NAPITUCA, COMING AND GOING

Hernando de Soto's Thirty Lancers would pass through Napituca Village on their way back down his trail once his army had established their winter encampment in North Florida. The distance the Lancers reported between Napituco and the Suwannee River is the only one we have. Inca tells of their finding the bodies of Indians killed by DeSoto (see below) strewn across Napituca Village as they passed through it. He called it Vitachuco Village.

The lancers would proceed eight leagues beyond Napituca to camp, then ride eighteen leagues the next day and night (under the Harvest Moon of Late October, 1539) and camp five leagues short of a big river; for a total distance of thirty-one leagues from Napituca Village to the big river. They would struggle to cross it into Caliquen Village the next day - leaving a perfect description of the Suwannee River at Lower Clay Landing (photo above).

To warm and dry themselves, the Lancers would spend the remainder of that day between large fires in Caliquen Village. Inca had called that village Ochile when the army went up that trail,^I then confused it with the similarly-titled Ocali,^I on the south bank of the next big river to southward when he reported the Lancers return down it. Be that as it may, the Lancers camped at Caliquen Village just south of Lower Clay Landing. The landmarks described by Inca at each end of that segment of the Thirty Lancers' trail are positively unmistakable.

DeSoto's army left Caliquen Village and marked the trail which the Thirty Lancers followed back, camping at a village (on a lake, it's dry today, one league above the river) their first night out, having spent the day crossing^R the Suwannee River. At their normal pace of four-plus leagues per day, they next camped at "Uriutina, a town of pleasant view and with much food,"^R Cross City, then eleven miles to its northwest in swampland, where the horsemen stopped at "Many Waters,"^R an understatement there, below Steinhatchee River. The troops continued,^E however, stopping at Howell Place that night, then Adams Beach, then on the Fenholloway River near Hampton Springs, then near the Econfina River, all at normal interval. There the horsemen caught-up with the troops, having riden fourteen leagues since last seeing them in swampland.

DeSoto's Chroniclers,^{R E} and Vaca^V with Narvaez the decade before, reported native "flute players" on that flatwoods trail which, Vaca says, "was difficult to travel but wonderful to look upon... In it were vast forests, the trees being astonishingly high" (image at left).

Finally, they all crossed the Aucilla River's natural bridges, forded Cow Creek Swamp and entered Napituca Village, four leagues from the Econfina River and thirty-one leagues from the Suwannee River, as reported by the Thirty Lancers (above).

Biedma says that trail was "ten to twelve leagues from the coast and always toward New Spain..." Narvaez had probably used the same trail DeSoto used, while looking for his ships, given its nearness to the Gulf of Mexico.

Napituca Village lies just above today's Nutall Rise, on a giant plain between the Wacissa and Aucilla Rivers. Miles of abandoned railroad weave through that plain today, attesting to the magnificence of that once great stand reported there. The tracks were built to harvest gigantic pine trees after they were drained of sap for distilling turpentine (...in photo, my grandfather, a Florida woods rider, and his crew with sap barrels gathered at the still).

The "lakes" are parts of the Wacissa River. The first lies southwest of Napituca's plain and measures one league in circumference, as reported. The second "lake" is much wider and extends for miles to the north from the northwest side of the plain. It disappears in the surrounding swamps and looks exactly the way Inca described it (photo above). Both "lakes" are very deep near their banks because the river flows through them and underground between them. Andrew Jackson would fight Florida's First Seminole War beside those lakes.

Napituca's plain lies one league west of the Aucilla River's natural bridges, another partially underground river near Nutall Rise, which explains why the army and the Lancers did not report a river crossing there. A swamp, today's Cow Creek just south-east of the village site, was reported by Rangel when the army entered that village. Napituca was completely surrounded by swamps and is almost impenetrable even today. It provided Napituca's people shelter in a very hostile environment. Rangel says their Apalachen neighbors were "most valiant... great spirit and boldness", the fiercest in Florida.

DeSoto fought Napituca natives near and in those "lakes" when they attacked him.^{R E I} Those Indians jumped into the lakes, shooting back for most of that day and night, but most were surrounded and captured by DeSoto's army.^R Many were caught and publicly executed.^E

Narvaez had used the same flatwoods trail into Napituca, a village which Vaca called "Apalachen."^V Napituca Village may have been in Apalache Province at that time, given the warring nature of that neighboring province^R and the European diseases (population movers) delivered by Narvaez. "The Lakes", says Vaca,^V "are much larger here.. as we sallied they fled to the lakes nearby... shooting from the lakes which was safety to themselves that we could not retaliate..." Narvaez, apparently, didn't have a large enough army to surround them, as DeSoto would do with more horsemen and an army twice his size.

