CHARLOTTE  HARBOR

Ortiz had been captured by Hirrihigua's people when he disembarked to read a note, but years later he was led away from Ucita, Hirrihigua's village.^{I 101-7} Ortiz was led to an Indian bridge two leagues (just over five miles) from the village and crossed a river on that bridge (the same bridge used by Narvaez with Cabeza de Vaca). Ortiz then fled six additional leagues to Mococo's Village,^{I 107} where he spent years before DeSoto's people found him. Biedma tells us^{B 226} that when the army departed Ucita, it marched west (to the Myakka River, the only river west of the harbor's head) and then north-west. The army made that turn just before the Indian bridge to proceed up the river's east bank on "firmer" ground: besides, the bridge was probably too small for DeSoto's army, as it had been for DeSoto's horsemen driving livestock weeks earlier. DeSoto's people reported building a bridge to cross the river further up; the trail would pass by Mococo's Village, eight leagues from Ucita.^{B 225, I 132}

Narvaez and Cabeza de Vaca, with a much smaller army and with no livestock to drive, had crossed the Indian bridge from the opposite direction years before; they had landed at Englewood, less than three leagues south of the bay head at the bridge site.^{I 101, V} In fact, the fields on the west bank of the Myakka River, six leagues above the Indian bridge point, were called "Old Spanish Fields" by Florida's pioneers and are labeled as such on John Lee Williams' Map of East Florida of 1827. Those "Old Spanish Fields" were simply DeSoto artifacts strewn about when the army departed; Chief Mococo had them collected at his village; Ortiz would report finding Chief Mococo's village two leagues from the seashore.^{E 62}

The Thirty Lancers, led by Anasco, returned from north Florida five months after leaving Ucita when DeSoto decided to move his headquarters from Ucita to another harbor more accessible to the continent's interior. The Lancer's journey is related by Inca^{I 204-227} with a precision which betrays his noted confusion of place names and total ignorance of provincial boundary. If we simply ignore Inca's speculation of the names of places which the Lancers encountered near mid-journey, however, we can learn a great deal about the Lancers' trip and, thereby, about DeSoto's trail. The Lancers rode for eleven days back down DeSoto's trail and described their daily movements and the obstacles they encountered along the way. On their last night before reaching Ucita they camped three leagues short of Mococo's village and eleven leagues short of Ucita,^{I 224, 227} reinforcing the reported eight-league separation of those villages by Biedma. Just over one league from Ucita, the Lancers feared for the safety of the men left at port when no horse tracks were found in a clearing, but were pleased to find fresh tracks and ash from clothes being washed at a lagoon less than half-a-league from the village.^{I 226-227}

Recall, too, that the men spent their first night ashore near Ucita, two leagues from where they disembarked. That measure from Locust Point meets the half-league measure from the harbor's only lagoon at a site astride a creek at the northeast end of Tippicanoe Bay.^{E 57} The Myakka River is two leagues from that site, as Ortiz reported. The clearing the Thirty Lancers passed, without horse tracks and lying just over a league from the village, is a large creek bed on El Jobean, not far from where the horsemen camped for the first time in Florida. The fishing enclosure hooks southward into Muddy Cove half-a-league south of Ucita and is clearly distinguishable as such. Hog Island, a canebrake where Hirrihigua's people hid from DeSoto but were later dispersed,^{I 122, R 257} is two leagues from Ucita, exactly as described.

Today, Ucita is a residential subdivision with paved roads and man-made canals running through it, seven feet above sea-level but with few homes built on it. That site shows on the original Florida Township survey as dense scrub, several hundred acres of it, in an otherwise "third rate pine forest" of 10,000 acres or more (Field Notes of the Township Survey of 1849). DeSoto had felled the trees around Ucita to prevent surprise attack; his army probably used the logs to build dwellings and storage buildings.^{E 58} Scrub oak grew over that area, and at no other in that proximity, in the intervening three centuries preceding the Township Survey.

Since DeSoto's Landing the pines have all been harvested or burned; the entire area is covered with scrub, pine and palmetto today. A creek that flowed through the village has been rerouted, but the bed is still intact for archaeological investigation; its banks are undisturbed. The Myakka River's English name came from Chief Mococo. U-sep-pa Island (Useppa in English), near the mouth of Charlotte Harbor, was named that for U-ci-ta people when they resettled away from DeSoto and closer to their off-shore fishing grounds.

