DeSoto's Florida Trails
by Donald E. SheppardThe next morning, the army crossed a bridge they built over the Myakka River (Rangel in Clayton:I:259) just below Mococo's Village, then stopped to visit the chief (Inca in Clayton:II:132). The chief shed tears at the army's departure, knowing full well that the surrounding villagers would eventually retaliate for his kindness to the invaders. The army rounded Lower Myakka Lake that afternoon by turning north-east near Mococo's Village, then crossed Howard Creek and camped on the shore of Myakka Lake about a league beyond the creek; making about five leagues their second day (the Lancers would also camp there on their last night on the trail; eleven leagues from Ucita and three leagues from Mococo, as reported above). Howard Creek, just below that camp, looks like a river with high and steep banks so it was also bridged by the army. On the army's next morning at that camp the horses were spooked by a rabbit and ran back down the trail for more than a league before terrified troops could reassert control over them (Rangel in Clayton:I:259). The horses had run back to the tree line at Howard Creek but not over the bridge, then stopped, as horses do when they pass fresh scents. DeSoto's people christened Myakka Lake, accordingly, the Lake of the Rabbit, and the army had crossed two bridges upon leaving Ucita, all as Rangel reported (ibid.).
With Paracoxi Village as their intermediate destination (Inca in Clayton:II:132), the army continued to the north-east for three more days. They camped the first night at what they called the lake of St. John (Rangel in Clayton:I:259), which is still there but is not even named on maps today. It lies due east of Sarasota. The next day the army traveled over a desert plain where DeSoto's servant reportedly "died" of thirst (ibid.). Horses drank what could be transported and, one can observe even today, there are no lakes, springs, sink holes or creeks in that region, a most unusual place. The third day they came to what they called the plain of Guacoco (ibid.), Florida's largest field of heavy sub-surface phosphate deposit, nature's fertilizer. That plain covered at least 130,000 acres of phosphate fields, the only one like it in all of Florida; the Indians called that entire province by the name of the village quartered there: Paracoxi. The army gathered maize in quantity for the first time (ibid.), having traveled over thirteen leagues from Myakka Lake in three days. They camped just south of Paracoxi Village (Inca in Clayton:II:224).
DeSoto's apparent ambition to push his army rapidly overland, at six leagues (16 miles) the first day and five (13 miles)the second, proved to be more than they could handle. They made just over four-and-a-half leagues each of their last three days on the trail. That pace would hold for the next year, even with captives acquired from Paracoxi's fields to lighten their load. That marching schedule, five days on the road and two at rest for the entire army, would hold as a rule, too, with few exceptions for the next year's marches.
Inca says that Paracoxi Village was twenty-five leagues north-north-east of Ucita (ibid.:126), which is the distance and direction they had traveled in Florida. Biedma says that Paracoxi Village was up to twenty leagues from the coast (in Clayton:I: 226), measured from the "coast" near the mouth of Tampa Bay. Surrounded by surface mines today, Paracoxi Village was located just south-east of today's Brewster, near IMC Agrico's giant South Pierce phosphate plant, one of the largest in Florida. Upon DeSoto's arrival, his scouts reported that a wide body of water, just three leagues beyond, had such deep mud on either side that it was impassable for the army (Inca in Clayton:II:133); referring to the Peace River at today's Fort Meade, at that distance east of the village. But they also reported that they had found a very good crossing of that swamp, which the army could reach in just two days, and pass over it easily (ibid.); that would have been at today's Lake Hancock spillway, which looks like part of Peace River's swamp but is shallow and fordable. The Peace River joins the southbound spillway at today's Bartow, six leagues north-east of Paracoxi Village.
DeSoto proceeded north and slightly west from Paracoxi Village by following the course of today's railroad to bypass the jungle over that giant phosphate field (ibid.:126), a moonscape of mines today. Desoto's men had rested for several days, pillaging through Paracoxi for about a league, where they gathered as much maize as they could eat and carry. They gathered natives there, too, as the village was reported to be heavily populated (Elvas in Clayton:I:64). Their first night out was spent five leagues north of Paracoxi Village and just beyond what they called Acela (ibid.; Rangel in Clayton:I:259), today's Mulberry. The men, however, had departed Paracoxi Village's northern fields and made that trip at their normal marching rate.
The next day they turned east and hiked three leagues, crossed the wide and shallow spillway with ease, then camped half-a-league beyond on a plain called Tocaste near a large lake (ibid.; Inca in Clayton:II:133). That plain is Bartow Airport today, the lake is Lake Hancock (located due east of Tampa and south-west of Orlando). Between the two is a large hill which stands fifty feet over the lake and plain; the view from it is spectacular. At Tocaste, DeSoto was informed of the impassability of the country further on (ibid.); the Green Swamp north and east of there was too large to move an army over (it still covers hundreds of thousands of acres). So, with one division, DeSoto recrossed the spillway (ibid.) and explored the abandoned west side of Lake Hancock for another passage to the north (Elvas in Clayton:I:64), searching for Ocale (Rangel in Clayton:I:259). He rode through the marshes near today's Auburndale and found the lakes and swamps to its north impassable for the army and its livestock. Most of the land he rode in that area has been strip-mined in the last century. The villages he passed are borrow pits and man-made lakes today.
On the third day of DeSoto's search, he was led by a guide to a broad road leading away from this swamp (ibid.:260) to a passage through another which was free of mud at its entrance and exit (Inca in Clayton, II:134). The Great Swamp would lead DeSoto to Ocale, a place reported by Elvas to lie west of Paracoxi Province (in Clayton:I:64). With flat sand approaches, the Great Swamp was located at today's Hillsborough River State Park. All northbound trails from points below Tampa Bay once converged at this fording place. The nearest man-made bridge is a league-and-a-half upstream at today's Highway 301 at Fort Foster. That bridge was first constructed at the behest of the U.S. Army in 1828; the road over that bridge would lead north through hostile Seminole Indian country (Mahon 1967:104).
