File:The Spanish borderlands; a chronicle of old Florida and the Southwest (1921) (14780173741).jpg

Identifier: spanishborderlan01bolt (find matches)
Title: The Spanish borderlands; a chronicle of old Florida and the Southwest
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Bolton, Herbert Eugene, 1870-1953
Subjects:
Publisher: New Haven, Yale university press (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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Text Appearing Before Image:
When, in March, De Soto was ready to depart,
he made his usual demand for male carriers and for
women. The Chickasaws considered this an in-
sult to be wiped out in blood. They fell upon the
Spaniards at dawn; and, by the time those in the
town were aware, half the houses were in flames."
The men, running in confusion from the fire,
blinded by the smoke and the glare, not able to find
their arms nor to saddle their horses, fell easy prey
to the native archers. The horses snapped their
halters and stampeded, or were burned to death in
their stalls. It would have been a complete victory
for the Indians — and the end of the expedition —
if the natives had not believed that the thunder of
hoofs meant that the cavalry was gathering to fall
upon them. They fled, leaving only one dead on
the field. He had been killed with a lance by De
Soto, who was unhorsed in the act because his
saddle girth was loose. Eleven Spaniards and fifty
horses perished. The army then quickly moved to
another town and turned to at making saddles and

OLD CITY GATEWAY, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA
Drawing from a photograph.

Text Appearing After Image:

HERNANDO DE SOTO 65

lances from ash, and grass mats, to protect their
naked bodies from the cold. Towards the end of
April, De Soto started on, northwestward, and,
during the first week in May, 1541, not far from
the Chickasaw Bluffs, he stood on the east bank of
the Mississippi River.
On the plains, a crossbow's shot from the steep
timbered bank, the army pitched camp. De Sotos
et his men at once to felling trees and constructing
vessels in which to cross the river; for on the west
shore to the north, lay the "richest province" of
Pacaha, whither he was bound. Presently the
cacique of Aquixo, or Arkansas, came over to visit
him, with his lesser chiefs and two hundred war-
riors. The chiefs sat in the sterns of their canoes
under skin awnings; and chiefs and warriors were
painted with ochre, wearing great bunches of
white and other plumes of many colors. Some
held feathered shields in their hands, with whicht
hey sheltered the oarsmen on either side, the war-
riors standing erect from bow to stern, holding
bows and arrows ....

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