Vaca says those natives told them that the land and villages inland were very poor, but that by "journeying south nine days was a town called Aute... (with) much maize, beans and pumpkins and being near the sea they had fish."^V Biedma says these Indians told many great lies. Narvaez had believed them - he had no Juan Ortiz to sort them out.^R Narvaez headed south-southwest from Napituca:

"The first day we got through those lakes and passages without seeing anyone, next day we went (west) to a lake difficult of crossing... (but got through)... at the end of a league we arrived at another of the same character, but worse, as it was half a league in extent."^V

Narvaez' trail below Napituca Village, at a marching rate of four-plus leagues per day, would have passed between the "lakes" at Napituca then over Gum Swamp. The next day, turned west by the Gulf of Mexico, it crossed East River Pool and the St. Marks River; both difficult to get around, even today. Pioneer trails crossed both at the same places. East River Pool has a causeway where they crossed it, and the St. Marks River is still just as shallow near its mouth.

Their trail would lead to Aute, where DeSoto, who would use a different trail there, would find traces of them. DeSoto massacred Napituca's people and enslaved their women for misleading Narvaez. The Chroniclers never mention this, perhaps for the shame of it, or maybe because it was so obvious to them. The mass slaying of natives by Desoto would be repeated only once during his three year campaign: when Alabama's Chief Tuscalusa would betray him.

PANHANDLE MONSTERS

NEW: DESOTO'S FLORIDA TRAIL DETAILS ON GOOGLE EARTH
and CONQUEST CALENDARS

In late September, with a well-fed army supported by captives from four provinces (Paracoxi, Ocale, Caliquen and Napituca), DeSoto set out once more toward his planned winter encampment at Apalache. The trip would take two weeks; the men would rest for several days along the way. From Napituca it is only ten leagues to Tallahassee, across the St. Marks River. The army stopped to bridge that river on their first night out,^R four leagues from Napituca. The chief of a nearby village, Uzachil, who had sent flute players to amuse the men further back on the trail, sent dressed deer ^E while they built a bridge of logs the next day at or near that river's natural bridge. The army, accordingly, named the St. Marks River "The River of the Deer."^R

After completing the bridge the following day, "The army crossed the river, (and) marched two leagues through a country without timber," arriving at a place where they "found large fields of maize, beans and calabashes."^I They called that plentiful village Hapaluya;^E it was located ten miles southeast of Tallahassee. There's one gigantic farm there today, clearly visible from outer space.

That night (under a Full Moon), DeSoto rode four more leagues into Uzachil:^{R E} today's TALLAHASSEE. The villagers, however, had fled into the forests.^I The army caught up and captured many of them while pillaging the surrounding fields for the next several days.^{R E I}

"He found no people there, for because of the news which the Indians had of the massacre of Napetaca they dared not remain. In the town he found an abundance of maize, beans, and pumpkins, of which their food consists, and on which the Christians lived there. Maize is like coarse millet and the pumpkins are better and more savory than those of Spain.^E

"From there the governor sent two captains, each one in a different direction, in search of the Indians. They captured a hundred head, among Indian men and women. Of the latter, there, as well as in any other part where forays were made, the captain selected one or two for the governor and the others were divided among themselves and those who went with them. These Indians they took along in chains with collars about their necks and they were used for carrying the baggage and grinding the maize and for other services which so fastened in this manner they could perform. Sometimes it happened that when they went with them for firewood or maize they would kill the Christian who was leading them and would escape with the chain. Others at night would file the chain off with a bit of stone which they have in place of iron tools, and with which they cut it. Those who were caught at it paid for themselves and for those others, so that on another day they might not dare do likewise. As soon as the women and young children were a hundred leagues from their land, having become unmindful, they were taken along unbound, and served in that way, and in a very short time learned the language of the Christians.^E

Inca, who called this village Osachile, says, "Because of the short time that the Spaniards were in this province and because it was small, though well populated... and supplied with food... it will be appropriate, in order not to leave it so soon, for us to describe the site, plan, and appearance of this pueblo..." Among other things, he says the chief lived on "a high point" of earth "three pikes high" [over 30 feet]. Topography would indicate that he was describing the natural hill under Florida's Capitol building, the first high hill they encountered in North Florida.

