George M. Cole and John E. Ladson III
Aucilla Research Institute
The first written history of the Aucilla River area is that based on expeditions of the early Spanish explorers, Panfilo de Narváez and Hernando de Soto in the 1500s. They are believed to be the first non-natives to view the area. The first of these was the ill-fated expedition led by Panfilo de Narváez in 1526. Ten years later, inspired by the colorful stories of the Narváez adventure told by Cabeza de Vaca, a second expedition through the area was led by Hernando De Soto. De Soto was granted a royal contract to establish a Spanish colony in Florida which superseded the claim of Narváez.
De Soto landed in Tampa Bay in 1539, about eleven years after Narváez, with a fleet of five large ships and four smaller vessels. After spending six weeks exploring the nearby territory, De Soto began his journey to the North with approximately 500 Spaniards along with hundreds of captive Native Americans forced to serve as bearers. As he traveled, De Soto was ruthless in his treatment of any Native Americans encountered, using torture, mutilations, hostages and executions to control any opposition. Writings from that expedition describe his troops marching along while “lancing every Indian encountered on both sides of the road.” Many of the natives were reportedly kept in chains and used as personal slaves by his troops while vicious war dogs were turned loose on those who disobeyed. In response to such abuse, the Native Americans responded. The native hostage-guides reportedly led the Spanish troops into ambushes. As a result, the Spanish came to fear the arrows shot with the long bows which could easily penetrate the Spanish armor.
As he traveled, De Soto was reported to have followed a route “at a distance of ten to twelve leagues from the coast”. Due to their experiences with the Narváez expedition, The Apalachee decided to meet De Soto with force when he crossed the Aucilla River as described by the following notation in the diary of De Soto’s secretary:
On Wednesday, the first of October, the Governor Hernando De Soto, started from Agile and came with his soldiers to the river or swamp of Ivitachuco, and they made a bridge; and in the high swamp grass on the other side there was an ambuscade of Indians, and they shot three Christians with arrows. They finished crossing this swamp on the Friday following at noon and a horse was drowned there. At nightfall they reached Ivitachuco and found the village in flames, for the Indians had set fire to it.
The crossing of the Aucilla was also described in another account of the expedition, written in 1557 by a Portuguese officer known as the Gentleman of Elvas who participated in the journey:
“the depth there, for a stone’s throw, was over the head, and afterwards the water came to the waist, for a distance of a cross-bow-shot, where was a growth of tall and dense forest, into which the Indians came to ascertain if they could assail the men at work and prevent a passage; but they were dispersed by the arrival of crossbowmen, and some timbers being thrown in, the men gained the opposite side and secured the way. On the fourth day of the week, Wednesday of St. Francis, the Governor crossed over and reached Uitachuco, a town subject to Apalache, where he slept. He found it burning, the Indians having set it on fire.”
The crossing is believed to have taken place near the present-day U.S. 27 bridge over the Aucilla. Reportedly, several Spanish military artifacts have been recovered by private collectors from the river at the suspected crossing site.
In one account of the DeSoto expedition, it was noted that the land seen by the De Soto expedition was considerably different that that described by the Narváez expedition. As a result, it was concluded that Narváez must have traveled near the coast, as opposed to the De Soto route which was more upland. The Gentleman of Elvas confirmed this with his description of De Soto’s route after crossing the Aucilla as “Thenceforward the country was well inhabited, producing much corn, the way leading by many habitations like villages.”
Another description of the De Soto expedition, that written by Garcilaso de la Vega, provided additional detail of this area as follows:
The army there upon crossed the river and traveled two leagues through a treeless land, coming eventually to a place where they found great fields of corn, beans and a type of squash known in Spain as Roman squash. Beginning with those fields, there were settlements which were not arranged as villages but were separated and spread out over the distance of four leagues that remained to the principal town … this place contained two hundred large and good houses…
After spending two days at the village, De Soto continued on to an area near current-day Tallahassee where he camped for the Winter, feeding his troops from the stores of food taken from the local natives. After wintering in the Tallahassee area, DeSoto continued on his wandering, apparently searching for gold, traveling through what later became ten of the U.S. states. Ancient apparent mining sites have been found as far north as northwestern North Carolina, which have been attributed to the DeSoto expedition by local legend. Although DeSoto met his death along the way, his surviving forces eventually found their way back to Spanish Mexico by constructing boats and sailing along the Louisiana and Texas coastlines, as did the Narvárez expedition.
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