DeSoto's Florida Trails
By Donald E. Sheppard
Inca says that Juan de Anasco was dispatched from that place (during New Moon) to find the sea (in Clayton:II:198) just before he was sent back down DeSoto's trail leading the Thirty Lancers (ibid.:204; Biedma in Clayton:I:227). Anasco needed to mark the trees along that seashore in order to find Iviahica Apalache on his return from Ucita in DeSoto's ships . He first rode south to Aute, twelve leagues from Iviahica (Inca in Clayton:II:199), today's Econfina. He reported crossing only two small rivers along the way, easy to cross (ibid.); they are called Econfina and Sweetwater Creeks today. He camped along the way at Compass Lake, the half way point. Just over two leagues beyond Aute, after crossing a creek up to his horse's pasterns, Anasco came to the head of a bay (ibid.:203); today's North Bay, just above St. Andrew Bay. The creek Anasco forded is called Bear Creek today and it, too, is the same with shallow water and a hard bottom. By skirting the bay, Anasco found the place where Narvaez built his boats (ibid.; Biedma in Clayton:I:227), on the north shore of today's Bayou George.
Anasco found crosses carved in the trees, carcasses of dead horses, and the forge Narvaez had built to smelt nails from stirrups to build his boats (ibid.). Then, in order to mark the trees for his own return, Anasco followed along the shore of the bay to the sea, which was three leagues away (Inca in Clayton:II: 203). The Gulf of Mexico is one league south of the harbor's point, today's Panama City, then two leagues out the strait formed by the breaker island where he marked the trees, for a total distance of three leagues to the sea, as he reported. Vaca says Narvaez called that strait San Miguel when he sailed through it (ibid.; Hodge 1907:37). Today the breaker island has been cut below Panama City to form a pass for ships, thereby avoiding the shallows at the mouth of the strait which Anasco would report months later on his return from Ucita in DeSoto's ships (Biedma in Clayton:I:227).
If Narvaez had been at Vitachuco and had departed to the south, as suggested earlier, he would have passed over Gum Swamp, East River Pool and the St. Marks River. Then, having been turned west by the Gulf of Mexico, he would have passed a plain (just north of today's Medart), more swamps (the Sopchoppy, Ochlockonee, and New River swamps), and a big stream which he called Magdalina; the Apalachicola River, all as Vaca reported (in Hodge 1907:32-33). Just before entering Aute, Narvaez came onto planted fields where his army was fallen upon by the enemy (ibid.). Narvaez survived and camped at Aute, today's Econfina, where the fields to its southeast are still cultivated today. That nine day trip from "Apalache" to Aute, at a marching rate of four-and-a-half leagues per day, would have totaled just over forty leagues, but the distance along the trails from what DeSoto called Vitachuco to today's Econfina is forty five leagues. If Narvaez marched at a rate of five leagues per day, however, he could have traveled that distance along the trails from Vitachuco to Econfina. Narvaez could march at that faster rate because he had no livestock to drive.
Vaca reports that during their 280 league trip through Florida, Narvaez never saw a mountain (ibid.:36). Apparently he bypassed Florida's pride and joy, Tallahassee. DeSoto's people reported that they were the first whites ever seen near the Apalache Swamp (Inca in Clayton:II:193), which confirms that Narvaez had taken a different route to the bay. Vaca's reported distance traveled through Florida to the bay, 280 leagues (Hodge 1907:36), would indicate its estimate along the trails and various diversions, not along paced and charted lines as was DeSoto's habit.
Narvaez camped for several days in Aute (today's Econfina), from which Vaca was dispatched on horseback to find an escape route from that very hostile country (Hodge 1907:33). He rode down the same trail Anasco would ride to Bayou George. There he found a place favorable for building boats, with cedar, pine, oak, palmetto, shell fish coves and a fresh water stream, but no rocks (see the Township survey of 1831, Bayou George is depicted and described in the Field Notes exactly as Vaca described it [ibid.:35-36]). That trail from Aute, about six leagues round trip to the bayou, was ridden many times by Narvaez' people to fetch sick men and food from Aute during the time it took them to build the boats (ibid.:35).
Since the water in Bayou George is shallow, Narvaez had to time his departure on favorable tides. According to modern lunar reports, that is exactly what he did: Narvaez completed his boats so they could be launched and maneuvered out of the bay (ibid.:36) on Spring Tides on the Full Moon of September 28th, 1528. That, I believe, was his first wise move in conquest but, no doubt, his last. [The timing of the Narvaez Florida expedition is, perhaps, the most neglected event in Florida's history, despite the fact that his was the first; scholars have ignored critical activity dates from the time of the Narvaez landing, in relation to Easter Sunday of that year, to his departure in shallow draft vessels on Spring Tides]. Narvaez would vanish, and his defeat would bolster the credibility of the natives who sent him there. Their lies, recorded by missionaries near Vitachuco years later, would be given credence by historians for centuries, as will be discussed later.
