DeSoto's Western Trails
by Donald E. SheppardStanding in the March snows of 1542 on the south bank of the White River crossing at St. Charles, one of Hernando de Soto's officers reported, "As soon as it stopped snowing, he marched three days (at 10 miles per day - while gathering what he could to eat) through an unpeopled region and a land so low and with so many swamps and such hard going that one day he marched all day through water that in some places reached to the knees and others to the stirrups, and some passages were swum over (Uncle Ben's Rice Company is headquartered in that swamp, a massive rice field today). He came to a deserted village, without corn called Tutelpinco." © Univ. of Alabama Press(Arkansas Post; the French would find it and establish an outpost there before New Orleans was founded).
"Near it was a lake which emptied into the (White) river and had a strong current and force of water..." Dismal Swamp connects to the White, Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers at that place, making it seem like a lake. It looks that way because the Arkansas River floods much later than the Mississippi River. The flow stops in Dismal Swamp for a while each Spring, then reverses direction when the Arkansas River floods in June or July (fed by late snow melt runoff in the Ozark Mountains), then reverts back to normal in late Summer. The French selected Arkansas Post because America's great rivers (the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee, Cumberland, Illinois, Wabash, Arkansas and White) all flow past it. They traded by canoe on those rivers, as did America's Indians before them.
"As five Christians, accompanied by a captain whom the governor had sent, were crossing it (Dismal Swamp just northeast of Arkansas Post) in a canoe, the canoe overturned. Some caught hold of it and others of trees which were in the lake. One (man) was drowned there. The governor went (west) for a day along the lake looking for a crossing place, but he did not find it all that day nor any road leading from any other direction (the lake extends up the Arkansas and White Rivers; there is no way around it; it must be crossed to proceed southward). Returning at night to the town, he found two peaceful Indians who showed him the crossing and the road he must take (to high ground on the river's south bank). Reed frames and rafts were made from the houses, on which they crossed the lake (and, thereby, the Arkansas River). They marched for three days and reached a town of the district of Nilco, called Tianto..." Tyro, the nearest high ground to Arkansas Post. They would stop at Dumas and at Bayou Bartholomew, cross that bayou, which looks like big creek, then ascend into Tyro, which overlooks hundreds of thousands of fertile acres below. "...we arrived at a province that seamed to us to be the best that we had come upon in all the land (of North America), which is called Anicoyanque." Others with DeSoto simply called it "Nilco."
"Thirty Indians were captured there, among them being two of the principal men of the town. The governor sent a captain on ahead to Nilco (Village) with horse and foot (probably on a dawn raid under the Full Moon of March 31, 1542), so that the Indians might not have any opportunity to carry off the food. They went through three of four large towns (in those hills, including today's Coleman), and in the town where the chief lived - located two leagues (5 miles) from where the governor remained (at Tyro; Nilco is shown on the map) - they found many Indians with their bows and arrows, and in appearance as if they wished to give battle, and who were surrounding the town (to defend the long, natural, high ground which was their village on that plain). As soon as they saw the Christians were coming toward them (from the west, down the hill from Coleman, the highest point of land in that area), without any hesitation they set fire to the chiefs house and escaped over a swamp that lay near the town, where the horses could not cross (just east of Nilco's spectacular plain lies Touchstone Prairie, once an enormous swamp but drained and borrowed into a lake today; it flows east through Prairie Creek toward Bartholomew Bayou). Next day, Wednesday, March 29, the governor reached Nilco (5 miles from Tyro where he was camped). He lodged with all his men in the chiefs town which was located on a level field, and which was all populated for a quarter of a league (three-quarters of a mile along its long, natural high ground); while a league and a half distant (four miles) were other very large towns where there was a quantity of corn, beans, walnuts, and dried plums." We call that area Florence today, the villages ran east to Tillar where DeSoto would relocate his main camp in order to pasture his horses. Both Nilco and Florence sit near the edge of the high ground overlooking hundreds of thousands of acres of farmlands along Bartholomew Bayou, some of the richest meadowland in Arkansas. Tillar, where DeSoto made camp, sits near the center of that giant pasture. "This was the most populous region which had been seen in Florida (North America) and more abounding in corn, with the exception of Coosa (Fort Payne, Alabama) and Apalache (Marianna, Florida)."
