Western Conquest Trails
by Donald E. SheppardThis portion of DeSoto's Conquest Trail was unusual in that a different general led the army. Hernando de Soto, who had led his army across America searching for gold and a passage to China during the preceding three years, had died just months before. The new general, Luis de Moscoso, was amiable and well liked, but not the leader DeSoto had been. Native Americans perceived Moscoso's weakness, gullibility, within days of his Texas entry. That weakness would be exploited by Indian guides who would lead the army into dangerous places, hoping to starve them to death. The army's only native Spaniard Indian language interpreter had also died the preceding winter, so the army was forced to rely on sign language to communicate with deceptive Caddo and Tonkawan Indian guides. Their directions would confuse DeSoto historians for centuries.
DeSoto's army crossed the Sabine River into Texas at "Naguatex" for several days starting on August 17th, 1542. They would retreat back to Naguatex two months later for Harvest Moon on October 23, having spent 59 days moving through Texas and a week at their destination.
The Chroniclers say they traveled southwest from Naguatex to a mountainous region, turned around and marched back for three weeks, stopping only each night to find food. At their average marching rate of 11 miles per day, measured along straight lines between camps, they back tracked 230 miles. Those mountains were found at Austin. The army had followed El Camino Real de los Tejas to them and the Old San Antonio Road back, the same roads used by Texas pioneers for centuries.
Entering Texas Elvas says, "...hearing that the (Sabine) river could be crossed, he (the army's new general) passed to the other side and found a village without any people (at Joaquin, TX). He lodged in the open field (toward Center, TX) and sent word to the chief to come where he was and give him a guide for the forward journey. A few days later (the army all having crossed the river), seeing that the (chief) did not come... he sent two captains, each in a different direction, to burn the towns and capture any Indians they might find. They burned many provisions and captured many Indians. The chief, on beholding the damage that his land was receiving, sent six of his principal man and three Indians with them as guides who knew the (Tonkawan) language of the region ahead where the governor was about to go.
"He immediately left Naguatex and after marching three days reached a town of four or five houses, belonging to the chief of that miserable province called Nisohone (at today's Nacogdoches). Two days later, the guides who were guiding the governor, if they had to go toward the west, guided them toward the east, and sometimes they went through dense forests, wandering off the road (southwest of Nacogdoches). The governor ordered them hanged from a tree, and an Indian woman, who had been captured at Nisohone, guided him, and he went back to look for the road (finding the road near Douglass: El Camino Real de los Tejas)."
"Two days later (under Full Moon on August 25th) he reached another wretched land called Lacone..." at Alto, above Caddoan Mounds State Historic Park. "There he captured an Indian who said that the land of Nondacao was a very populous region and the houses scattered about one from another as is customary in mountains, and that there was abundance of corn..." starting at Mission Tejas, from which Texas got its name, on the Neches River, centered at Crockett, to the Trinity River.
Elvas concluded this chapter of his report with, "The chief and his Indians came weeping like those of Naguatex, that being their custom in token of obedience." He brought "a great quantity of fish... and gave him a guide to the province of Soacatino..." several villages down the road.
Biedma says, "From here the Indians told us that we could not find more villages (west of there), but rather that we should descend southwest and south, because there we would find villages and food, and that going the way that we asked about (west) there were some great stretches of sand, and neither villages nor any food... We took another guide who led us to a province that is called Hais (at Centerville - Tonkawan Indians), where cows (buffalo) are in the habit of gathering..."
Elvas confirms Biedma, "The governor departed from Nandacao for Soacatino and after he had marched for five days arrived at the province of Aays (Biedma's Hais). The Indians who lived there had not heard of Christians, and as soon as they perceived that they had entered their lands, the country was aroused... the affair lasted the greater part of the day before they reached the village...
Inca says of Texas, "Returning to our Castilians, whom we left eager to travel (away from DeSoto's gravesite in Arkansas) - a long distance and they were later to regret having traveled so far - we said that after marching through the provinces we could not name, because we (he) do not know what their names were, and through which they marched for more than a hundred leagues (it's 114 leagues from Lake Village) - at the end of this distance they came to a province called Auche..." Biedma's Hais, Elvas' Aays, all at Centerville.
