Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi / American Pioneers and Patriots

by John S. C. Abbott

De Soto inquired very earnestly of him respecting the country and the prospect of finding any region abounding with silver and gold. Ortiz had but little information to give, save that, at the distance of about a hundred miles from where they then were, there was a great chief named Uribaracaxi, to whom all the adjacent chiefs were tributary. His realms were represented as far more extensive, populous, and rich than those of the surrounding chieftains. De Soto dispatched a band of sixty horsemen and sixty foot soldiers with presents and messages of friendship to Uribaracaxi. The object of the expedition was to explore the country and to make inquiries respecting gold.

A weary march of about forty miles brought the party to the village of Mucozo, where Ortiz had resided for some years. The chief of this tribe, whose name was also Mucozo, was brother-in-law to Uribaracaxi. Mucozo received the Spaniards with great hospitality, and learning that they were on a friendly visit to Uribaracaxi, furnished them with a guide. Four days were occupied in a tedious march through a country where pathless morasses continually embarrassed their progress.

This expedition was under the command of Balthazar de Gallegos. He reached his point of destination in safety. But the chief, deeming it not prudent to trust himself in the hands of the Spaniards, whose renown for fiendish deeds had filled the land, had retired from his capital, and nearly all the inhabitants had fled with him. He left for his uninvited guests no message either of welcome or defiance. Gallegos found all his attempts to open any communications with him unavailing. There was no plunder in the city worth seizing, and De Soto's commands to the expedition were very strict, to treat the Indians with the utmost kindness and humanity.

Gallegos made earnest inquiries of the Indians whom he met, as to the provinces where gold and silver could be found. They told him that there was a country many leagues west of them, of marvellous luxuriance and beauty, where gold was found in such abundance that the warriors had massive shields and helmets made of that precious metal. The more shrewd of the Spaniards placed very little reliance upon this testimony. They thought they saw evidence that the Indians were ready to fabricate any story by which they could rid themselves of their visitors.

Soon after the departure of Gallegos, De Soto received the intelligence that the chief Ucita had taken refuge in a forest, surrounded with swamps, not far from the Spanish camp. The vainglorious Porcallo was exceedingly indignant that the Indian chief should presume to hold himself aloof from all friendly advances. He entreated De Soto to grant him the privilege of capturing the fugitive. De Soto complied with his request. The impetuous old man, fond of parade, and lavish of his wealth, selected a band of horsemen and footmen, all of whom were gorgeously apparelled for the occasion. He, himself, was mounted on a magnificent steed and cased in glittering armor.

It seems that the noble Ucita kept himself well informed of every movement of the invaders. With a spirit of magnanimity which would have done honor to the best Christian in the Spanish ranks, he sent a courier to meet Porcallo, and to say to him,

"You will only expose yourself to infinite peril from the rivers, morasses, and forests through which you will have to pass in your attempt to reach my retreat. My position is so secure that all your attempts to take me will result only in your own loss. I do not send you this message from any fears on my own account, but because your leader, De Soto, has manifested so much forbearance in not injuring my territory or my subjects."

It is really refreshing to find here and there, among all these demoniac deeds of demoniac men, some remaining traces of that nobility of character which man had before the fall, when created in God's image he was but little lower than the angels. Man, as we see him developed in history, is indeed a ruin, but the ruin of a once noble fabric. When we think of what man might be, in all generous affections, and then think of what man is, it is enough to cause one to weep tears of blood.

Porcallo could not appreciate the magnanimity of Ucita. He regarded the message as one of the stratagems of war, dictated either by fear or cowardice. He therefore ordered the trumpets to sound the advance, his only fear being, that the chief might escape. Porcallo, a Quixotic knight, had no element of timidity in his character. He led his troops. He never said "Go," but "Follow." Pressing rapidly forward, the little band soon arrived upon the border of a vast and dismal morass, utterly pathless, stretching out many leagues in extent.

The hot-headed cavalier, thinking that the swamp might be waded, put spurs to his horse and dashed forward. He had advanced but a few rods when the horse, struggling knee-deep through the mire, stumbled and fell. One of the legs of the rider was so caught beneath the animal as to pin him inextricably in the morass, covering him with water and with mud. The weight of his armor sank him deeper in the mire, and in the desperate struggles of the steed for extrication, he was in great danger of being suffocated. None could come to his aid without danger of being swallowed up in the bog.