Tippecanoe Bay, with two or three feet of water at low tide today, despite extensive accretion due to upland dredging, accommodated the off-loading of ships near the harbor anchorage by landing craft.^{E 57, R 57, 255} Water depth in the main anchorage at the head of Charlotte Harbor is at least seventeen feet today, as it was on Bernard Romans' Chart of 1774. Likewise, the shallows of the channel south of Cape Haze are clearly shown (12 feet of water at mean tide), accounting for the fact that DeSoto was delayed until Spring Tide on May 31, 1539 to enter the harbor's anchorage (see a Spanish Galleon). The sand bars at the harbor's entrance are also clearly shown on it, exactly as Rangel described them;^{R 253} as they still are today. The main anchorage is four leagues from Ucita^{R 254} and on a straight line down the Myakka River, making ship's mastheads visible for many leagues up that river, as reported by the scouts who found Ortiz.^{I 113} Chief Mococo had released Ortiz upon hearing of the Spanish presence. Ortiz had fled down the Myakka River toward Ucita and was spotted by DeSoto's scouts, who thought he and his escorts were hostile natives.^{I 114, E 59, B 225, R 255} Ortiz could only make the sign of the cross and call out "Xivilla" when approached by the heavily armed scouts.^{I 115} The scouts shouted with joy and escorted their prize to DeSoto,^{I 117, E 59, B 225, R 255} but due to his excitement, it took Ortiz some time to remember how to speak his own native language fluently.

To the north and east of Ucita are extensive swamps that livestock could not cross, but the swamps are dried today by drainage canals and the borrow-pits used to build Interstate 75, which traverses them. DeSoto's army would depart Ucita to the west and north-west, across El Jobean over hard ground. Horsemen would drive the livestock. Narvaez had probably walked his army northeast from Ucita, expecting to feed his horses and to find the Apalachen gold he had heard about.^V He would have passed through the marshes of the Peace River then crossed it just before reaching today's Arcadia, where he had found maize growing; all within his ten to twelve league journey.^V

Narvaez had continued north, inland of the Peace River, but had eventually been led by circumstance over the Great Swamp,^V the only fording place on a river which flows across all northbound routes from Ucita.. DeSoto's people would report crossing the same swamp, on the same river, at the same place and for the same reason twelve years later, as we shall see.

DeSoto stayed at Ucita for six weeks. He wrote a letter to Cuba^{I 375}, transport vessels were off-loaded and sent on their way, patrols were dispatched, and DeSoto's two brigs were safely secured at anchor. French Corsairs plied the new world waters^{I 379}, so DeSoto left armed sailors on the brigs. When all was settled, DeSoto left at least seventy men and twenty horsemen at port to guard the stores.^{E 64, I 131, R 258} His army could not find captives to carry the stores inland, and DeSoto was kind to Mococo's people. The army herded pigs, instead, so the men could eat when all else failed.^{R 259}

THE GRAND ENTRADA

DeSoto's army left Ucita on July 15th, 1539, on New Moon, headed for Ocale Province, where they planned to spend the winter in its "abundance of gold, silver and many pearls", as scouts reported captives had proclaimed^{E 64, I 376}. DeSoto marched west from Ucita, but did not cross the Myakka River on the Indian bridge or attempt to ford the river there. His horsemen had learned why not to ford it six weeks earlier: the bottom is still black sticky mud today. DeSoto marched up the firm east bank of the river instead, headed north-west.

That trail would cross the Myakka River's north-east bend seven leagues from Ucita and a little more than league below Mococo's west bank village. They camped on the river's bank opposite Mococo's Village their first night out,^{R 258-9} having traveled about six leagues that day. The trail they took is the only trail shown from Charlotte Harbor on the John Lee Williams Map of Eastern Florida of 1827: it bypasses the massive swamp west of the river's big bend where Ortiz first sighted Mococo's workers just below their village years earlier.^{E 61-2} That swamp is drained by Cow Pen Slough today.

