DeSoto's Midwestern Trail
by Donald E. SheppardAn Officer with Hernando de Soto's army wrote "Having got across the Great River (into today's Indiana just above the Ohio River bridge point near Evansville on June 8th, 1541, under the Full Moon), the govorner (DeSoto) marched a league and a half (four miles, eastward) and reached a large town of Aquixo (at Angel Mounds State Park), which was abandoned before his arrival."©University of Alabama Press
"Over a plain they saw thirty Indians coming whom the Chief had sent to learn what the Christians were intending to do, but as soon as the latter had sight of them (and their horses) they fled. Those of horse pursued them killing ten and capturing fifteen. And since the town whither the governor was marching was near the river, he sent a captain with the men he deemed sufficient to take the rafts up stream (to the town). And because by land they frequently turned away from the river in order to get around inlets which thrust out of the river, the Indians had opportunity to attack those in the rafts and put them in great danger. For because of the strong current of the river, we did not dare to go any distance from land and the Indians shot arrows at us from the bluff. As soon as the governor reached the town, he immediately sent some crossbowmen down stream (probably in abandoned Indian canoes) who were to come as rear guard (for the men on the rafts)."
"When the rafts reached the town the governor ordered them taken apart and the nails kept for other rafts when they might be needed. He slept there one night and the next day marched in search of a province called Pacaha, which, he was informed, lay near Chisca where the Indians said there was gold." The army first heard about Chisca in North Carolina the year before, which was reported to lay somewhere north of the Great Smoky Mountains where they were at the time; they had seen a great river, the Tennessee River, flowing north from those mountains and believed that Chisca was somewhere along the river they had just crossed. "We marched through large towns in Aquixo (today's Evansville) which had been abandoned for fear of the Christians. From some captured Indians we learned that a great chief lived three days journey thence, called Casqui (at Vincennes)."
"On Tuesday, the twenty-first of June (having spent some time plundering the Evansville area), they left from there ("We went up the river, because in order to go to that province of Pacaha we had to TURN upriver..." they turned northwest, up the Wabash River, instead of following the Ohio River eastward, as they had done in getting from Henderson, Kentucky, to Angel Mounds State Park, Indiana) and passed through the province of Aquixo, which is very beautiful and nicely situated (all the way to Fort Branch). The next day, Wednesday, they passed through the worst road of swamps and water that they had seen in all Florida, and in this day's journey the people suffered much hardship." ...at the White River's flats near its junction with the Wabash River during Annual Spring flood; Indian trails led to that very fertile and populated place. The army slogged over Patoka River, through Gordon Hills and headed for Orrville on the north bank of White River. There are no bridges there, even today, just one giant, shallow lake at Springtime. Telephone poles there have high water marks on them about waist high and houses are built on earthen mounds. To go around this flooded plain the Spaniards would have had to build bridges upstream on the White River (where the highway and railroad bridges are today). Forward scouts had told Desoto when the plain was fordable; he had waited around Evansville for the waters to receed enough to cross that enormous flooded plain.
"On that day they walked continually through water until sunset, which in places reached to the waist and in places to the knee. When they came to dry land they were very glad for it seemed to them that they would be walking about lost through the water all night (it looks the same every Spring; there are no dams on either the Wabash or White Rivers to prevent that plain from flooding). At noon they arrived at the first town of Casqui (Gordon Hills, a large "island" on that plain). They found the Indians off guard for they had not heard of them. Many Indians, both men and women, were seized, besides a quantity of clothing, blankets and skins - both in the first town and in another which was within sight of it in an open field a half league (just over a mile) from it, whither the horsemen had galloped (on Orriville's south bank; they also saw Mount Carmel, Illinois, across the Wabash River from there, as they would later report). That land is higher (fifty feet or more), dryer and more level than the land of the river behind. In the open field were many walnut trees with soft nuts shaped like acorns (pecans); and in the houses were found many which the Indians had stored away... For two days the governor marched (up the east bank of the Wabash River) through the land of Casqui before arriving at the town where the chief was (Vincennes), and most of the way continually through land of open field, very well peopled with large towns, two or three of which were to be seen from one town." That's why the Indian trails from Evansville crossed the mouth of the White River; they headed straight toward those fields, trees, villages and Illinois from Aquixo.
"Friday, the day of St. John (June 24th, 1541, using the darkness of New Moon to secure what would prove to be a giant Indian village complex), they went to the town of the lord of Casqui (Vincennes), and he gave food and cloths to this army, and on Saturday they entered in his town; and he had very good huts (probably as good as the ones used by Lewis and Clark, who followed Indian trails to and from that place three centuries later), and on the biggest hut, over the door, were many heads of very fierce bulls (buffalo)... There the Christians placed the cross on a mound."
