_The March to Ochile._
The March Commenced.--The Swamps of Florida.--Passage of the
Morass.--Heroism of Sylvestre.--Message to Acuera.--His
Heroic Reply.--Fierce Hostility of the Indians.--Enter
the Town of Ocali.--Strange Incident.--Death of the
Bloodhound.--Historical Discrepancies.--Romantic Entrance
to Ochile.
The day after the departure of Porcallo, a courier from Captain
Gallegos, accompanied by a small guard, came to the Spanish camp at
Ucita. He informed De Soto that there was an ample supply of
provisions at Uribaracaxi to sustain the army for several days; and
that he had received information that at not a great distance from
that place large quantities of gold could be obtained. De Soto and his
companions were greatly elated by these tidings, trusting that they
were about to enter upon another Peru. A garrison of forty horsemen
and eighty foot soldiers, was left at Ucita, to protect the military
and commissariat stores collected there, and to guard the three
vessels still remaining in the bay. Captain Calderon, who was left in
command, was strictly enjoined to treat the Indians with the utmost
kindness, and not to make war upon them, even if provoked by taunts
and insults.
De Soto, then, with the main body of his army, set out on the march
for Uribaracaxi. It was soon very evident to him that he was not in
Peru. There was no smoothly-paved highway for his soldiers to
traverse. The country was pathless, rough, apparently uninhabited,
encumbered with tangled forests, and vast dismal swamps. It was a very
arduous enterprise for soldiers burdened with heavy armor to force
their way through such a wilderness, with the baggage essential to
such a body of men.
One of the great objects of the governor, and a humane one, was to
establish a colony in Florida. A herd of three hundred swine was kept
in the line of march, as these animals were deemed the most
advantageous stock for new settlers. After a toilsome march of two
days they reached the native village of Mucozo, where the friendly
chief of the same name resided. It is said that this place is now
called Hichipuchsassa. The chief received them with great hospitality.
Pressing on without delay, they soon reached Uribaracaxi, which town
it is supposed was situated near the head of the Hillsborough river,
which stream empties into Tampa Bay. The chief was still absent, in
his place of refuge, amidst the fastnesses of the forest. All of De
Soto's friendly endeavors to draw him from his retreat proved
unavailing. The Spaniards were yet to traverse many leagues of this
unknown country before they could enter the region where it was
supposed the gold could be found.
Florida is emphatically a region of swamps. There is probably no
section of our country which, in a state of nature, would be more
difficult for the passage of an army. About nine miles from the
village, directly on their line of march, extending far away to the
east and the west, there was a vast bog three miles wide. It was a
chaotic region of mud and water, with gigantic trees and entangling
roots. After long search a passage was found through which, by the
toilsome efforts of a whole day, the army forced its way. Beyond the
swamp there opened before them a smooth, luxuriant flower-enamelled
prairie. Rejoicingly the army pressed forward over this beautiful
expanse, when suddenly they found their steps again arrested by a
series of sluggish streams, stagnant bayous, and impenetrable bogs.
De Soto now took a hundred horse and a hundred foot soldiers, and
leaving the remainder of the army safely encamped, set out to explore
the country in search of a practicable route of travel. For three days
he skirted the region of bogs, lakes and thickets, sending out his
runners in different directions to find some outlet. But there was no
outlet for the journeyings of civilized men. They captured some
Indians, who offered to guide them, but who treacherously led them to
more difficult passes and into ambushes where many of their horses
were slain. The dreadful punishment of these false guides was to be
torn to pieces by bloodhounds. They bore their sufferings with amazing
fortitude.
At length they found a very rude, difficult and dangerous path by
which the Indians crossed these swamps. At one point, where the water
could not be forded for a distance of nearly three hundred feet, the
Indians had constructed a bridge by cutting down two large trees and
uniting the space that still remained between them in this Stygian
lake, by tying logs together, with cross-poles for flooring. To add to
the embarrassments of the Spaniards, apparently innumerable small
bands of Indians were hovering on their track, assailing them with
their sharp-pointed arrows, wherever they could get a shot, and then
escaping into the impenetrable region around. They were very careful
never to come to an open conflict. Canoes, propelled by the paddle,
would often dart out from the thickets, a shower of arrows be
discharged, and the canoes disappear where no foot could follow them.
A very bold courier, on one of the fleetest horses, was sent back to
summon the main body of the army to march, under the command of
Moscoso, and join the party of explorers which De Soto had led. This
young man, by the name of Sylvestre, accomplished his feat through a
thousand perils and hair-breadth escapes.
