DeSoto's Southern Trail
by Donald E. Sheppard"On the seventh of May, 1540... Gallegos (one of DeSoto's Captains) went with most of the people (the foot soldiers) of the army to Ilapi... (thence to Talimeco, today's Camden) to eat seven barbacoas of corn that they (the Indians) said was there, which were a deposit of the Chieftainess... This Talimeco was a town of great importance, with its very authoritative oratory on a high mound; the house of the chief (was) very large and very tall and broad, all covered, high and low, with very excellent and beautiful mats, and placed with such fine skill that it appeared that all the mats were only one mat. Only rarely (in that village) was there a hut which might not be covered with matting. This town has very good savannas and a fine river (the Wateree River), and forests of walnuts and oak, pines, evergreen oaks and groves of sweetgum, and many cedars. In this river was... found a bit of gold; and such a rumor became public in the army among the Spaniards, and for this it was believed that this is a land of gold, and that good mines would be found there (which happened in 1799, just upstream of Camden in Cabarrus County, setting off America's first gold-rush)." ©University of Alabama Press
"In the villages under the jurisdiction and overlordship of Cofachiqui through which our Spaniards passed they found many Indians native to other provinces who were held in slavery. As a safeguard against their running away, they (Cofachiqui's people) disabled them (their neighbors) in one foot, cutting the nerves above the instep where the foot joins the leg, or just above the heel. They held them in this perpetual and inhuman bondage in the interior of the country away from the frontiers, making use of them to cultivate the soil and in other servile employment's. These were the prisoners they captured in the ambushes that they set against one another at their fisheries and hunting grounds, and not in open war of one power against another with organized armies (as was the European habit at that time)."
"The people were dark, well set up and proportioned, and more civilized than any who had been seen in all the land of Florida (North America); and all were shod and clothed. The youth (Perico) told the governor that he was now beginning to enter that land of which he had spoken to him. And since it was such a land and he understood the language of the Indians, some credence was given him. He requested that he be Baptized, for he wished to become a Christian. He was made a Christian and was called Pedro. The governor ordered him to be loosed from the chain in which he had gone until then ("The Castilins did not offer the lady Baptism..."). That land, according to the statement of the Indian (now named Pedro), had been very populous and was reputed to be a good land. According to appearances, the youth (Pedro), whom the governor had taken as guide, had heard of it, and what he had learned from hearsay he asserted to have seen, and enlarged at will what he saw. In that town were found a dagger and some beads of Christians, whom the Indians said had been in the port (of Charleston), two days journey thence; and that it was now many years since Ayllon had arrived there in order to make a conquest of that land; that on arriving at the port he died; and there ensued a division, quarrels, and deaths among several of the principle persons who had accompanied him as to who should have the command; and without learning anything of the land they returned to Spain from that port. "All the men (with DeSoto) were of the opinion that they should settle in that land as it was an excellent region; that if it were settled, all the ships from New Spain, and those from Peru, Santa Marta, and Tierra Firme, on their way to Spain, would come to take advantage of the stop there, for their route passes by there; and as it is a good land and suitable for making profits."
"Since the governor's purpose was to seek another treasure like that of Peru, he had no wish to content himself with good land or with pearls, even though many of them were worth their weight in gold and, if the land were to be allotted in repartimiento, those pearls which the Indians would get afterward would be worth more; for those they have, inasmuch as they are bored by fire, lose their color thereby. The governor replied to those who urged him to settle that there was not food in that whole land for the support of his men for a single month; that it was necessary to hasten to the port of Ochus (Mobile, Alabama) where (Captain) Maldonado was to wait; that if another richer land were not found they could always return to that one whenever they wished; that meanwhile the Indians would plant their fields (with seeds the Spaniards gave them) and it would be better provided with corn. He asked the Indians whether they had heard of any great lord farther on. They said that twelve days' journey thence was a province called Chiaha which was subject to the lord of Coosa (who was discussed in Georgia)."
