Alabama and the Borderlands: From Prehistory To Statehood

6 Chester B. DePratter, Charles M. Hudson, and Marvin T. Smith - The Hernando de Soto Expedition: From Chiaha to Mabila

6 The Hernando de Soto Expedition: From Chiaha to Mabila Chester B. DePratter, Charles M. Hudson, and Marvin T. Smith After wintering in Apalachee, in the vicinity of Tallahassee , Florida, from October 1)39 until early March 1540, Hernando de Soto's expedition set out in a generally northeastward direction. In Apalachee Soto had met two Indian trading boys who told him he would find silver, gold, and pearls to the east, in a large town and province governed by a woman.l After traveling two months and passing through several provinces, the expedition reached Cofitachequi on May I, 1540, where it found a town and province governed by a woman, and freshwater pearls, but not the silver and gold it expected-only slabs of mica and pieces of copper.2 Perhaps more importantly, it found food, which it sorely needed after its long trek through an unpopulated area. Soto departed Cofitachequi on May 12 or 13, and on May 21 reached the town of Xuala, at the foot of some mountains. After resting here four days, the expedition again set out, crossed the mountains, and on June 5 arrived at Chiaha, a fortified town on an island in a river. Without doubt, the most difficult problem in reconstructing Soto's movements has been establishing the locations of these towns. In the absence of one or more firmly established points of reference in the interior, it has been possible, so to speak, to route Soto and his men almost anywhere, so that many historians and anthropologists have despaired of discovering Soto's itinerary. We believe, however, that we have precisely located two of loB THE HERNANDO DE SOTO EXPEDITION these towns that Soto visited in May and early June of IS 40, Cofitachequi and Chiaha, and that we know the general location of the third, Xuala. We have done this after painstaking analysis of a lengthy account by Juan de la Bandera, the official notary of the Juan Pardo expedition of I567-68, and by plotting the distribution of sixteenth-century Spanish artifacts which archaeologists have recovered in the Southeast. Briefly, Juan Pardo and a force of just over roo foot soldiers set out from Santa Elena, on Parris Island off the coast of South Carolina . They proceeded north to the junction of the Congaree and Wateree rivers and from there went farther north to Cofitachequi, whose old center was at or near the McDowell or Mulberry site near Camden, South Carolina, and from there they continued north to Xuala (they called it Joara), near Marion, North Carolina.3 From Xuala, they crossed the mountains through Swannanoa Gap and picked up a trail which lay along the French Broad River. This led them to Chiaha, which we have located on Zimmerman's Island, near present-day Dandridge, Tennessee. Using these points of reference from the Pardo expedition, it is clear that Soto crossed the mountains much farther north than the reconstruction of the route proposed by the United States De Soto Commission, which was as surprising to us as it must be to the reader.4 Later we will discuss some of the reasons why we think other scholars did not work out this itinerary sooner, but we cannot-in this paper-discuss all our reasons for taking Pardo and his men through Swannanoa Gap and down the French Broad River, except to say that this route is most consistent with the Bandera document.s Instead, we want to trace Soto's movements from Chiaha to Mabila, and in so doing show that from this starting point a route can be reconstructed which is consistent with archaeological evidence, with geographical features, and with old trails and roads. Moreover, our route sometimes coincides with Indian place names, though (for reasons that will become apparent) we have given place names very low value in our reconstruction of the route. Working with the Bandera document, we came to the conclusion that Pardo and his men ordinarily calculated distances in terms of the legua comun of 5.57 kilometers or 3.45 miles, and not the legua legal of 4.I9 kilometers or 2.63 miles that was favored by the United States De Soto Commission.6 Moreover, Pardo generally traveled 5 leagues per day, or a little over I7 miles. In reconstructing the route of the Soto expedition, we have Chester B. DePratter, Charles M. Hudson, and Marvin T. Smith generally...