DeSoto's Florida Trails
by Donald E. Sheppard
DeSoto's trail from Dade City was a railroad until recently, along Florida's "Ridge." He went through Rital, Istachatta, Fort Cooper (Inverness), Hernando to Dunnellon (below Ocala). DeSoto's people would call them, respectively, Ytara, Potano, Utinama, Mala Paz (Bad Peace) and Cholupaha (Elvas in Clayton:I:66). They camped at each place at four league interval (10 or 11 miles); Inca says they traveled 19 leagues in doing so (ibid.). The rock phosphate ridge that DeSoto traveled north of Dade City became well known to the U. S. Army. On it they fought the biggest battles of the Seminole Wars (Mahon 1967:135-218; Sprague 1964[1848]). DeSoto's people called today's Hernando "Bad Peace" because of the New Moon (darkness) raids which Natives conducted there. Seminole called that place Char-lo-pop-ka (Sprague 1964:279); DeSoto's captives called it Cho-lu-pa-ha; today it is called Tsala Apopka - probably the same name. Only Inca called that place Ocale, the name the others assigned to the entire province.
DeSoto's division built a wooden bridge near Cholupaha (Elvas:I:66) to cross the River of Discords (Rangel I:263) between "precipices on either side as high as the length of two pikes and as perpendicular as two walls" (Inca:II:148; a "pike" was 18 feet long [Stone 1934:501]). That bridge was built on the Withlacoochee River at Dunnellon, with the only vertical banks that high on the river (as reported on the Township survey of 1845 before the river was dammed and mined). DeSoto called it the River of Discords because his favorite greyhound, Bruto, was killed chasing Indians in it (Inca:II:148-149).
DeSoto left Dunnellon , following the same Indian trails Narvaez and Vaca had used, bound for Caliquen Village (Elvas:I:66), sixteen leagues up the way as reported by captives (Inca:II:153). DeSoto's men passed the first eight leagues in two days, but half way through the third day, probably while they were struggling to ford the Waccasassa River and Otter Creek, DeSoto and his guard proceeded to Caliquen Village (ibid.). That village was just west of today's Chiefland, yesteryear's Janney, once the headquarters of Peninsular Naval Stores Company (west south-west of Gainesville). It is a ghost town today, just over a league south of the Suwannee River. The "flat woods" are all gone. A small cemetery marks the spot where Caliquen village once stood and a long, crescent shaped hill just south of it is where Chief Caliquen lived overlooking the "valley" (ibid.:154- 155). Biedma called this village Aqua-calecuen, Rangel called it Aqua-caleyquen (in Clayton:I:226,263). Cabeza de Vaca, with Narvaez, had called the chief Dul-chanchellin (in Hodge 1907:27). Only Inca called it Ochile (II:155-159), which would confuse him and many trail seekers later on.
DeSoto captured the chief in a dawn raid, then returned back down the trail to find his division three leagues back (ibid.:154-155). They had advanced in his day-long absence, probably another four leagues or so, making the distance between the Withlacoochee River and Caliquen Village about fifteen leagues. Because Caliquen Village was so large, extending northward over a league to the Suwannee River, and its chief held captive, DeSoto sent for the remainder of his army from Ocale before attempting to proceed (Elvas and Rangel in Clayton in:I:67,263).
Riders were dispatched on the Full Moon. Meanwhile, DeSoto was reassured of Apalache's abundance at Caliquen, but was sternly warned about Chief Caliquen's warring brother Vitachuco whose village was on the road ahead (Inca:II:157-160). DeSoto was reminded of the plight of Narvaez for the first time by Natives there (Elvas I:66).
Over the next several weeks the remainder of the army advanced from Ocale. The army had buried its heavy implements before advancing, however, believing in imminent return to winter in Ocale (Elvas:I:67; DeSoto:I:376). Well rested, the army crossed the Suwannee River, camped, then proceeded for one week to Chief Vitachuco's Village (Elvas:I:67). That route segment would be the army's longest slog through swamp land.
To locate that trail we have only a report relayed by DeSoto's Thirty Lancers who would pass through Vitachuco Village on their way back to Port once the Army was stopped in North Florida. They reported finding the bodies of many dead Indians, killed at DeSoto's direction, strewn over Vitachuco's fields (Inca:II:207-208). The Lancers would proceed eight leagues southward from Vitachuco Village to camp late that night, then ride eighteen leagues the next night (under a nearly Full Moon) and camp five leagues short of a giant river (ibid.:209); for a total distance of thirty-one leagues (81 miles) from Vitachuco Village to the river. They would struggle to ford that river the next day, but in doing so would leave a perfect description of today's Lower Clay Landing on the Suwannee River, their most precise description of any place in Florida (ibid.:209-211, 216-218 - that crossing place is exactly the same today, trails, banks and all). To warm and dry themselves, the Thirty Lancers would spend the remainder of that day and early evening between bonfires in Caliquen Village. Inca had called that village Ochile when the army went up the trail (ibid.:155), then confused it with the similarly-titled Ocale (ibid.:149), the province on the south bank of the Withlacoochee River just below the Suwannee River, when he reported the Lancers returned. Be that as it may, the Lancers camped in Caliquen Village just below Lower Clay Landing, not where Inca infers. Now back to the Army's northward march...