Although displaced, Inca later adds, "Under these difficulties they (had) continued their journey, always toward the west, and... sighted inhabited country from the tops of some hills through which they were going. This gave them the relief that can be imagined, though on reaching the settlements, they found that the Indians had gone to the woods and that the land was poor and sterile. The pueblos were not like the others they had seen, but the houses were scattered through the fields in groups of four or five, badly built and worse arranged, looking more like huts of melon growers than dwellings. But for all this they satisfied their hunger with a quantity of fresh beef they found in them. They also found fresh cowhides, though they never saw the cattle alive nor would the Indians ever say where they got them."
Elvas says, "Great damage was done the Indians. The day the governor departed thence, the Indian who was guiding them said that he had heard (Chief) Nondacao say that the Indians of Soacatino had seen Christians. At this all were very glad, as they thought it might be true and that they might have entered New Spain (Mexico)... and that, if it were so, they would have it in their power to get out of Florida, since they had found nothing of profit, for they feared lest they get lost in some unpeopled region."
Biedma says, "We departed from here (Hais, at Centerville) and arrived at the province of Xacatin (beyond the Navasota River), which was among some dense forests and lacked food."
Elvas says of that route segment, "...another guided him to Soacatino (Province - Biedma's Xacatin), whether he arrived the next day. It was a very poor land and there was great lack of corn there.
"He asked the Indians whether they knew of other Christians. They said they had heard it said that they were traveling about near there to the southward" Cabeza de Vaca, a stranded Spaniard, had been there.
Biedma says, "From here the Indians guided us east to other towns, which were small and had little food, saying that they were leading us to where there were other Christians like us. It seemed afterward to be a lie and that they could not have news of any others but us; since we had made so many turns, in some of these they must have heard of our passing."
"We turned south again, with purpose of living or dying traversing to New Spain (Mexico), and we walked about six days journey south and southwest..." to Austin, the army's final destination.
Inca says of that journey, "The Spaniards (had) rested in that pueblo of Auche (Centerville) for two days, it being the principal one of the province. On informing themselves about the things that would be helpful on their journey, they learned that two days' march from the pueblo there was a great uninhabited region that was four days' journey in extent..." Elvas called that region Soacatino, Biedma called it Xacatin Province.
Elvas, exasperated, says of that journey, "We marched for twenty days (to the end of their Texas trail) through a poorly populated region where they endured great need and suffered; for the little corn the Indians had they hid in the forests and buried..."
Inca, however, details this part of the journey, "...our people left Auche (Centerville), and in two days' march they reached the uninhabited country (starting at Navasota River, the east end of that province), through which they traveled four more days over a wide road that seemed to be a public highway (to Rockdale, the west end of that province which spanned the Brazos River )... On the second day of their march through that sterile and poorly inhabited province (probably near Ridge), which our people called the province of the Vaqueros because of the meat and hides of cattle that they found in it, an Indian desired to show his spirit and valor with a strange and mad act that he performed...
"...the Castilians traveled through the province they named that of the Vaqueros for more than thirty leagues (80 miles from Centerville). At the end of them (near Rockdale, beyond the Brazos River) that poor settlement ceased, and they (forward scouts on horseback) saw that there were large mountain ranges and forests to the west and learned that they were uninhabited..." beyond Austin.
Elvas, one week beyond Aays, says, "On reaching a province called Guasco, they found maize with which they loaded the horses and the Indians whom they were taking. Thence they went to another village called Naquiscoga. The Indians said they had never heard of other Christians. The governor ordered them put to the torture, and they said that they [other Christians] had reached another domain ahead called Nacacahoz and had returned thence toward the west whence they had come.
"The governor reached Nacacahoz in two days and some Indian women were captured there. Among them was one who said that she had seen Christians and that she bad been in their hands but had escaped. The governor sent a captain and fifteen horse to the place where the Indian woman said she had seen them, in order to ascertain whether there were any trace of horses or any token of their having reached there. After having gone three or four leagues, the Indian woman who was guiding them said that all she had said was a lie; and so they considered what the other Indians had said about having seen Christians in the land of Florida. And inasmuch as the land thereabout was very poor in maize, and there was no tidings of any village westward, they returned to Guasco.
"There the Indians told them that ten days' journey thence toward the west was a river called Daycao where they sometimes went to hunt in the mountains and to kill deer; and that on the other side of it they had seen people, but did not know what village it was. There the Christians (the scouts) took what maize they found and could carry and after marching for ten days through an unpeopled region reached the river of which the Indians had spoken..." the Colorado River at Austin.
Elvas has enumerated 36 days on the Texas trail thus far, arriving at Austin on September 24th, 1542, Full Moon.