by Donald E. SheppardThe trail DeSoto used to leave Florida is still there today and is, perhaps, the most apparent segment of his Florida route. It started at Aute (near Panama City), where a good number of troops spent that winter. DeSoto's exit, however, started at Iviahica (Marianna) with Rangel, his personal secretary. His trail passed through large vegetable fields, along Union Road where the fields are still cultivated today. The army was ordered to harvest and pack for a long journey ahead.
DeSoto's destination was a "land rich in pearls, gold and silver, toward the sun's rising." DeSoto's intelligence of that place came from a young captive, taken at Napituca. DeSoto planned to raid that place and return to Maldonado's port (Mobile Bay) the next winter, then settle it with additional supplies and personnel brought from Havana. DeSoto had sent scouts out from Iviahica during the winter, but their reconnaissance was limited by hostile Apalachens once out of range of reinforcement. DeSoto would be the first white man into the next province, an unexplored territory.
Rangel tells us that DeSoto departed on Wednesday, March 3, 1540, and spent that night at the river Gaucuco, then arrived at a great river Capachequi early the following Friday. It took him two days plus part of a third to get to the great river. Elvas says it took his people four days to get there, while Biedma says he marched northward five days to get to the great river. Inca, who does not even mention a starting date or a great river as the others had, says his informant traveled three days to the north, camped on a high peninsula for three days, then marched two days to the provincial boundary. These four different statements deserve particular attention because they say so much about an army that has been so misunderstood for so long.
Less than four leagues (10 miles) north of Iviahica is a peninsula pointing south at the confluence of two creeks: Marshall and Cowart's Creeks, which merge to become the Chipola River. That peninsula's very high ground, with many fertile fields beyond its trees and swamp on either side, is exactly as Inca described it today, with very deep mud around the point of a high peninsula. That place is called "Sills" on U.S.G.S. maps today (the "Sills Fla.-Ala." quad). Maybe Desoto called its river Gaucuco (today's Chipola River), the first river he would come to after leaving Iviahica. To the north-east of Sills is the river basin's northern "natural bridge", located on today's Alabama-Florida border. That fording place and the trail to it are detailed on the border survey map of 1853 and are still there today.
Desoto marched from Iviahica to Sills the first day, Wednesday, March 3 of 1540, crossing Marshall Creek. The next day he forded the river's branches on Cowart's Creek and rode into Alabama, where he camped just short of the Chattahooche River. He arrived at that great river on the morning of the third day out of Iviahica. Elvas left Iviahica with DeSoto, but spent an extra day marching at a lesser rate while gathering food and herding pigs. He arrived at the great river the fourth day. Biedma departed from Aute, marched northward for three days to Sills (sixteen leagues), then into today's Alabama to camp, then to the great river; five days on the trail. This lends credence to Biedma's being at Aute when he made the observations mentioned earlier. Inca's informant also departed from Aute, but did so two days before Biedma, arriving at Sills the third day out and gathered food there for the next three days. Then he departed for Alabama, camped, and arrived at the provincial boundary on his eighth day out of Aute and six days after the others started their march. If this scenario is correct, the troops arrived at the great river, the provincial boundary, in this order: DeSoto's group on the third day, Elvas's the fourth day, Biedma's the fifth day, and the Inca's informant on the sixth day.
The great river was the mighty Chattahoochee. It was so large and swift that Desoto's army had to cross it, in turn, on one large wooden raft. It took five days pulling chains for the entire army to cross. The horses were pulled across by ropes, some of them half-drowned during the effort. DeSoto had planned the army's arrival times at the great river for good reason; not one man would be idle for as much as a day during the process of moving his army into an unknown continent. That was DeSoto's genius. The chroniclers alluded to it and to their admiration of him throughout their journey. We, however, have misunderstood them and DeSoto all along. He has been America's "Great Unknown" for centuries.
Perhaps the biggest irony of our misunderstanding DeSoto for so long is that we believed the lies of the Indians that Biedma warned us about. He told us, at Napituca's Village, that those people told many great lies about the country further inland. Their descendants had told post-DeSoto Spanish Missionaries in Napituca Province many great lies about DeSoto and his army wintering in Tallahassee. Narvaez had believed their lies and was led to Aute and death. We believed their lies and were led to Tallahassee and ignorance. That tribe's enemy was DeSoto, its credibility and honor came from defeating a foolish Narvaez. Those Indians tricked everyone except DeSoto, but he had Juan Ortiz to sort it out.