According to all the Spanish authorities on the other hand, they dwelt in the region of country between the Suwannee and Apalachicola rivers—yet must not be confounded with the Apalachicolos. Thus St. Marks was first named San Marco de Apalache, and it was near here that Narvaez and De Soto found them. They certainly had a large and prosperous town in this vicinity, said to contain a thousand warriors, whose chief was possessed of much influence.[177] De l’Isle makes this their original locality, inscribing it “Icy estoient cy devant les Apalaches,” and their position in his day as one acquired subsequently. That they were driven from the Apalachicola by the Alibamons and other western tribes in 1705, does not admit of a doubt, yet it is equally certain that at the time of the cession of the country to the English, (1763,) they retained a small village near St. Marks, called San Juan.[178] I am inclined to believe that these were different branches of the same confederacy, and the more so as we find a similar discrepancy in the earliest narratives of the French and Spanish explorers.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century they suffered much from the devastations of the English, French, and Creeks; indeed, it has been said, though erroneously, that the last remnant of their tribe “was totally destroyed by the Creeks in 1719.”[179] About the time Spain regained possession of the soil, they migrated to the West and settled on the Bayou Rapide of Red River. Here they had a village numbering about fifty souls, and preserved for a time at least their native tongue, though using the French and Mobilian (Chikasah) for common purposes.[180] Breckenridge,[181] who saw them here, describes them as “wretched creatures, who are diminishing daily.” Probably by this time the last representative of this once powerful tribe has perished.
CHAPTER III.
PENINSULAR TRIBES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
§ 1. Situation and Social Condition.—Caloosas.—Tegesta and Ais.—Tocobaga.—Vitachuco.—Utina.—Soturiba.—Method of Government.
§ 2. Civilization.—Appearance.—Games.—Agriculture.—Construction of Dwellings.—Clothing.
§ 3. Religion.—General Remarks.—Festivals in honor of the Sun and Moon.—Sacrifices.—Priests.—Sepulchral Rites.
§ 4. Languages.—Timuquana Tongue.—Words preserved by the French.
§ 1.—Situation and Social Condition.
When in the sixteenth century the Europeans began to visit Florida they did not, as is asserted by the excellent bishop of Chiapa, meet with numerous well ordered and civilized nations,[182] but on the contrary found the land sparsedly peopled by a barbarous and quarrelsome race of savages, rent asunder into manifold petty clans, with little peaceful leisure wherein to better their condition, wasting their lives in aimless and unending internecine war. Though we read of the cacique Vitachuco who opposed De Soto with ten thousand chosen warriors, of another who had four thousand always ready for battle,[183] and other such instances of distinguished power, we must regard them as the hyperbole of men describing an unknown and strange land, supposed to abound in marvels of every description. The natural laws that regulate the increase of all hunting tribes, the analogy of other nations of equal civilization, the nature of the country, and lastly, the adverse testimony of these same writers, forbid us to entertain any other supposition. Including men, women, and children, the aboriginal population of the whole peninsula probably but little exceeded at any one time ten thousand souls. At the period of discovery these were parcelled out into villages, a number of which, uniting together for self-protection, recognized the authority of one chief. How many there were of these confederacies, or what were the precise limits of each, as they never were stable, so it is impossible to lay down otherwise than in very general terms, dependent as we are for our information on the superficial notices of military explorers, who took an interest in anything rather than the political relations of the nations they were destroying.
Commencing at the south, we find the extremity of the peninsula divided into two independent provinces, one called Tegesta on the shores of the Atlantic, the other and most important on the west or Gulf coast possessed by the Caloosa tribe.