DeSoto's Southern Trail
by Donald E. SheppardHernando de Soto entered South Carolina from Georgia on April 21, 1540. He forded the Savannah River's branches above Shell Landing's broad flats. That place would be channelized in order to ship cotton downstream from Augusta, the world's cotton warehouse before the Civil War.
One of DeSoto's Chronicler's said, "This day we lost many pigs that we had brought tame from Cuba, which the current carried off."
Another says, "He (DeSoto) took corn (from Patofa near Waynesboro, Georgia) for four days and marched for six days along a path which gradually grew narrower until it was lost. He marched in the direction where the youth guided him and crossed two rivers by fording (walking across them), each of which was two crossbow-shots (nearly one-half mile) wide."
"The Indian guides had already lost their bearings, and they did not know where to go or what road to give us." That desolate land is owned by The Atomic Energy Commission today. Nuclear waste is stored there.
" The next day, Sunday, they went to another forest or grove to rest (on the Savannah River's east bank); and the next day, Monday, they traveled without a road and crossed another very large river (Upper Three Runs), and on Tuesday they spent the night alongside a stream (near today's Williston), and on Wednesday they arrived at another extremely large river (South Fork Edisto River, in heavy rain on the Full Moon)..."
"... difficult to cross, which was divided in two branches, with bad entrances and worse exits (with a massive swamp at the approach, the terrain elevation doubles to more than 500 feet just beyond there). Now we carried nothing with us to eat, and with great labor we crossed the river, then arrived at some settlements of Indian fishermen or hunters (below Springfield where shacks are still built for the same reason.)... and the Indians that they brought lost their bearings, since neither they nor the Spaniards knew the road nor what way they should take..."
"...the governor came out (of that massive swamp) to a pine grove and threatened the youth and made as if he would throw him to the dogs because he had deceived him, saying that it was a march of four days, and for nine days he had marched (over rivers and swamps)... and now the men were weak because of the great economy which had been practiced with regard to the corn. The youth said that he did not know where he was..."
"... and the Indians that brought us lost their bearings, since neither they nor the Spaniards knew the road ("...Because the road they had been following up to that time, which appeared to be a very wide public highway, came to an end, and many narrow paths that led through the woods in every direction were lost after they had followed them for a short distance, and they were without a path.")... and the governor proposed, as he had always done, that it was better to go forward, without his or their knowing in what they guessed correctly or in what they erred. And being perplexed in this labyrinth, on Friday, the twenty-third of April, the governor sent men to look for roads and towns..."
"...(DeSoto) began to give a pound of pork to each Spaniard... and we boiled it in water without salt or anything else. And from here (South Fork Edisto River) the Governor sent (men) in two directions to look for a road..." "one he sent upriver to the northwest, and (the other) went downriver to the southeast..." "...and he gave each one a limit of ten days to go and come back, to see if they found something or saw a trace of a town."
Perhaps thinking that he had been deceived by the Indian guides who had lead him into these foothills, and with heavy rains precluding his visibility of any mountains ahead, DeSoto may have stopped there to determine if there were villages with foods or barren mountains ahead.
"The horses went without any food, and they and their owners (were) dying of hunger, without a road, with continual rain, the rivers continually swelling and narrowing the land, and without hope of towns or knowledge of where they had to go to look, calling and asking God for mercy. And Our Lord remedied them in this manner: On Sunday, the twenty-fifth of April, (Captain) Juan de Anasco came with news that he had found a town and food (near Orangeburg - in South Carolina's vegetable garden)... and he brought from there some Indians who spoke with the Indian (boy named Perico) who deceived us... And (the Indian boy) again affirmed the lies (about the treasures of that land) that he had told us, and we believed him..."
"The governor sent (many of) the Indians from Patofa back since he had nothing to give them to eat [fearing that they might disrupt any favorable relations he might otherwise establish with so wealthy a nation as Cofitachequi, if he could find it]."
"...and having written some letters and placed them in some gourds, they buried them in a hidden place, and on a large tree left some letters that said where the Spaniards would find them ("Dig at the foot of this pine tree and you will find a letter..."). And thus they departed... on a Monday, the twenty-sixth of April (1540). This day the governor arrived with some on horseback at the town that is called Himahi (near Orangeburg), and the army remained two leagues (five miles) back, the horses being tired. He found in this town... more than three thousand pounds of toasted corn."
"And the next day the army arrived ("There was no other way to town than marks left on the trees by (Captain) Juan de Anasco,"), and they gave out rations of corn... and there were infinite mulberries... and delicious and very fragrant strawberries. And apart from this they found there by the fields infinite roses... this town they named Succor ("Relief," in English)."
"The next day... (one) who had gone to explore (up the South Fork of Edisto River) arrived and brought four or five Indians, and not one of them would make known the town of their lord nor disclose its location, although they burned one of them alive in front of the others, ("Thereupon, another said that two days' journey thence was a province called Cofitachiqui,")... (another Spaniard, who had gone north) came with news of roads and he left behind two lost companions and the Governor reprimanded him severely, and without letting him rest or eat, he made him return to look for them under penalty of his life should he not bring them."