DeSoto dispatched riders (Inca in Clayton:II:135-139; Rangel in Clayton:I:259) on the Full Moon with orders for the army to advance and cross that swamp. The riders had to back-track, unseen for safety, through an inhabited region (ibid.). They reported seeing many Indians that night performing pagan ceremony around giant fires (Inca in Clayton:II:137). Once the riders were reinforced by the army at the spillway to ward-off morning attackers, all recrossed it; most camped again just north of Mulberry; a few rode the full twelve leagues to the Great Swamp to reinforce DeSoto (ibid.:140-141; Rangel in Clayton:I:260). In the next two days the rest of the army would march the remaining eight leagues to the Great Swamp (ibid.:142), passing well south of Lakeland . The Indians fled when the army advanced. By the time the army arrived at the Great Swamp, DeSoto had crossed it and ridden six additional leagues into Ocale Province (Elvas, Biedma and Rangel in Clayton:I:64, 226, 261; Inca in Clayton:II:141-142 calls it Acuera Province) The place were DeSoto camped is called Dade City today and lies "about twenty leagues from Paracoxi Village on a line running more or less north and south" (ibid.:142). DeSoto had ridden a trail from just above the Hillsborough River to Dade City which Florida pioneers would call "The Fort King Road" (Goza 1963:60-70). Florida's Second Seminole War would erupt on that road above Dade City (Laumer 1968,1995; Mahon 1967:104-106).
DeSoto's army spent five days struggling to cross the Great Swamp and emerging from it into "Uqueten" Village (Rangel in Clayton:I:261), today's Branchton. They would hike up the same road that DeSoto followed into Ocale (ibid.; Elvas in Clayton:I:65). The men pillaged maize fields (Inca in Clayton:II:146) near "Acura Village" (Rangel in Clayton:I:261), today's Zephyrhills, but they camped in Dade City; today's headquarters of Florida's citrus juice concentrate industry. Narvaez had crossed the Great Swamp, at the same place and for the same reason eleven years before DeSoto (Inca in Clayton:II:134). He had encountered several hundred Indians while crossing the swamp with "great difficulty", but was led to their village half-a-league away (Vaca in Hodge 1907:25); today's Branchton. Narvaez had found large quantities of maize close by (ibid.); at today's Zephyrhills. When Vaca was dispatched to find a harbor reported to be nearby (Tampa Bay), he had encountered wetlands filled with oysters and a river he could not cross (ibid.:25-26). The Hillsborough River re-broadens just below its branches at the Great Swamp; raccoons eat the oysters there today. That once extensive swamp on very flat land near today's Rock Hammock would be substantially drained in this century by Tampa's Bypass Canal into McKay Bay. When scouts re-crossed the swamp and spent a day proceeded down the river's south bank tree line, they found a shallow bay the next morning (ibid.). They had found McKay Bay on May 20, 1528, at which Spring Low Tide occurs on the morning of the new moon, precisely when they were there. They could wade across it (ibid.). If they had seen the deep water of Tampa Bay from McKay Bay, it would have looked like the Gulf of Mexico from their vantage point just east of today's Ybor City. They had returned that day with news that the "harbor" was too shallow for ships, and Narvaez had proceeded north looking for his ships along the shallow Gulf shoreline (Vaca in Hodge 1907:26).
Once DeSoto's men all crossed the Great Swamp and encamped around the small village of Ocale (Biedma in Clayton:I:226), DeSoto sent scouting parties out in all directions; they found villages and fields but no treasure (Rangel in Clayton:I:261). The captives from Paracoxi who had lied about Ocale were fed to the greyhounds. Fresh captives who had witnessed the feeding were believed, however, when they said maize and gold rich lands were just one week to the north (Elvas in Clayton:I:65). With that information, DeSoto advanced with one battalion (ibid.) toward Apalache. That place was to be found by "traveling always toward New Spain, keeping ten to twelve leagues from the coast" (Biedma in Clayton:I:226).
Florida's Gulf coast is very shallow from that proximity northwestward. The "coast" Biedma was referring to was the four braza deep sea lane, as illustrated by the transport captains at landfall. On average, the coast is located about seventeen miles off-shore but varies from fifteen to twenty, putting DeSoto's road about ten miles inland from today's shore line. In leagues, the coast varies from six to eight off-shore, averaging seven; ten to twelve leagues inland is eleven on average, subtract seven from that leaves the trail, on average, four leagues inland of the shoreline. Months later when the Thirty Lancers returned back down DeSoto's trail, it took them exactly one week to get from Apalache to the Great Swamp (Inca in Clayton:II:220), the southern boundary of Ocale Province.
Like Narvaez before him, DeSoto would proceed northward from Dade City, down the Withlacoochee River and through today's Withlacoochee State Forest, a game preserve, described then as being abundant in "fallow deer... red deer like large bulls... very large bears and panthers", all on high and dry land (ibid.:146). Then his trail would go over Florida's rock phosphate ridge and "as it had maize in abundance, they gave it the name Villafarta" (Elvas in Clayton:I:66), meaning "fertile place" in Spanish . Then his trail would cross a river, enter another province and pass through "many forests (with) streams that flowed through it, and very level" (Inca in Clayton:II:152-153). These were Florida's "flat woods", as our "Cracker" pioneers would call them, between the Withlacoochee and St. Marks Rivers. All of these pine trees would be "harvested" in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by "naval stores" companies which would first drain them of sap, to distill for turpentine and caulk residues, then build railroads through that sandy flat country to remove the massive felled timbers.