DeSoto's Southern Trail
by Donald E. Sheppard"The next day, Tuesday (June 8th, 1540), we (entered Tennessee and) passed through a town (named "Tallassee," inside the Little Tennessee River's big bend just below today's Fontana Dam - That village name, "Tallassee," may well have been the source of the name "TENNESSEE," in English, given that English fur traders most likely first traveled into today's Tennessee along the same Indian trail DeSoto used - the ONLY trail through those mountains from Charlestown), and there we took corn and went on to sleep in the open (west of today's Tallassee, well downstream of the river's big bend and outside of the mountains)... Wednesday we crossed a river (the Little Tennessee, westbound), and then a town (today's Toqua) and a river (the Tellico) and we spent the night in the open (near today's Madisonville). And on Thursday the chief of Coste came forth to receive us in peace, and he led us to sleep in a town of his (Athens)." ©University of Alabama Press
"... (the scouts) returning from discovering the mines (of Chisca above Knoxville), spending ten days on their journey... said that the mines were (not of gold but) of very fine brass and that gold and silver would be found if the veins and deposits were sought (copper and aluminum are mined there today)... "
"Those (scouts) said that the Indians had taken them through a land with such lofty mountains (The Great Smoky Mountains) that it would have been impossible for the camp to march through it (from Chiaha)."
"On Friday... the Governor (in the vanguard) arrived at Coste, which is a town on an island of the river (Hiwassee Island, at the Tennessee-Hiwassee River confluence) which flows great and strong and is difficult to enter... and the Governor (crossed the Hiwassee River onto the island and) entered the town carelessly and unarmed with a few unarmed men, and when the soldiers... began to climb on the grain storage bins... the Indians began to beat them... The Governor commanded that our men all should suffer it and be tolerant, because of the evident danger in which they were all in (given that the army had yet to arrive), and that no one should put a hand on his weapons; and the Governor began to quarrel with the soldiers (during the darkness of New Moon), and... he also thrashed some of them, and he flattered the chief and told him he did not wish that our people should anger them, and that he wished... to take lodging at the savanna of the island. And the chief and his people went with him... and (when the army arrived) the Spaniards put the Indians in chains with their collars, and the Governor threatened the Indians and said that he would burn all of them, because they had laid hands on the Spaniards."
"There in Coste was found, in the trunk of a tree, honey from bees, as good or better than can be found in Spain. In that river we found, in some clams they gathered to eat, some pearls, and they were the first pearls we ever saw from fresh water, although there are pearls in many parts of that land. On Monday we crossed a river (the Hiwassee River again, to leave the island) and slept in the open (across the Tennessee River from Shady Grove) ...On Tuesday we crossed another (the Tennessee River, into Shady Grove, in order to avoid the steep ridges on the river's south bank, then down Hixon Pike to spend the night on North Chattanooga Creek), and on Wednesday another river (the Tennessee River), and we slept in Tasqui (Chattanooga)... On Thursday we went to another small town and passed other small towns..."