"During this time the eight hundred Indians (who carried baggage into this province from Patofa, Georgia) did all the harm and injury they could to their enemies, as secretly as possible. They scoured the country for four leagues (ten miles) in every direction, wherever they could do damage. They killed the Indians who they could find, men and women, and took off their scalps to carry away as evidence of their exploits. They sacked the village and temples wherever they could, but did not burn them, as they wished to do, so that the governor would not see or know about it. In short, they left nothing undone that they could think of to harm their enemies and avenge themselves. The cruelty would have continued if on the fifth day of this state of affairs the things that Patofa and his Indians had done and were doing had not come to the governors attention....(DeSoto) decided to dismiss (Chief) Patofa so that he might take his men and return at once to his own country. This he did..."
DeSoto's scouts, at his command, may have led Chief Patofa's hostile Indians, the bearers of the army's supplies, to this place deliberately to keep them away from Cofitachequi (today's Columbia). Those bearers would be replaced before DeSoto left with Orangeburg Indians, who were on friendly terms with Cofitachequi.
COLUMBIA
"Friday, the last day of April (1540), the Governor took some on horseback, the most rested... and went toward Cofitachequi and spent the night hard by a large and deep river (North Fork Edisto River, which he crossed the next morning). "On the way there (to Cofitachequi) Indians were captured who declared that the chieftainess of that land had already heard of the Christians and was awaiting them in her towns,"), and he sent Juan de Anasco with some on horseback to try to have some interpreters and canoes ready in order to cross the river (the Congaree River at Columbia)..." "... which hitherto had been on one side of them, cut across in front of them and the village," where the Saluda River, flowing from the west, joins the Congaree River) "The next day the governor (with select horsemen) arrived at the crossing in front of the town..." DeSoto was on the south bank of the Saluda River at that river's junction with the Congaree River. "Cofitachique (or "Eupaha" according to the Indian boy, Perico) was on the bank of a river that we believed was the river of Santa Elena..." the Congaree-Santee River, which had been visited years earlier by the Spaniard Ayllon's people whose colony had failed. Some of them made it back to Spain with wild stories of gold in this land before DeSoto's people departed Spain.
"...some Indians brought (the Lady of) Cofitachequi on a litter with much prestige. And she sent a message to us that she was delighted that we had come to her land, and that she would give us whatever she could, and she sent a string of pearls of five or six strands to the Governor. She gave us canoes in which we crossed that river (the Congaree River) and divided with us half of the town..." DeSoto, with the horsemen, forded the Saluda River to a place called "The Point" by his troops, lying between the Saluda and Broad Rivers. His foot soldiers stayed on the east bank, in today's downtown Columbia, to eat the food grown and stored there.
"She was young and of fine appearance, and she removed a string of pearls that she wore about her neck and put it on the Governor's neck, in order to ingratiate herself and win his good will... And the Indians walked covered down to the feet with very excellent hides, very well tanned, and blankets of sable and mountain lions which smelled; and the people are very clean and very polite and naturally well developed."
"Monday the third of May, all the rest of the army arrived, and all could not cross until the next day, Tuesday, and not without cost and loss of seven horses which drowned (in the Saluda River, just below Columbia's Zoo). These were among the fattest horses, which fought against the current, but the thin ones, which let themselves go (survived)."
"As soon as he was lodged in the town (Boozer Mall is built about where DeSoto stayed), another gift of many hens was made to him. The land was very pleasing and fertile, and had excellent fields along the rivers (the Saluda, Broad and Congaree Rivers - around which the army of 600+ was strewn, as was DeSoto's habit), the forests being clear and having many walnuts and mulberries. They said that the sea (the Atlantic Ocean) was two days' journey away..."
"According to the Indians, the sea was up to thirty leagues (eighty miles) from there." "Around the town within the compass of a league and a half (four miles) were large uninhabited towns, choked with vegetation, which looked as though no people had inhabited them for some time." The men camped in many of them to find food for themselves and their animals.
"The Indians said that two years ago there had been a plague in that land and they had moved to other towns (Ayllon, or other wayward Spaniard, may have introduced the virus which caused this plague). In the barbacoas (storage bins) of the towns there was considerable amount of clothing and blankets made of thread from the bark of trees and feather mantles - white, gray, vermilion, and yellow - made according to their custom, elegant and suitable for winter. There were also many deerskins, well tanned and colored, with designs drawn on them and made into pantaloons, hose and shoes..." which the army ravaged.
"The chief, observing that the Christians esteemed pearls, told the Governor that he might order certain graves in that town to be examined, for he would find many, and that if he wished to send to the inhabited towns, they could load all their horses. The graves of that town were examined and fourteen arrobas (175 pounds) of pearls were found, babies and birds being made of them."
"... although they were not good because they were damaged through being below the ground and placed amidst the adipose tissue of the Indians. Here we found buried two Castilian axes for cutting wood, and a rosary of beads of jet and some (trinkets) of the kind that they carry from Spain to barter with the Indians. All this we believed they had obtained from barter with those who went with the (lawyer) Ayllon."