DeSoto's Southern Trail
"The next day, Friday (morning, May 21st, 1540, on the Full Moon), they went to Xuala (Tryon, North Carolina) which is a town on plain between some rivers (the Pacolet Rivers); its chief was so well provisioned that he gave to the Christians however much they asked for: tamemes, corn, little dogs, petacas, and however much he had... In that Xuala it seemed to them that there was better disposition to look for gold mines than in all that they had passed through and seen in that northern part." ©University of Alabama Press
[The view of the Appalachian Mountains is spectacular from Tryon; the Cherokee place name Xuala, spelled "Saluda" by the English, means "the bushy place." When viewed from the mountains above Tryon, the plains and foothills below appear to be bushy; they are covered with very bushy scrub oak, unlike the tall, colorful trees of the mountains. Today's Saluda River runs from that area to Columbia, SC.]
"... the village and province of Xuala, which, although it was a separate province from that of Cofachiqui, belonged (at least hereditarely) to the same lady (alliances may have been changing at that time, given the Cherokee intrusion, noted above, caused, perhaps, by the pestilence which had depopulated some of her land)... This village was situated in the foothills of a mountain range (the Appalachins)on the bank of a river (North Pacolet) that, though not very large, had a very strong current. The territory of Cofachiqui extended to that river (which flows from the mountains and to Columbia, her home town; that river was, most likely, the western border of her province). In the village of Xuala they served and entertained the governor and all his army most attentively, for as it was a part of the Lady's kingdom, and as she had sent orders to that effect, the Indians did everything in their power both to obey their lady and to please the Spaniards."
"They found little corn, and for that reason, although the men were tired and the horses very weak, the governor did not stop over two days."
"From the village of Cofachiqui (Columbia, South Carolina)... to the first valley of the province of Xuala (Tryon, North Carolina), ...it was about fifty leagues (130 miles), more or less, all of it through a level and pleasant country with small rivers flowing through it at a distance of three or four leagues (about ten miles) from one another. They saw few mountains (until they reached Tryon), and these had much grass for cattle and were easy to traverse on foot or on horseback. The whole fifty leagues generally, both that which they found inhabited and cultivated and that which was uncultivated and fit for tillage, had good soil. The whole distance traveled from the province of Apalache (Panama City, Florida) to that of Xuala (Tryon, North Carolina) where we (who followed Captain Gallegos) found the governor and his army was, if I have not miscounted, fifty-seven daily journeys. The march was generally northeast, and many days was toward the north. The large river that flowed through Cofachiqui (the Congaree-Santee River), according to the mariners among the Spaniards, was the one which they called Santa Elena on the coast; they did not know this for certain, but according to the direction they had traveled, it seemed to them that it would be this one. This doubt and many others that our history leaves unsolved will be cleared up when God, our Lord, shall be pleased to have that land won for the increase of his holy Catholic faith. We take four and a half leagues (twelve miles) as an average of the fifty-seven daily journals those Spaniards marched from Apalache (above Panama City, Florida) to Xuala (Tryon, North Carolina), though some may have been longer and others shorter. According to this calculation, they have marched a little less than 260 leagues (685 miles) to Xuala, and from the Bay of Espiritu Santo (Charlotte Harbor, Florida) to Apalache we said that they traveled 150 leagues (395 miles). Thus in all they covered a little less than four hundred leagues (1053 miles during their first full year in North America)."
"The governor set out from Xuala for Guaxule (the Cherokee name for Asheville), crossing over very rough and lofty mountains."
"In these mountains we found the source of the Great (Mississippi) River, by which we (eventually departed North America; the French Broad River, which they discovered in those mountains, is the head of the "Great River," the Mississippi River, upon which the army would make its escape three years later)..."
"Tuesday, the twenty-fifth of May, they left from Xuala and crossed that day a very high mountain range (the railroad uses that grade today, the least inclined into North Carolina from the south, but the steepest railroad grade east of the Mississippi River. The tracks run along Pacolet River, which flows swiftly through that pass)."
"They marched for another five days through a mountain range uninhabited (the Indians had fled) but very good country. It had many oaks and some mulberries, and plenty of pasturage for cattle. There were ravines and streams with little water, though they flowed rapidly, and very green and delightful valleys. At the place they crossed it this range was twenty leagues wide (fifty-two miles, from Tryon to Asheville).