The next morning, the army crossed a bridge they built over the Myakka River^{R 259} just below Mococo's Village, then stopped to visit the chief.^{I 132,} The chief shed tears at the army's departure, knowing full well that the surrounding villagers would eventually retaliate for his kindness to the invaders. The army rounded Lower Myakka Lake that afternoon by turning north-east near Mococo's Village, then crossed Howard Creek and camped on the shore of Myakka Lake about a league beyond the creek; making about five leagues their second day (the Lancers would also camp there on their last night on the trail; eleven leagues from Ucita and three leagues from Mococo, as reported above).

Howard Creek, just below that camp, looks like a river with high and steep banks so it was also bridged by the army. On the army's next morning at that camp the horses were spooked by a rabbit and ran back down the trail for more than a league before terrified troops could reassert control over them.^{R 259} The horses had run back to the tree line at Howard Creek but not over the bridge, then stopped, as horses do when they pass fresh scents. DeSoto's people christened Myakka Lake, accordingly, the Lake of the Rabbit, and the army had crossed two bridges upon leaving Ucita, all as Rangel reported.^Ibid

With Paracoxi Village as their intermediate destination,^{I 132} Hernando de Soto's army continued to the north-east for three more days. They camped the first night at what they called the lake of St. John,^{R 249} which is called Clearwater Lake today. It lies northeast of Sarasota. The next day the army traveled over a desert plain where DeSoto's servant reportedly "died" of thirst^Ibid, located at the junction of four of Florida Counties: Hillsborough, Polk, Manatee and Hardee. Horses drank what could be transported and, one can observe even today, there are no lakes, springs, sink holes or creeks in that region, a most unusual place.

The third day they came to what they called the plain of Guacoco,^Ibid Florida's largest field of heavy sub-surface phosphate deposit, nature's fertilizer, near today's Bradley Junction. That plain covered at least 130,000 acres of phosphate fields, the only one like it in all of Florida; the Indians called that entire province by the name of the village quartered there: Paracoxi. The army gathered maize in quantity for the first time,^Ibid having traveled 14 leagues from Myakka Lake in three days. They camped just south of Paracoxi Village.^{I 224}

DeSoto's ambition to push his army rapidly overland, at six leagues the first day and five the second, proved to be more than the army could handle. They averaged just over four-and-a-half leagues their last three days on the trail. That pace would hold for the next year, even with captives acquired from Paracoxi's fields to lighten their load. That marching schedule, five days on the road and two at rest for the entire army, would hold, with few exceptions, for the next three year's marches.

Inca says that Paracoxi Village was twenty-five leagues north-north-east of Ucita,^{I 126} which is the distance and direction they had traveled in Florida. Biedma says that Paracoxi Village was up to twenty leagues from the coast,^{B 226} measured from the "coast" near the mouth of Tampa Bay.

Surrounded by surface mines today, Paracoxi Village was located just south-east of today's Brewster, near IMC Agrico's giant South Pierce Phosphate plant, one of the largest in Florida. Upon DeSoto's arrival, his scouts reported that a wide body of water, just three leagues beyond, had such deep mud on either side that it was impassable for the army;^{I 133} referring to the Peace River at today's Fort Meade, at that distance east of the village. But they also reported that they had found a very good crossing of that swamp, which the army could reach in just two days, and pass over it easily.^Ibid

The next day they turned east and hiked three leagues, crossed the wide and shallow spillway with ease, then camped half-a-league beyond on a plain called Tocaste near a large lake.^{R 259, I 133} That plain is just above today's Bartow Airport; the lake is Lake Hancock. Between the lake and airport there is a very wide hill which stands fifty feet over the lake and plain; the view from it is spectacular. At Tocaste, DeSoto was informed of the impassibility of the country further on;^Ibid the Green Swamp north and east of there was too large to move an army over (it still covers hundreds of thousands of acres). So, with one division, DeSoto recrossed the spillway^Ibid and explored the abandoned west side of Lake Hancock for another passage to the north, ^{E 64} searching for Ocale.^{R 259} He rode through the villages near today's Auburndale and found the lakes and swamps to its north impassable for the army and its livestock. The villages are borrow pits today.