The army departed westward, crossed a dry Ochlockonee River, and spent the night at a "pine wood,"^R about five leagues west of Florida's Capitol by following the course of the "Old Spanish Trail" to Midway and beyond. The next day they continued to "Agile" ^{R E} four-and-a-half leagues up the road at today's Quincy. That area was labeled "Tup-Hulga Reservation" in 1827 by John L. Williams (Map of Western Part of Florida). These natives had never seen Christians before. One of DeSoto's troops was grabbed in his genitals by an unhappy female captive there; he survived, but just barely.^R

The next day, DeSoto, in the vanguard, came to the Apalache Swamp,^{E B R I} the Apalachicola River, Florida's largest, twelve leagues beyond Uzachil's boundary;^I the Ochlockonee River. The army would camp at a large pasture two leagues from the Apalache Swamp while crossing it in groups during the next several days.^I

Today's Woodruff dam spans 8,800 feet across the Apalachicola River's mammoth hundred foot deep gorge at Chattahoochee. Inca says the banks were half-a-league apart,^I as they are today below the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint Rivers. With extensive swamps on either side, the river flowed around an island where DeSoto crossed it, a mile below today's dam. Elvas says that the river was wider than a crossbow shot.^E It still is, despite the upstream dam (beyond the bridges in photo below).

Old Florida trails converged at this place on Florida's original Township Survey. The railroad follows DeSoto's narrow foot path through that gorge's forest.^I The east bank, where DeSoto descended into it, and the west bank, where he built a stockade, look the same today as described then.^{E I} It took the army several days to bridge and cross this river. Indian resistance was intense. This mammoth river was the provincial boundary of Apalache.^B

Once all had crossed, DeSoto's army left the stockade and proceeded two leagues up the west bank to camp at a village called Vitachuco, which had been set ablaze just prior to their arrival;^{B E R} today's Sneads. The army passed through rich fields to Calahuchi Village,^I camping just north of today's Cypress then, having lost their only good guide, they came to a deep ravine that was difficult to pass two leagues down the road.^I They met extreme resistance from the Apalachens at this ravine, the worst they had seen in Florida.^I

Once the fighting was over they "marched two leagues more through a country without cultivated fields..."^I Those fields are still not farmed, as most east and west of them are. DeSoto's army camped at today's Florida Caverns State Park on the Chipola River.

The next morning they crossed the Chipola River's "natural bridge." DeSoto proceeded two leagues in advance with the horsemen and a hundred foot soldiers into the principal village of Iviahica Apalache,^{I E R} where the lord of all that land and province lived. The natives had fled.

Iviahica Apalache Village was located at yesteryear's Webbville, just northwest of today's Marianna, eleven leagues from the Apalachicola River's swamp^I. DeSoto established his winter headquarters there. His "panhandle monsters" were that swamp and the ravine; our's would be the enduring myth that Tallahassee was the location of Iviahica Apalache. Tallahassee was just another stop along DeSoto's way, which accounts for the paucity of archaeological evidence of his presence being found there after sixty years of digging.

PARADISE
Chronicled by Biedma, Rangel, Elvas, Inca

Iviahica Apalache's fields are deep, rich, red mineral sediments nestled between rolling, sandy hills and spring-fed streams. Vegetables grow in profusion.^{I E R}
One look in the fields tells the story of a thousand year occupation. The fields are strewn with fragments of cultures which settled and farmed there from time to time. The black farmers who live on Union Road, which cuts through what used to be Iviahica, are a beautiful, hard working and proud people; most of their ancestors were born there. The setting is rural Alabama; livestock are pastured on several southern-style plantations. Pigs, chickens, beans, squash, corn and insects are abundant.






Churches and small cemeteries dot the forested landscape. The Old Spanish Trail bends north into Alabama and the Pensacola Road forks southwest there (see the J.L. Williams 1837 Map of Florida).

Biedma, the King's Agent, says, "In this province of Apalache there are many towns, and it is a land of plentiful food... and here it seemed to us that it was time to find out about those who remained at the port, and that they should know about us, because we intended to plunge so far into the interior that we might not be able to have more news of them." The Thirty Lancers would be sent.

Inca says that Juan de Anasco was dispatched from that place (during New Moon) to find the sea^I just before being sent back down the trail with the Thirty Lancers.^{I B} Anasco needed to mark the trees along that seashore in order to find Apalache on his return from Ucita in DeSoto's ships. He first rode south to Aute, twelve leagues from Iviahica,^I today's Econfina.