[Editor's Note - Coosa, a very powerful chief, influenced many Southern tribes at the time, including the Cherokee, Yuchi, Casqui and Creeks. The province of Chiaha would be found by DeSoto in the broadest expanse of mountains in Eastern America: The Great Smoky Mountains. After all, DeSoto needed to find gold to attract more settlers to his colony, and he knew that gold might be found in those mountains. He planned to attack the strongest villages and take their gold, just as he had done in Peru. A large section of the Smoky Mountains, just west of Nantahala Gorge and including its highest mountain, a village on it, and its western river, is still called Chiaha today. Chief Chiaha and his people were of the Yuchi Tribe. The name "Chiaha," in Yuchi, means "High Place." DeSoto would spend the next seven weeks getting up there.]
(continuing...) "Thereupon the governor determined to go in search of that land; and as he was a man hard and dry of word, and although he was glad to listen to and learn from the opinion of all, after he had voiced his own opinion he did not like to be contradicted and always did what seemed best to him. Accordingly, all conformed to his will, and although it seemed a mistake to leave that land for another land that might have been found round about where the men might maintain themselves until the planting might be done there and the corn harvested, no one had anything to say to him after his determination was learned."
"...because the Indians had already risen and that it was learned that the Lady was minded to go away if she could without giving guides or tamemes for carrying because of offenses committed against the Indians by the Christians—for among many men there is never lacking some person of little quality for who for very little advantage to himself places the others in danger of losing their lives—the governor ordered a guard to be placed over her and took her along with him, not giving her such good treatment as she deserved for the good will she had shown him and the welcome she had given him."
"We (stayed) in the town of this lady for about ten or eleven days, and then it was advisable for us to leave from there in search of food, because here there was none... (the horses and people had used it up very quickly)... We (with DeSoto and the Lady) turned again north and traveled (up the west bank of the Broad River).."
"Wednesday, the (twelfth) of May, the Governor (with the horsemen) left Cofitachequi (the rest of the army had gone east, over the Broad River and to Camden, with Captain Gallegos), and in two days (DeSoto having camped at Newberry) he arrived at the province of Chalaque (Cherokee in English, near today's Union) but he could not find the town of the lord, nor was there an Indian who would disclose it (it is possible that these Cherokee were recent arrivals, given that their village was difficult to locate following the conspicuous, well traveled roads). And they (with DeSoto) slept in a pine forest, where many (Cherokee) Indian men and women began to come in peace with presents..."
"The Indians live on roots of herbs which they seek in the open field and on game killed with their arrows. The (Cherokee) people are very domestic, go quite naked and (are) very fatigued (perhaps due to constant food gathering given their recent move to this land). There was a lord who brought the governor two deerskins as a great act of service. In that land are many wild hens (turkeys). In one town they performed a service for him, presenting him seven hundred of them, and likewise in others they brought those they had and could get."
"....the soldiers (with Captain Gallegos, in the meantime) were marching along at midday when suddenly a great tempest of strong contrary winds blew up, with much lightning and thunder, and quantities of large hailstones that fell upon them, so that if there had not happened to be some large walnut trees near the road and some other dense trees under which they took shelter, they would have perished, for the largest of the hailstones were the size of a hen egg and the smallest were the size of a nut. The rodeleros held their shields over their heads, but even so when the stones struck an unprotected part of their bodies they hurt them badly. It was God's will that the storm last only a short time; if it had been longer the shelter they had taken would not have been enough to save their lives, and short as it had been they were so battered that they could not march that day or the next."
"...on Monday, the seventeenth of that month, they (with DeSoto) departed from there (near Union) and spent the night in a forest; and on Tuesday they went to Guaquili (Spartinburg), and the Indians came forth in peace and gave them corn, although little, and many hens roasted on barbacao, and a few little dogs, which are good food. These are little dogs that do not bark (opossum perhaps), and they rear them in the houses in order to eat them. They also gave them tamemes, which are Indians who carry burdens. And on the following Wednesday they went to a canebrake (Inman), and on Thursday to a small savannah (Landrum) where a horse died; and some foot soldiers of (Captain) Gallegos arrived, making known to the Governor that he was approaching."
[Captain Gallegos, who had led most of the army's foot soldiers from Columbia, South Carolina, to Camden for food, had come up the east bank of the Broad River, recrossing that river just east of Spartanburg. DeSoto waited for Gallegos at Landrum in order to make a dawn raid on the first village of today's North Carolina.]