By Donald E. Sheppard
Dr. John R. Swanton, the United States DeSoto Commission Chairman, had spent thirty years studying Southeastern Indians and realized that some of the Indian names written in the DeSoto chronicles matched those quoted from Southeastern Indians in later historic documents. DeSoto's Indian name "Chicasa," for instance, matched the name of a tribe known to have lived in northern Mississippi in the early 1800's. French and English records confirmed that "Chickasaw" Indians had lived there since the late 1600's. Believing that those Indians had been visited by DeSoto in today's Mississippi, Dr. Swanton deduced DeSoto visited the "Chicasa" there.
Under immense political pressure from interested Congressmen while serving on the Committee, Dr. Swanton became aware of various DeSoto Trail theories, but none more acceptable than that of Henry Schoolcraft, a Federal Indian Agent and explorer circa 1840. Schoolcraft, who published his DeSoto Trail theory in 1857, had also recognized that certain Indian tribal names in the available DeSoto records of his day matched tribal names still living in the Southeast in 1850. Schoolcraft's knowledge of Indian language, trails and habitat apparently won enough support for the Commission to use his DeSoto Trail theory as the pattern for its own. Starting at Tampa Bay, which was planning to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of DeSoto's landing there in order to attract badly needed business from South America, the Commission's DeSoto Trail closely followed Schoolcraft's for nearly 2,000 miles, through "Chicasa" in Mississippi, to the Mississippi River near Memphis.
Schoolcraft had followed those trails and found the Kaskaskia Indian Tribe in Southeast Missouri in 1818. That tribe lived about the same distance above Memphis as the "Casqui" Indians described by DeSoto's people beyond "The Great River" just beyond "Chicasa." Believing that "Casqui" was the name DeSoto used for the Kaskaskia Indians, Schoolcraft surmised that Memphis, lying just northwest of the historic location of "Chicasa" in Mississippi, was where DeSoto crossed "The Great River." He never realized that the Kaskaskia Tribe was never called "Casqui" by Native Americans; that title was used for the Kashinampo Tribe, which Dr. Swanton knew but believed resided in Arkansas in 1541.
Dr. Swanton's Commission declared that Memphis was at or near the place where DeSoto discovered "The Great River," owed, most likely, to political pressure that it do so. Beyond Memphis, the Commission's Trail departed from Schoolcraft's. Today, we know that the "Chicasa" lived in NORTHERN Tennessee, near Chickasaw Old Fields, just below the "Alibamo" Indians, who DeSoto encountered immediately upon leaving "Chicasa." The Alibamo tribe lived at Nashville and spoke the same language as the "Casqui" Indians to the north, extending through Kentucky and into Indiana beyond the Ohio River, and the same language as the "Coste" Indians east of Nashville, who DeSoto heard from the previous Summer near Knoxville. Those 3 tribes, the Alabamo, Casqui and Coste all lived next to each other in that unique language group - as we know today thanks to Native American linguistic studies - NOT scattered from the Carolinas to Arkansas, as Dr. Swanton supposed (see "Indians of the Southeastern U.S.," Map 10, Tribal Movements... he shows the "Casqui" Tribe moving north and east from Arkansas toward the Ohio River in historic times, against the KNOWN movement of ALL tribes around them... He never knew that those three tribes had moved DOWN from the northeast well before they were described in the late 1600's. The Commission's proposed zigzag DeSoto Trail, to accommodate their various motives, goes against factual knowledge of DeSoto's history elsewhere. DeSoto typically marched directly toward his objectives, usually for weeks or months at a time, as we know from studies of his travels in South America.
Dr. Swanton knew a great deal about Southeastern Indians and their exact historic locations, but never mentioned the exact location of "Chickasaw" in any of his publications. Our misfortune is that he, and later scholars alike, neglected to consider that DeSoto might have found "Chicasa" near Chickasaw Old Fields - known to lay due north of Tuscaloosa - then marched north, as his people said they did. The States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri were excluded from the Commission's consideration as points from which DeSoto's people first described Native America, despite the fact that conspicuous topographic features there match DeSoto's peoples' location descriptions perfectly, a serious problem for the Commission's want of landscape identity in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana. "The Great River," which DeSoto crossed beyond "Chicasa," was the Ohio River north of Chickasaw Old Fields, just as he had crossed the Tennessee River, at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, due north of Tuscaloosa. Mississippi was only visited by DeSoto while on a raid of "Sacchuma" near Chickasaw Old Fields. That tribe's "forever" domain in northeast Mississippi, the very State whose Congressman proudly sponsored the DeSoto Trail Commission legislation, might have persuaded Dr. Swanton that DeSoto passed through Mississippi; but, alas, DeSoto only visited there.
During my research, I, Donald E. Sheppard, have visited every site mentioned in this report to verify my interpretations of source data. My interest is purely avocational, however. I have helped scientists find things over the years (quarters, transportation, scholarship, friendly volunteer diggers, favorable publicity and significant sites) using historic documentation and dogged persistence. In the process, I have learned a few things about my beloved country, and a lot about how difficult it is to trudge the many swamps and mountains DeSoto was supposed, by Official Trail Seekers, to have crossed.
I have studied trails and places on America's pioneer maps for 35 years, searched for those sites, surveyed them, surfaced collected them, dug a few, and turned over everything I have ever found to the proper public custodian. I owe Florida my education: two Master's Degrees, one in Science from the University of West Florida, the other in Arts from the University of Florida, a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of South Florida, an Associate in Arts from the St. Petersburg Junior College, and a high school diploma from Clearwater High School. I am an airplane pilot and a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Navy, but still a Boy Scout at heart. I have sailed Florida's coasts and flown its skies for 30 years. My family has lived in Florida for 5 generations.