When Biedma, the King's agent, was at Aute, he pronounced the sea to be nine leagues distant (in Clayton:I:227). It is that distance, on a straight line, to the sea from today's Econfina. Notice that Biedma did not say to the "coast" this time. A navigable harbor, such as St. Andrews Bay, was, by definition, a coast. They called that harbor the Bay of Aute (Inca in Clayton:II:244). When he was there, Biedma says they had walked one-hundred and ten leagues from Ucita (in Clayton:I:227). It is exactly that distance, on a straight line across the Gulf of Mexico, from Ucita to the Bay of Aute, the way Anasco was instructed to return in DeSoto's ships; Biedma knew that was the "paced and charted" range they had displaced to the bay since leaving Ucita! DeSoto's cartographers must have been much more talented than his later day trail seekers surmised.
Once Anasco returned from Ucita, Captain Maldonado was dispatched westward along the coast in DeSoto's brigs to find an entrance to the sea at which to meet DeSoto the following year or, barring that, the year after that (Elvas, Biedma and Rangel in Clayton:I:73, 228, 268; Inca in Clayton:II:244). He found an entrance to the sea, a major river, sixty leagues down the coast (ibid.) at Mobile Bay: the Alabama River. From Iviahica, DeSoto would hike America for almost a year and over a thousand miles before releasing the captives brought from there by Maldonado. Their release point is known to be have been above Mobile Bay somewhere on the Alabama River; the captives could, therefore, follow the river back home. DeSoto's precise cartography accounts for that.
DeSoto's "seacoast" route from Ucita, as it was referred to then (Elvas in Clayton:I:73), shows only two shortcuts available to Anasco when he rode back down it with the Thirty Lancers; all 150 leagues of it from Iviahica, as Inca reported (in Clayton:II:205, 227; it measures 148 leagues on U.S. Department or Interior Geological Survey 7.5 Minute Series Topographic Maps ). Anasco's object was to avoid potentially hostile villages that Desoto had deliberately passed through for food and captives on his way up (Elvas in Clayton:I:72). Anasco's first bypass was just west of today's Dunnellon, where the Lancers took a more southerly course over the Withlacoochee River's flats to the Great Swamp, avoiding the villages on the phosphate ridge near the "Cove" of the Withlacoochee River; cutting off about one league (Inca in Clayton:II:220). The Lancers took several females captive from the outlying fields along that way, and those women would end up in Havana (Elvas in Clayton:I:72). Anasco's second shortcut bypassed Paracoxi Village to the west (Inca in Clayton:II:224). There are no swamps or rivers to preclude that cut-off. In that neighborhood DeSoto had been misled to Tocaste on his way up, adding at least eight leagues to his trip. Anasco proceeded southeast from the Great Swamp, then south from today's Mulberry, saving perhaps another league.
To avoid Mococo's Village, not knowing if Spain still held favor there, Anasco forded the Myakka River between the Myakka Lakes northeast of Mococo Village (ibid.:224-225). In the middle of Myakka Lake State Park, between the two Myakka Lakes, there is a bridge and causeway just south of Myakka Lake where the Lancers forded the river. They captured more Indians there who were engaged in a ceremony of fish baking in the woods, Mococo's people (ibid), at moonrise on harvest moon.
You cannot drive as short a course between Ucita and Aute on today's highways; they pass through the cities, the same ones DeSoto passed through. DeSoto had timed the Thirty Lancers departure from Iviahica for Full Moon at their biggest obstacle, the Great Swamp, with harvest moon on either side to enable their long night passages through that neighborhood (Elvas in Clayton:I:72). Once at Ucita, where the "rescued" men shouted with joy almost in unison about the gold the army must have found by then (Inca in Clayton:II:227), the troops had only one week to march and catch the next Full Moon at Caliquen, the most populated and dangerous village on their journey to northwest Florida. The men spent that week celebrating with and distributing hardware to Chief Mococo and his people (ibid.:228-230). The army had been introduced to lighter and more effective Indian arrow-shielding: long, thick quilted jackets (ibid.:236). Excess armor was, therefore, given to Mococo's people and would end up scattered around their village site and be found by Florida's pioneers, who called that place "Old Spanish Fields". On their trip up DeSoto's trail, the men would suffer the loss of several of their own and seven horses (Elvas and Rangel in Clayton:I:72,268), some at the Apalache Swamp, others at the Ravine (Inca in Clayton:II:237-242). All were jubilant to reunite with DeSoto's great army in search of gold and treasures.
At Ucita, Anasco had only one week to catch the next Spring Tide, on the New Moon, to pass over Charlotte Harbor's channel shallows. He used the time to careen and load the brigs. That timing was no accident, it was calculated (ibid.:243); it would take Anasco just under two weeks to sail from there to Panama City (Clayton:I: 268) to catch the favorable Spring Tides at that harbor. Only today can we realize DeSoto's genius (ibid.:244). Desoto's trail from Ucita to the bay where Narvaez built his boats was only 173 leagues long (148 leagues traveled by the lancers from Iviahica to Ucita, plus two leagues cut off by Anasco's shortcuts, plus the eight leagues DeSoto marched back and forth below Lake Hancock, plus twelve leagues from Iviahica to Aute, then three more to the bay). Vaca's estimate of 280 leagues traveled by Narvaez to the bay probably included scouting for food, plus the distance from his landing site to Ucita, then the greater distance to the Great Swamp on his trail up the east side of the Peace River through Arcadia's rich but scattered phosphate fields. Narvaez never got to meet Chief Mococo or his fine people; Mococo's Village was six leagues north of the route Narvaez chose to take to Apalache.