Three days De Soto's band had passed struggling through bog and brake,
bramble and forest. Sylvestre was to find his path back travelling
with all possible speed by night as well as by day. One attendant only
was with him, Juan Lopez. They never could have found their path but
through the sagacity of their horses. These noble animals seemed to be
endowed for the time with the instinct of setter dogs. For in the
darkness of the night they would puff and snort, with their noses
close to the ground, ever, under the most difficult circumstances,
finding the track. The distance over which they urged their horses
exceeded thirty miles. For three days the poor creatures had not been
unsaddled, and the bits had but occasionally been removed from their
mouths that they might enjoy the brief refreshment of grazing.
"At times," writes Mr. Irving, "they passed within sight of
huge fires, around which the savages were stretched in wild
fantastic groups, or capering and singing, and making the
forests ring with yells and howlings. These were probably
celebrating their feasts with war-dances. The deafening din
they raised was the safeguard of the two Spaniards, as it
prevented the savages noticing the clamorous barking of their
dogs, and hearing the tramping of the horses as they
passed."[C]
[Footnote C: Conquest of Florida, p. 89.]
Immediately on the arrival of these two bold troopers, Moscoso
dispatched supplies for the governor with an escort of thirty
horsemen. In the mean time the troops under De Soto were nearly
perishing with hunger. They were compelled to leave their encampment
in search of food. Fortunately, at no great distance, they found a
beautiful valley, waving luxuriantly with fields of corn or maize.
Here they encamped and here were soon joined by the escort and their
welcome supplies. In a few days Moscoso came also with the residue of
the army. They were about sixty miles north of Uribaracaxi. It is
supposed the place is now known by the old Indian name of Palaklikaha.
The chief, whose name was Acuera, and all his people had fled to the
woods. De Soto sent Indian interpreters to him with friendly messages
and the declaration that the Spaniards had no desire to do him any
injury; but that it was their power, if the Indians resisted, to
punish them with great severity. He also commissioned them to make the
declaration, which to him undoubtedly seemed perfectly just and
reasonable, but which, to our more enlightened minds, seems atrocious
in the extreme, that it was their only object to bring him and his
people into obedience to their lawful sovereign, the king of Spain.
With this end in view, he invited the chief to a friendly interview.
It can hardly be doubted that in that benighted age De Soto felt that
he was acting the part of a just and humane man, and of a Christian,
in extending the _Christian_ reign of Spain over the heathen realms of
Florida. Acuera returned the heroic reply:
"Others of your accursed race have, in years past, poisoned our
peaceful shores. They have taught me what you are. What is your
employment? To wander about like vagabonds from land to land; to rob
the poor; to betray the confiding; to murder in cold blood the
defenceless. With such a people I want no peace--no friendship. War,
never-ending, exterminating war, is all the boon I ask. You boast
yourself valiant; and so you may be, but my faithful warriors are not
less brave; and this, too, you shall one day prove, for I have sworn
to maintain an unsparing conflict while one white man remains in my
borders; not openly, in battle, though even thus we fear not to meet
you, but by stratagem, and ambush, and midnight surprisals. I am king
in my own land, and will never become the vassal of a mortal like
myself. As for me and my people, we choose death, yes a hundred
deaths, before the loss of our liberty and the subjugation of our
country."
This answer certainly indicates a degree of intelligence and mental
culture far above what we should expect to find in the chief of a
tribe of Florida Indians. The chivalric spirit of De Soto compelled
him to admire the heroism it displayed. He consequently redoubled his
efforts to gain the friendship of the chief, but all in vain. For
twenty days De Soto remained in this encampment, recruiting his troops
and making arrangements for a farther advance. The Indians made
constant warfare upon him, lurking in the thickets which densely
surrounded his camp. No Spaniard could wander one hundred steps
without danger of being shot down by an invisible foe, whose deadly
arrow was more noiseless in its flight than the sighing of the breeze
through the tree tops. In this way, during these twenty days, fourteen
Spaniards were killed and many more wounded. Fifty Indians also fell
struck by the bullets of the invaders. De Soto allowed himself only in
a war of self-defence. He strictly prohibited his followers from doing
any injury to the villages or the property of the natives, or of
engaging in the slightest act of violence towards any who were not in
active hostility against them.