DeSoto dispatched riders^{I 135-9, R 259} on the Full Moon with orders for the army to advance and cross that swamp. The riders had to back-track, unseen for safety, through an inhabited region.^{R 259} They reported seeing many Indians that night performing pagan ceremony around giant fires.^{I 137} Once the riders were reinforced by the army at the spillway to ward-off morning attackers, all recrossed it; most camped again just north of Mulberry; a few rode the full twelve leagues to the Great Swamp to reinforce DeSoto.^{I 137, 140-1 R 260}

In the next two days the rest of the army would march the remaining eight leagues to the Great Swamp,^{I 142} passing well south of Lakeland . The Indians fled when the army advanced. By the time the army arrived at the Great Swamp, DeSoto had crossed it and ridden six additional leagues into Ocale Province^{E 64, B 226, R 261, I 141-2} (Inca calls it Acuera Province). The place were DeSoto camped is called Dade City today and lies "about twenty leagues from Paracoxi Village on a line running more or less north and south."^{I 142} DeSoto had ridden a trail from just above the Hillsborough River to Dade City which Florida pioneers would call "The Fort King Road" (Goza 1963:60-70). Florida's Second Seminole War would erupt on that road above Dade City (Laumer 1968,1995; Mahon 1967:104-106).

DeSoto's army spent five days struggling to cross the Great Swamp and emerging from it into "Uqueten" Village,^{R 261} today's Branchton. They would hike up the same road that DeSoto followed into Ocale.^{R 361, E 65} The men pillaged maize fields^{I 146} near "Acura Village,"^{R 261} today's Zephyrhills, but they camped in Dade City; today's headquarters of Florida's citrus juice concentrate industry.

Narvaez had crossed the Great Swamp, at the same place and for the same reason eleven years before DeSoto.^{I 134} He had encountered several hundred Indians while crossing the swamp with "great difficulty", but was led to their village half-a-league away; ^V today's Branchton. Narvaez had found large quantities of maize close by;^Ibid at today's Zephyrhills. When Vaca was dispatched to find a harbor reported to be nearby (Tampa Bay), he had encountered wetlands filled with oysters and a river he could not cross.^V The Hillsborough River re-broadens just below its branches at the Great Swamp; raccoons eat the oysters there today. That once extensive swamp on very flat land near today's Rock Hammock would be substantially drained in this century by Tampa's Bypass Canal into McKay Bay.

When scouts re-crossed the swamp^V and spent a day proceeded down the river's south bank tree line, they found a shallow bay the next morning.^V They had found McKay Bay on May 20, 1528, at which Spring Low Tide occurs on the morning of the new moon, precisely when they examined it. They could wade across it. ^V If they had seen the deep water of Tampa Bay from McKay Bay it would have looked like the Gulf of Mexico from their vantage point just east of today's Ybor City. They had returned that day with news that the "harbor" was too shallow for ships, and Narvaez had proceeded north looking for his ships along the shallow Gulf shoreline.^V

RIDGES AND FLAT WOODS

Once DeSoto's men all crossed the Great Swamp and encamped around the small village of Ocale,^{B 226} DeSoto sent scouting parties out in all directions; they found villages and fields but no treasure.^{R 261} The captives from Paracoxi who had lied about Ocale were fed to the dogs. Fresh captives, who had witnessed the feeding, were believed, however, when they said gold rich lands were just one week to the north.^{E 65} With that news, DeSoto advanced with one battalion^Ibid toward Apalache. Biedma says that place would be found by "...traveling ever toward New Spain, at a distance of ten to twelve leagues from the coast."^{B 226}

The "coast" Biedma was referring to was the four braza (24 feet) deep sea lane, as illustrated by the transport captains at landfall. On average, that coast is located about seventeen miles (seven leagues) off-shore from Florida's western shoreline, putting DeSoto's trail about three to five leagues (eight to thirteen miles) inland of that shoreline. Months later when DeSoto's Thirty Lancers returned down his trail from Apalache, it took them exactly one week to get back to that point.^{I 220}

Like Narvaez before him, DeSoto would proceed northward from Dade City, but down the Withlacoochee River and through today's Withlacoochee State Forest, a game preserve, described then as being abundant in "fallow deer... red deer like large bulls... very large bears and panthers", all on high and dry land.^{I 146} Then his trail would go over Florida's rock phosphate ridge and "as it had maize in abundance, they gave it the name Villafarta,"^{E 66} meaning "fertile place" in Spanish . Then his trail would cross a river, enter another province and pass through "many forests (with) streams that flowed through it, and very level."^{I 152-3}

These were Florida's "flat woods", as Florida's pioneers would call them, between the Withlacoochee and St. Marks Rivers. All of these pine trees would be "harvested" in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by "naval stores" companies which would first drain them of sap, to distill for turpentine and caulk residues, then build railroads through that sandy flat country to remove the massive felled timbers.