"An Indian came to the camp (at Tillar), accompanied by others, and in the chief's name presented the governor with a blanket of martin skins and a string of pearl beads... He promised to return two days later, but he never did. On the other hand, Indians came in canoes at night and carried off all the corn they could and set up their huts on the other side of the river (Bayou Bartholomew) in the thickest part of the forest (in the hills overlooking Tillar; the Indians knew that horses, their worst enemy, were worthless in forests: the Indians simply tripped them up with logs and ropes between the trees along the trails). The governor, on seeing that the Indian did not come at the promised time, ordered and ambush to be made on some barbecues (stilted corn storage bins) in the swamp (from which) the Indians came for the corn. Two Indians were captured there, who told the governor that the one who came to visit them was not the chief, but one sent at the latter's command under pretense that it was he, in order to ascertain whether the Christians were off their guard, and whether they planned to settle in that region or go on farther. Thereupon the governor sent a captain across the river (back to Nilco, across Bayou Bartholomew) with men of horse and (soldiers) of foot, but on crossing they were perceived by the Indians, and for that reason, the captain could not capture more than 10 or 12 Indians, men and women, with whom he returned to the camp. That river which flowed through Nilco (Province, which started at St. Charles) was the same that flowed through Cayas (Branson, Missouri) and Autiamque (Jacksonport, Arkansas; we call it the White River) and emptied into the large (Mississippi) river which flowed through Pacaha (Terre Haute, Indiana; we call that one the Wabash) and Aquixo (Evansville, Indiana; that one we call the Ohio River; all of which flow into the Mississippi, called the Great River by Native Americans) and hard by the province of Guachoya (Lake Village, just below Nilco)..." That province ran from Tillar, on the north, to Fairview and Louisiana on the south, inside of which DeSoto was camped at the time. According to Guachoya's people, their province existed between Bayou Bartholomew, or Boeuf River beside it, and the Mississippi River; today that part of the Mississippi River is the largest lake in Arkansas: Lake Chicot. The river's flow was diverted from it, just below Greenville, Mississippi, sometime before Arkansas Statehood. "The Lord of the upper part (of Guachoya Province) came in canoes (from Lake Village, his home) to make war on the lord of Nilco (his closest neighbor). Sent by him, an Indian (first) came to the governor and told him that he (the chief of Guachoya Province) was his servant and as such he (DeSoto) should consider him that... two days later (while the chief canoed first down the Mississippi River then up Ditch Bayou and Boeuf River and other creeks to meet DeSoto) he would come to kiss the hands of his Lordship. He came at the time with some of his principal Indians who accompanied him (for a dramatic waterborne entrance to DeSoto's dismal but bountiful campsite). With words of great promise and courtesy, he presented many blankets and deerskins to the governor. The governor gave him some trifles (typically a mirror and comb, scarce commodities in those parts) and showed him great honor (typically a demonstration of horse and swordsmanship; the Indians usually joined in by demonstrating their incredible archery skills). He questioned him about a settlement down the river. He said that he knew of none other except his own (Lake Village/Fairview); and that on the other side of the (Mississippi) river was a province of a chief called Quigaltam (Greenville, Mississippi; who was subject to another chief who lived at Vicksburg, as DeSoto's people would discover a year later). He (Chief Guachoya) took his leave of the governor and returned to his town. A few days later (when food supplies started diminishing due to Nilco's midnight raids on DeSoto's Tillar campsite), the governor made up his mind to go to Guachoya (Lake Village; he planned to take that city during the darkness of New Moon), in order to ascertain there whether the sea (the Gulf of Mexico) were nearby, or whether there were any settlement nearby where he might subsist himself while brigantines were built which he intended to send to the land of Christians (DeSoto departed Tillar southbound, passed through McGehee, then spent the night near Dermott). As he was crossing the River of Nilco (Boeuf River/Bayou Macon or thereabouts), Indians came up in canoes from Guachoya, and when they saw him, thinking that he was going after them to do them some hurt (as he was widely reputed to do), they turned back down the river and went to warn the chief. The latter, abandoning the town (of Lake Village) with all of his people, with all they could carry off, on that night crossed over to the other side of the great river (Lake Chicot today). The governor sent a captain and 50 men in 6 canoes down the river, while he, with the rest of his men, went overland (down the shore of Lake Chicot on the Indian trail that led toward Greenville; a city which DeSoto's scouts sighted across the Mississippi River). He reached Guachoya on Sunday, April 17th and lodged himself in the chief's town, which was surrounded by a stockade, a crossbow flight from the (Mississippi) river..." Lake Chicot, today. Lake Village would be the end of the line for Hernando the "Great".