After twenty days of such repose as could be found in this war
harassed camp, De Soto resumed his march. He directed the steps of his
army in a northeasterly direction towards a town called Ocali, about
sixty miles from their encampment. It seems that in most, if not all
of this region, the chief and his principal town bore the same name.
The path of the army led just over a dreary expanse of desert sands,
about thirty miles broad. There was no underbrush, and over the smooth
surface both men and horses could travel with the greatest ease. They
then entered upon a beautiful region of fertility and luxuriance.
Fields of corn waved their graceful leaves and bannered heads in the
breeze. Farm houses and pleasant villages were scattered around,
indicating that peace, with its nameless blessings, reigned there.
They reached the central town, Ocali, and found it to consist of six
hundred substantially built houses. This would give the place a
population of probably not less than three thousand.
But the chief, Ocali, and his principal inhabitants, with their
effects, had fled to the forests. The Spanish army immediately took up
its quarters in the dwellings of Ocali. They found here an ample
supply of provisions, which they seem without any questionings to have
appropriated to their own use. The clime was balmy, the region
beautiful, the houses commodious, the food abundant, and the few
Indians who remained behind manifested no hostility. The common
soldiers, following the example of their leader, treated all with
great kindness.
De Soto sent several Indian messengers daily to the retreat of the
chief with proffers of peace and friendship. Though Ocali rejected all
these overtures, it seems that they must have made an impression on
the minds of some of his followers.
One day, four young Floridian warriors, gorgeously dressed and with
nodding plumes, came to the Spanish camp. De Soto received them with
great cordiality and invited them to a handsome collation with his
principal officers. Mr. Irving, in his well authenticated narrative,
gives the following account of the scene which there ensued:
"They sat down and appeared to be eating quietly, when
perceiving the Spaniards to be off their guard, they rose
suddenly and rushed full speed to the woods. It was in vain
for the Spaniards to pursue them on foot, and there was no
horse at hand. A hound of uncommon sagacity, however,
hearing the cry of the Indians, and seeing them run, pursued
them. Overtaking and passing by the first and second and
third, he sprang upon the shoulders of the foremost and
pulled him to the ground; as the next Indian passed on, the
dog, leaving the one already down, sprang upon his successor
and secured him in the same way. In like manner he served
the third and fourth, and then kept running from one to the
other, pulling them down as fast as they rose, and barking
so furiously that the Indians were terrified and confounded
and the Spaniards were enabled to overtake and capture them.
They were taken back to the camp and examined separately.
For as they were armed, the Spaniards apprehended some
treachery; but it appeared that their sudden flight was only
by way of exploit, to show their address and fleetness."[D]
[Footnote D: Irving's Conquest of Florida, p. 100.]
Ocali, after resisting for six days all friendly advances, was at
length induced to visit the Spanish camp. He was received by De Soto
with the greatest kindness, and every effort was made to win his
confidence. There was a deep and wide river near the village which it
was necessary for the Spaniards to cross in their advance. De Soto,
accompanied by Ocali and several of his subjects, was walking on the
banks of this stream to select a spot for crossing, by means of a
bridge or raft, when a large number of Indians sprang up from the
bushes on the opposite side, and assailing them with insulting and
reproachful language, discharged a volley of arrows upon them, by
which one of the Spaniards was wounded.
Upon De Soto's demanding of the chief the meaning of this hostile
movement, Ocali replied, that they were a collection of his mutinous
subjects, who had renounced their allegiance to him, in consequence of
his friendship for the Spaniards. The bloodhound, to which we have
alluded, that had so sagaciously captured the four Floridians, was in
the company held in a leash by one of the servants of the governor.
The moment the ferocious animal heard the yells of the Indians, and
witnessed their hostile actions, by a desperate struggle he broke from
his keeper and plunged into the river. In vain the Spaniards
endeavored to call him back. The Indians eagerly watched his approach,
and as he drew near they showered upon him such a volley of arrows,
that more than fifty pierced his head and shoulders. He barely reached
the land, when he fell dead. The army mourned the loss of the
sagacious, fearless and merciless brute as if he had been one of the
most valiant of their warriors.
It soon became evident that Ocali had but slight influence over his
tribe. De Soto, apprehensive that it might be thought that he detained
him against his will, advised him to return to his people, assuring
him that he would always be a welcome guest in the Spanish camp. He
left, and they saw him no more.