DeSoto's army left Caliquen Village and marked the Indian trail which the Thirty Lancers followed back. The army camped just over one league north of the Suwannee River their first night out, having spent the day bridging and crossing the river (ibid.:67; Rangel:I:264) at Lower Clay Landing. At their normal pace of four-and-a-half leagues per day, they would have camped next at today's Cross City, which they called Uriutina, a "town of pleasant view and with much food" (ibid.). Then they followed the route of today's railroad, which was built over Indian trails, and camped at Hines, then between Tennille and Salem, then at Athena, then at Hampton Springs, and then at the Econfina River which they called Many Waters (ibid.); camping at each of these places at just over four league intervals. Finally, they forded a very bad swamp and went into Vitachuco Village, four leagues from the Econfina River and thirty-one leagues (81 miles) from the Suwannee River on September 15th, 1539.
That course, ten to twelve leagues from the coast and always toward New Spain, as Biedma reported (I:226), departs today's railroad and Highway 19 just south of Perry and effectively straightens the paths of today's highways. The trail led through Hampton Springs instead of Perry, then across Vitachuco's Plain directly toward Tallahassee.
Vitachuco Village lies just above today's Nutall Rise, near a plain between the Wacissa and Aucilla Rivers, eight leagues from Hampton Springs. Miles of abandoned railroad weave through the fields just east of the plain, attesting to the magnificence of the once great stand which the Chroniclers described - those tracks were built through those swamps to harvest those gigantic trees. Inca says (II:166), "near the pueblo (village) was a large plain. On one side was a high and dense forest that covered a large tract of land, and on the other were two lakes. The first was small, and would measure about one league in circumference; it was clear of growth and mud, but was so deep that three or four steps from the shore one could not touch bottom. The second, which was further away from the pueblo, was very large, more than half a league in breath and so long that it looked like a large river, its extent being unknown. The Indians stationed their squadron between the forest and these two lakes, the lakes being on their right and the forest on their left".
The "lakes" are parts of the Wacissa River; the first lies at the north-west end of Vitachuco's plain and measures one league in circumference, as reported. The second "lake" is much wider and extends for miles to the south from the south-west edge of the plain. It disappears in the surrounding swamps to the west and south, and looks exactly the way Inca described it. Both "lakes" are very deep near their banks because the river flows through them and underground between them. Andrew Jackson would fight the First Seminole at that precise location.
Vitachuco's plain lies one league north-west of the Aucilla River's natural bridge, a partially underground river near Nutall Rise, which explains why the army and the Lancers did not report a river crossing there. A large swamp, today's Cow Creek Swamp at the south-east edge of the plain, was reported by Rangel, however, when the army entered the village (I:264). Vitachuco Village is surrounded by swamps and is impenetrable even today. It provided Vitachuco's people shelter in a hostile environment. Rangel says their Apalachen neighbors were "most valiant... great spirit and boldness", the fiercest in Florida (Rangel:I:264-267). DeSoto fought Vitachuco's people near the "lakes" when they attacked the army (ibid.:265). The natives fled to the "lakes," shooting back for most of that day and night, but were surrounded and captured by DeSoto's army (ibid.). Several days later, at camp, they were publicly executed for reasons never entirely understood.
Elvas and Rangel (I:67,264) with DeSoto, and Vaca (in Hodge 1907:26) with Narvaez' had all reported "flute players" near a West Central Florida road which Vaca says "was difficult to travel but wonderful to look upon.... In it were vast forests, the trees being astonishingly high" (ibid.:27). I believe they were all in the flat woods when they made similar reports, and both Narvaez and DeSoto used the same trail leading to Vitachuco, a village which Narvaez found and called "Apalachen" (ibid.:28). Vitachuco Village might have been in Apalache Province at that time, given the warring nature of that province and the European diseases (population movers) most likely delivered by Narvaez. "The Lakes", says Vaca (ibid.:29-31), "are much larger here.. as we sallied they fled to the lakes nearby... shooting from the lakes which was safety to themselves that we could not retaliate", which is similar to the incident observed by DeSoto's army. Narvaez, apparently, did not have a sufficient army to surround the Indians. Then, Vaca says, the natives told them that the land and villages inland were very poor, but that by "journeying south nine days was a town called Aute...(with) much maize, beans and pumpkins and being near the sea they had fish" (ibid.:30). Biedma (I:226) says these Indians told many great lies about the country further inland, and, I think, Narvaez had believed them; Narvaez had no Juan Ortiz to sort them out. If Narvaez had been at Vitachuco, and departed to the south, as Vaca indicates, he would have encountered country exactly as he described. That is,
"The first day we got through those lakes and passages without seeing anyone, on the second day we came to a lake difficult of crossing... (but got through)... at the end of a league we arrived at another of the same character, but worse, as it was half a league in extent" (Hodge 1907:31-32).
Vaca's trail below Vitachuco Village, at DeSoto's marching rate of 4-5 leagues per day, would have passed one side of the large "lake" adjoining Vitachuco's plain and then gone over Gum Swamp the first day, then over the East River Pool and the St. Marks River the next. Narvaez crossed these "lakes" instead of avoiding them because both the pool and the river's flats look like lakes and are almost impossible to hike around even today. They are at the distances from the village and of the dimensions Vaca described. Pioneer trails also crossed both of them at exactly the same places (today's St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge; East River Pool has a causeway today where Vaca crossed it, but the St. Marks River's flats have been dredged for shipping).
Maybe Narvaez did march south out of Vitachuco in search of Aute; the last reported village he would visit in his life. If he did, then a clear picture will come into focus when we examine his trail to Aute later in this paper. I believe DeSoto massacred Vitachuco's people, and enslaved their women and children for what they had done to Narvaez. The chroniclers never mention this reasoning, perhaps for the shame of it, or maybe because it was so obvious to them. The wholesale slaying of natives would be repeated only once on DeSoto's three year campaign, when he would be betrayed by Chief Tuscalusa.