Smith
(1866) renders his words as stating that the army moved to “a cottage
about a mile off.”
Nor does the abridged journal of Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s private
secretary, which was not printed till 1851, afford any information as to
the first town. But he relates how the Spaniards, after their defeat, at
once went to a savana or prairie a league off, where they erected huts
and barracks, and established camp on a declivity and hill.
As may be easily supposed the next Europeans to visit that region, the
English and French traders and soldiers of the eighteenth century, had
more urgent matters to attend to than the verification of historical
statements, for no mention of De Soto or the expedition is made in their
scanty writings or reports on this region, and apparently the Chickasaws
had forgotten all about his invasion. The American settlers of nearly a
century later were still less likely to know about the matter, for the
De Soto expedition can scarcely be said to have become known to people
in general in the United States till after the publication of Theodore
Irving’s interesting book in 1835.
Searching next in all accessible modern histories and books, the first
attempt at definite localizing that I can find is in the appendix to the
Smithsonian Report for 1867. The Rev. Samuel Agnew, writing from Guntown,
Mississippi, under date of January 11, 1868, states that twelve years
before, there had been pointed out to him on a long ridge between John’s
Creek and Friendship Church, in Pontotoc County, the remains of ancient
ditches or embankments. These he surmised might probably be the remains
of De Soto’s winter camp, but he hoped that some intelligent antiquarian
would look further into the matter.
The most comprehensive attempt however, to identify these camps, was made
by Hon. J. F. H. Claiborne, in his “Mississippi as a Province” etc.,
published in 1880. In this book he wrote that:—
“There (the old Indian trail) struck Pontotoc ridge, four miles east of
the ancient Chickasaw Council House. Near this point stood the first
Chickasaw town, and in this vicinity the Spaniards went into winter
quarters.
“At that period a portion of the Chickasaws still resided in the mountain
region of east Tennessee, but a large body of them had taken possession
of the territory where De Soto found them, and their principal settlement
or town, or series of villages, was on the ridge from the ancient
Council House (near Redland) north fifteen miles (near Pontotoc) and
northeast, on the ‘mean prairie’ eight or ten miles, within a few miles
of Tallahatchie River....
“Four miles east of the ancient Council House, on the Pontotoc ridge,
near the source of the Suckartonchee Creek, are the vestiges of a
fortified camp, evidently once strongly entrenched, after the European
style of that day, with bastions and towers. Leaden balls and fragments
of metal have been often found in these ruins. The enclosure was square,
and the whole area, as evidenced by the remains, would have afforded
shelter to the Spaniards and their live stock.... The chief of the
Chickasaws resided about two miles southeast of the present town of
Pontotoc, on the head-waters of Coonawa, now called Pontotoc Creek....
The exact position of this entrenched camp is still indicated by the
vestiges that remain. Some persons contend that De Soto left this
stronghold, advanced to Chickasilla, one mile northwest from where
Pontotoc now stands, and commenced the attack on the Chickasaw towns.
This would be to reverse the detailed accounts of the writers that
accompanied him.... After the destruction of their camp, the Spaniards
moved three miles to the village of Chickasilla, where they were annoyed
by desultory attacks.”
In forming his opinions on the matter, Claiborne acknowledged his
indebtedness to W. J. N. Walton of Aberdeen, Mississippi, a gentleman
who “in early life was secretary of Levi Colbert, head chief of the
Chickasaws, familiar with their language and with all their traditions,”
and to W. B. Wilkes of the same place, a man whose tastes inclined him to
archaeological pursuits. It is with diffidence therefore, that I venture
to disagree with these conclusions, in my own statement.
As to the ideas of the farmers and others living in the old Chickasaw
County, there is no uniformity of opinion as to the site of Soto’s
camps. There are many local candidates for that honor, and so far as I
could find out, there is no good reason to adopt one more than another.
The place pointed out to Mr. Agnew is probably the site of Mound
Builder’s work, of which class of remains there is no lack in northern
Mississippi.[11] The same may be said of the position assigned to Chicaza
by Claiborne, though the locality he means is rather to the southeast of
Redland and in Chickasaw County.
The Chicaza of Soto’s time was on a high ridge or hill located about one
mile northwest of Redland, on the S½ of the S¼ of Section 21, and the N½
of the N W½ of Section 28, town 11, range 3E. in Pontotoc county. The
hill extends north and south, and on both sides there are many little
spring branches flowing out of the base of the hill and uniting with
the larger streams at a distance of from one to four or five rods. The
main part of the town was located on Section 28. A part of it is under
cultivation and has farm buildings upon it, while the remainder of the
site is covered by young timber and brush.
Many years ago there was an Indian mission school that is said to have
been located where the farm building now stands. In the new ground
broken up within recent years, there were beds of charcoal and ashes
found at different points, and even in the old portion of the cultivated
land charcoal is occasionally brought to the surface by the plough.
These are undoubtedly remains of old Chicaza, and the beds of charcoal
and ashes mark the sites of the houses burned by the Indians. As
regards the location, there is no other place in either Lee or Pontotoc
counties—where the oldest Chickasaw settlements were undoubtedly
situated—that corresponds to the topographical description given by the
Inca.
Chicacilla was probably located on the S E¼ of Section 5, town 11,
range 3 E., about 3½ miles north and a very little west of Chicaza. At
this point there is debris, etc., indicating that there was once an old
Chickasaw village there. The narratives of the expedition, however, do
not give sufficient data regarding this site, so that it is impossible
to fully identify the place by them, there being nothing beyond the
statement already quoted that it was located on a sloping hill, a league
distant from Chicaza. This being the only ancient Chickasaw village site
properly lying on sloping ground, and at about the right distance from
the burned town; it is more than probable that the position given above
is the correct one. It is presumable that after the place was abandoned
by the Spaniards, the Indians took possession of it, and occupied
the houses in lieu of those destroyed by both parties. Besides this,
it supplied them with a well fortified (palisaded) town in which to
re-establish themselves.
At these two towns of Chicaza and Chicacilla, there are no vestiges of
fortifications or entrenchments of any description, in fact there are
none to be found in any of the Chickasaw old towns (or “fields”) that
can be identified. It is probable that the fortified towns described in
the De Soto and the early French expeditions were merely wooden walls or
palisades, for otherwise there would be traces of them still remaining,
so that at least some of them could be recognized as such.
The above conclusions were incidentally arrived at in the course of some
archaeological explorations made in January and February 1891, in the
former country of the Chickasaws, and may be considered as a contribution
to some future revision of the generally accepted route of De Soto and
his little army east of the Mississippi.