Crossing the river by a rude bridge constructed by the Spanish
engineers, De Soto took the lead with a hundred horse and a hundred
foot. After a monotonous march of three days over a flat country, they
came to a very extensive province called Vitachuco, which was governed
in common by three brothers. The principal village, Ochile, was rather
a fortress than a village, consisting of fifty large buildings
strongly constructed of timber. It was a frontier military post; for
it seems that this powerful tribe was continually embroiled in war
with the adjacent provinces. Mr. Williams, in his History of Florida,
locates Ochile just south of what is called the Allachua prairie.
There are two sources of information upon which we are dependent for
most of the facts here recorded. One is, the "History of Hernando De
Soto," written by the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. He was the son of a
Spanish nobleman and of a Peruvian lady of illustrious rank. His
narrative was written as related to him, by a friend who was one of
the expedition. With some probable exaggerations it is generally
deemed authentic. Mr. Southey describes the work as one of the most
delightful in the Spanish language.
The other is what is called "The Portuguese Narrative." It is from the
pen of an anonymous writer, who declares himself to have been a
Spanish cavalier, and that he describes the scenes of which he was an
eye-witness. Though these two accounts generally harmonize, there is
at times very considerable discrepancy between their statements. In
the extraordinary events now to be chronicled, the writer has
generally endeavored to give the narrative, as has seemed to him most
probable, in comparing the two accounts, with the well-established
character of De Soto.
The advance guard of the Spanish army marched all night, and just
before the dawn of the morning, entered the silent streets of Ochile.
Wishing to produce as deep an impression as possible upon the minds of
the Indians, their drums were beat, and their trumpets emitted their
loudest blasts, as one hundred horsemen with clattering hoofs, and one
hundred footmen with resounding arms, startled the citizens from their
repose. To these simple natives, it must have been a scene almost as
astounding as if a legion of adventurers, from the star Sirius, were
at midnight to make their appearance in the streets of a European
city.
The house of the chief was centrally situated. It was a large mansion,
nearly three hundred feet in length by one hundred and twenty in
width. There were also connected with it quite a number of
outbuildings of very considerable dimensions.
As a matter of course, immediately the whole population was in the
streets in a state of utter amazement. It was the object of De Soto to
appear in such strength, and to take such commanding positions, as
would prevent any assault on the part of the Indians, which would lead
to bloodshed. He was well informed of the warlike reputation of the
chief who resided there; and knew that in that fortress he was
surrounded by a numerous band of warriors, ever armed and always ready
for battle. The region around was densely populated. Should the chief
escape, determined upon hostility, and rally his troops around him, it
might lead to sanguinary scenes, greatly to be deplored.
De Soto immediately held an interview with the chief; treated him with
the utmost kindness and assured him that he had no intention of
inflicting any injury upon him or any of his subjects; that he sought
only for permission to pass peaceably and unmolested through his
realms. The soldiers were strictly enjoined to treat the natives in
the most friendly manner, and not to allow themselves, by any
provocation whatever, to be drawn into a conflict.
The chief was very narrowly watched, that he might not escape. Still
he was unconscious of his captivity, for he was held by invisible
chains.
During the following day the main body of the army entered Ochile with
all the pomp which prancing horses richly accoutred, gorgeous
uniforms, bugle-blasts, waving banners, and glittering armor could
present. Ocile, its chief, and his warriors were at the mercy of the
Spaniards. But they had come not as conquerors, but as peaceful
travellers, with smiles and presents, and kindly words. Still the
power of these uninvited guests was very manifest, and it was very
evident that any hostility on the part of the natives would bring down
upon them swift destruction.
It so happened, that the youngest of the three brother chiefs resided
at Ochile. At the suggestion of De Soto, he sent couriers to his two
brothers, informing them of the arrival of the Spaniards, of their
friendly disposition, and of their desire simply to pass through the
country unmolested. At the same time he stated, by request of De Soto,
that the strength of the Spaniards was such that they were abundantly
able to defend themselves; and that should any attack be made upon
them, it would lead to results which all would have occasion to
deplore.
The capital of the second brother was not far distant. In three days
he came to Ochile, decorated in gorgeous robes of state and
accompanied by a retinue of his warriors, in their most showy costume.
It is recorded that he had the bearing of an accomplished gentleman,
and seemed as much at ease amidst the wondrous surroundings of the
Spanish camp, as if he had been accustomed to them all his days. He
entered into the most friendly relations with De Soto and his
distinguished officers, and seemed very cordially to reciprocate all
their courteous attentions.