"... we found that the chiefs there were accustomed to have, next to the houses where they lived, some very high mounds, made by hand, and that others have their houses on the mounds themselves. On the summit of that mound (the largest, which is still there today) we drove in the cross, and we went with much devotion, kneeling to kiss the foot of the cross. The Indians did as they saw us do, neither more nor less..."
"On Sunday, the twenty-sixth of June, we left from there for Pacaha, enemy of Casqui ("upriver"), and we spent the night at one town (Oaktown) and passed others. And the following day (Monday) we crossed a swamp (Busseron Creek just west of Carlisle), in which the Indians had a well-made bridge, broad and of ingenious construction (spanning the trees which line that very deep creek precisely where the bridges, old and new, cross over "...a swamp that was very difficult to cross, having deep miry places at the entrance and exit and clear water in the middle, but so deep that for the space of twenty paces it was necessary to swim... The men crossed over some poor wooden bridges that were there, and the horses swam across with much trouble because of the mud on either side of the swamp") DeSoto's army crossed Busseron Creek Valley and camped at Merom, then spent the next night at Prairie Creek..."and on Wednesday they arrived at the town of Pacaha, a town and lord of great renown and very esteemed in those parts." Their accounts of Terre Haute are some of the best we have. Most of them spent 40 good days there while others slogged 168 miles to Chicago and back.
Chief Casqui and his people had escorted DeSoto from Vincennes to Terre Haute, improving the bridge at Busseron Creek along the way between cities on unfriendly terms. DeSoto sent word to Pacaha that he was coming with Chief Casqui and expected Pacaha to be there when they arrived. Pacaha fled, instead, "with all his people out the other side of town. The governor immediately entered and together with the men of horse charged ahead where the Indians were fleeing; and at another town situated a quarter of a league (half a mile) from that place captured many Indians. And as the horsemen captured them they delivered them over to the Indians of Casqui, who, being their enemies, carefully and with great pleasure took them to the town where the Christians were; and the greatest sorrow they had was in not having permission to kill them."
"The chief of Casqui caught up with the Christians at the time that they entered the town, and they looted it ferociously. In Aquixo, Casqui and this Pacaha we saw the best towns that we had seen up to then, and better palisaded and fortified, and the people of more beauty, except for those of Cofitachequi."
"Many pelts of deer, cat, and bear were found in the town..." which were used to make clothing and shoes for the army. Heavy buffalo skins were likewise used to make armor for the horses.
"On Wednesday, June 19th (1541), the governor entered Pacaha ("...we saw the town on a plain, well palisaded and with a moat of water around it, dug by hand"). He lodged in the town where the chief lived, which was very large, enclosed, and furnished with towers (like a frontier cavalry fort); and in the towers and stockade many loopholes (to shoot arrows through). An abundance of old and new corn was found in the town and fields... large towns (spaced) at a league and half a league (2.6 to 1.3 miles) were found, all enclosed. Where the governor lodged there was a large marsh which came near to the enclosure and entered through a ditch round about the town so that but little of the town remained to enclose. A channel had been made from the marsh to the large (Wabash) river through which fish entered..."
Another eyewitness says, "The town was very good and very esteemed in those parts... well palisaded with towers on the walls and with a ditch around most if it, filled with water which enters through an irrigation ditch that flows from the river."
Likewise, other survivors told an historian, "... from Mabila to that point they had always marched toward the north..." The village had 500 large and good houses and was on a site somewhat higher and more elevated than its surroundings (the French named "Terre Haute;" meaning: "high ground"). The Indians had made almost an island of it with a ditch... 50 paces wide, all made by hand. It was full of water from the river... which flowed 3 leagues (7 miles) above the village... The moat surrounded three sides of the village, the work not yet being complete. The fourth side was enclosed by a very strong wall made of thick logs set in the ground... This great moat and canal were filled with fish from the river..."
Terre Haute is drained by man-made canals; most old, some very old. The Spaniards described the one we call Thompson Ditch, which was given that name in 1886 when the State of Indiana straightened it. It drains the city's south side into Honey Creek and the Wabash River, 7 miles from its head at a beautiful man-made pond. "That pond had many very good fish of differnt kinds..." Another eye-witness confirms that location "... Indians in canoes discovered where the Chief of Pacaha was - on an islet between two arms of the river (the Wabash)... there were 5,000 souls on that islet..." but when detected "...fled in great haste to the other side of the river... swimming, where many people were drowned, principally women and children... we captured many Indians - men and women - and a quantity of clothing which the Indians had on wooden rafts... (several of those rafts) went floating downstream and the Indians of Casqui filled their canoes (then headed downstream for home without Desoto's consent)... On that account the governor was indignant at Casqui and immediately returned to Pacaha (village) two leagues (five miles) away..."