Most of DeSoto's trail from Dade City was a railroad until recently. That trail went through Rital, Istachatta, Fort Cooper (near Inverness), Hernando and South Dunnellon (southwest of Ocala). DeSoto's people would call them, respectively, Ytara, Potano, Utinama, Mala Paz (Bad Peace) and Cholupaha.^{E 66} He camped at each of these places at four league intervals. Inca says they traveled nineteen leagues in doing so.^{E 66} The rock phosphate ridge that DeSoto came to twelve leagues north of Dade City^{I 148} became well known to the U. S. Army. On it they fought the biggest battles of the Seminole Wars at today's "Cove of the Withlacoochee" (Mahon 1967:135-218; Sprague 1964[1848]).

DeSoto's people called today's Hernando "Bad Peace" for New Moon misbehavior by the natives. Although Rangel only alluded to it, Desoto probably slaughtered ^{R 262} a number of these natives. Evidence of Spanish activity has been excavated nearby at both Ruth Smith and the Tatham Mounds. The Seminole Indians called that area Char-lo-pop-ka (Sprague 1964:279); DeSoto's captives called that area Cho-lu-pa-ha; today it is called Tsala A-pop-ka; probably the same name. Only Inca called that place Ocale, the name the others assigned to the entire province.

DeSoto's division built a wooden bridge near Cholupaha^{E 66} to cross the River of Discords^{R 263} between "precipices on either side as high as the length of two pikes and as perpendicular as two walls"^{I 148} (a "pike" is 18 feet long [Stone 1934:501]). That bridge was built on the Withlacoochee River at Dunnellon, with the only vertical banks that high on the river (as reported on the Township survey of 1845 before the river was dredged for phosphate). DeSoto called it the River of Discords because his favorite greyhound, Bruto, was killed chasing Indians in it.^{I 148-9}

DeSoto left Dunnellon , following the same Indian trails Narvaez and Vaca had used, bound for Caliquen Village,^{E 66} sixteen leagues up the way as reported by captives.^{I 153} DeSoto's men passed the first eight leagues in two days, but half way through the third day, probably while they were struggling to ford the Waccasassa River and Otter Creek, DeSoto and his guard proceeded to Caliquen Village.^{I 153}

That village was just west of today's Chiefland, yesteryear's Janney, once the headquarters of Peninsular Naval Stores Company (west-south-west of Gainesville). It is a ghost town today, just over a league south of the Suwannee River. The "flat woods" are all gone. A small cemetery marks the spot where Caliquen village once stood and a long, crescent shaped hill just south of it is where Chief Caliquen lived overlooking the "valley."^{I 154-5} Biedma called this village Aqua-calecuen,^{B 226} Rangel called it Aqua-caleyquen.^{R 263} Cabeza de Vaca, with Narvaez, had called the chief Dul-chanchellin.^V Only Inca called it Ochile,^{I 155-9} which would confuse him and many trail seekers for centuries.

DeSoto captured the chief in a dawn raid, then returned back down the trail to find his division three leagues back.^{I 154-5} They had advanced in his day-long absence, probably another four leagues or so, making the distance between the Withlacoochee River and Caliquen Village about fifteen leagues. Because Caliquen Village was so large, extending northward over a league to the Suwannee River, and its chief held captive, DeSoto sent for the remainder of his army from Ocale before attempting to proceed.^{E 67, R 263}

Riders were dispatched on the Full Moon. Meanwhile, DeSoto was reassured of Apalache's abundance at Caliquen, but was sternly warned about Chief Caliquen's warring brother Napituca, whose village was on the road to Apalache.^{I 157-60} DeSoto was reminded of the plight of Narvaez for the first time there, in detail, by captives from that province.^{E 66}

Over the next several weeks the remainder of the army advanced from Ocale and DeSoto positioned them around Caliquen as they arrived. The army had buried its heavy implements before advancing, however, believing in imminent return to winter in Ocale.^{E 67} Once the army was rested and more captives were taken, the army crossed the Suwannee River, camped, then proceeded for one week to Chief Napituca's Village.^{E 67} That route segment would be the army's longest slog through swamp land.

Part 3 - Napituca and Paradise         YOUR STATE