"... (along the way) they spent the night in a small forest (today's Saluda, at the top of that pass), and the next day, Wednesday in a savannah (Hendersonville) where they endured great cold, although it was already the twenty-sixth of May; and there they crossed, in water up to their shins, the river by which they afterward left in the ships that they made (they crossed the French Broad river at King's Ford). When that river comes forth to the sea, the navigation chart states and indicates that it is the river of Spiritu Sancto (the Mississippi River, which the French Broad feeds); which, according to charts of the cosmographer Alonso de Chaves, enters in a great bay (the Gulf of Mexico)... from there (King's Ford, north of Hendersonville), where they crossed the river in water up to their shins, the Lady of Cofitachequi, whom they took with them in payment of the good treatment that they had received from her, turned back..."
"...(she) stepped aside the road and went into a wood saying that she had to attend to her necessities... and hid herself in the woods, and although we sought her she could not be found ("In that province of Xalaque," Cherokee in English). She took with her a box filled with unbored pearls, very valuable... and went to stop at Xualla (Tryon) with a slave who had escaped from camp... and it was certain that they held communication as husband and wife, and that both decided to go back to Cofitachique (Columbia, South Carolina)."
"The next day they spent the night in an oak grove, and the following day, alongside a large creek (the French Broad River at today's Asheville Airport), which they crossed many times (as they marched down that valley between towering mountains); and the next day messengers came in peace, and they (the army) arrived in Guasili (Asheville)... and because this was a good resting place the soldiers called it, while throwing dice (thereafter), the "House of Guasili," a good encounter... "
"... they gave us a quantity of dogs and some corn, of which they had little.."
"The Indians there made him (DeSoto) service of three hundred dogs, for they observed that the Christians liked them and sought them to eat, but they are not eaten among the Indians. In Guaxulle and along the road there was very little corn..."
"Gauxule (Asheville)...was situated among many small streams that flowed through various parts of the village (located in the Hominy Creek flats). Their sources were in these mountains where the Spaniards had passed through and in others beyond (the creeks converge at Asheville)... All around it was a public walk along which six men could pass abreast (Cherokee legend holds that its tribes and clans met in at today's Asheville to compete from time to time; the "walk," described by the Spaniards, was probably a Cherokee race track of some sort. "Jua Gaux-u-le," in Cherokee, means "The Place Where They Race"). The governor was in this village four days... from there he went in six daily journeys of five leagues each (about thirteen miles each day)..."
by Donald E. Sheppard
NORTH CAROLINA
"...and went with his army to an oak grove alongside a river (they passed through New Found Gap, west of Asheville, and camped on the Pigeon River at today's Canton, a broad pasture at the time), and the next day we passed through Canasoga (in Cherokee that name means "Against the Slopes;" it's against the steep slopes of Bethel/Woodrow, five miles south of Canton, which was called Canasoga by English settlers as well. The army followed that route in order to cross the Pigeon River at its branches at Woodrow) and spent the night in the open (due west of Bethel - the Chief's residence - through Pigeon Gap to South Waynesville's broad, flat valley). And on Wednesday we (crossed the Blue Ridge, westward through Balsam Gap, followed Scott Creek and) spent the night alongside a swamp (three miles above today's Sylva, there's a Budweiser warehouse near that creek's swamp today), and the next day we ate a very great number of mulberries (as they passed through today's Dillsboro and northwestward along the Tuckasegee River to Whittier and Thomas Valley, just below today's Cherokee Indian Reservation - The Great Smoky Mountain Expressway follows that same trail from Asheville today, within a few miles). The next day we went alongside a creek (actually, it was the same day along the Tuckasegee River, their longest day's march from Asheville)... and now it was large (the Tuckasegee River enlarges with creeks and the Oconaluftee River)... the next day, Friday, we went to a pine forest and a creek (west, past Governors Island and Bryson City through Sherrill Gap, then down the north bank of the Tuckasegee River to the broad pastures of Forney Creek, just east of the Little Tennessee River)... And the next day, Saturday, in the morning, we crossed a very broad river, across a branch of it (they crossed the Little Tennessee River at its confluence with the Tuckasegee River)... and entered Chiaha, which is on an island of the same river..."
[Editor's Note: that large island, located at the base of today's Chiaha Mountain at the union of its giant rivers, is covered by the Fontana Reservoir today, but the entire region is still called Chiaha. Chiaha Village extended from Chiaha Island up the flats of Panther, Wolf, Stecoah, Sawyer and Tuskeegee Creeks. The horses were pastured in Stecoah's large valley, in the largest pasture hemmed by steep mountains in that area, twelve miles from their previous night's campsite. DeSoto's six day journey from Asheville included just over thirteen miles each of his first, second, third and fifth days, fifteen miles on the fourth and eleven on his last, given that he chose to camp within a mile of his horses in Stecoah Valley and NOT on Chiaha's fortified island.]