He reported crossing only two small rivers along his way to the sea, easy to cross;^I they are called Econfina and Sweetwater Creeks today. He camped along the way at Compass Lake, the half way point. Just over two leagues beyond Aute, after crossing a creek up to his horse's pasterns, Anasco came to the head of a bay;^{I 203} today's North Bay, just above St. Andrew Bay. The creek Anasco forded is called Bear Creek today and it, too, is the same with shallow water and a hard bottom. By skirting the bay, Anasco found the place where Narvaez built his boats,^{I B} on the north shore of today's Bayou George.

If Narvaez had been at Napituca and had departed to the south, as mentioned earlier, he would have passed over Gum Swamp, East River Pool and the St. Marks River. Then, having been turned west by the Gulf of Mexico, he would have passed a plain (above today's Medart), more swamps (the Sopchoppy, Ochlockonee, and New River swamps), and a big stream which he called Magdalina; the Apalachicola River, all as Vaca reported.^V Just before entering Aute, they came onto planted fields where Narvaez was fallen upon by the enemy.

He survived and camped at Aute, today's Econfina, where the fields to its southeast are still cultivated today. That nine day trip from "Apalache" (which Desoto would call Napituco) to Aute was forty five leagues long, suggesting that Narvaez marched about five leagues per day.

Vaca reports that during their 280 league trip through Florida, Narvaez never saw a mountain.^V Apparently he bypassed Tallahassee. DeSoto's people reported that they were the first whites ever seen near the Apalache Swamp,^I confirming that Narvaez had taken a different route to Aute. Vaca's reported distance traveled through Florida to the bay, 280 leagues,^V would indicate its estimate along the trails and various diversions, not along paced and charted lines, as was DeSoto's habit.

Narvaez camped for several days in Aute (today's Econfina), where Vaca was dispatched on horseback to find an escape route from that hostile country.^V He rode down the same trail Anasco would ride to Bayou George. There he found a place (photo below) favorable for building boats, with cedar, pine, oak, palmetto, shell fish coves and a fresh water stream, but no rocks (see the Township survey of 1831, Bayou George is depicted and described in the Field Notes exactly as Vaca described it.^V That trail from Aute, about six leagues round trip to the bayou, was ridden many times by Narvaez' people to fetch sick men and food from Aute during the time it took them to build the boats.^V

Since the water in Bayou George is shallow, Narvaez had to time his departure on favorable tides. According to modern lunar reports, that is exactly what he did: Narvaez completed his boats so they could be launched and maneuvered out of the bay^V on the Spring Tides of Harvest Moon, September 28th, 1528. That may have been his first wise move in conquest but, no doubt, his last.

The timing of the Narvaez Expedition is, perhaps, the most neglected event in Florida's early history. Scholars have ignored critical dates from the time Narvaez was forced to land where he did, having missed Spring Tides, to the necessity that he depart this shallow port on Spring Tides. Narvaez would vanish, and his defeat would bolster the credibility of the natives who sent him into wilderness. Their lies, recorded by missionaries near Napituca years later, would be given credence by historians for centuries.

When Biedma, the King's Agent, was at Aute he pronounced the sea to be nine leagues distant.^{B 227} It is that distance, on a straight line, to the sea from today's Econfina. Notice that Biedma did not say to the "coast" this time. A navigable harbor, such as St. Andrews Bay, was, by definition, a coast. They called that harbor the Bay of Aute.^I Biedma also says they had walked one-hundred and ten leagues from Ucita tothat point.^{B 227} It is exactly that distance, on a straight line, from Ucita (Charlotte Harbor) to Aute, the way Anasco was instructed to return in DeSoto's ships; Biedma knew that was the "paced and charted" range they had displaced to the bay since leaving Ucita. DeSoto's cartographers must have been much more talented than previous trail seekers surmised.

Biedma goes on to say, "Juan de Anasco made certain signs in some trees that were on the shore of the sea, because the Governor ordered him (with Thirty Lancers) to call the people who had remained at the port, and to send them by land the way we had come, and to come back by sea in two brigantines and a small vessel that was there, and to bring them to that province of Apalache; meanwhile we remained waiting there.

The Thirty Lancers followed DeSoto's "seacoast" route from Ucita, as it was referred to then,^{E 73} back to port. Only two shortcuts were available to them over its 150 leagues, as Inca reported^{I 205, 227} (it measures 148 leagues on U.S. Department or Interior Geological Survey 7.5 Minute Series Topographic Maps).

Anasco's object was to avoid potentially hostile villages that Desoto had deliberately passed through for food and captives on his way up.^{E 72} Anasco's first bypass was just west of today's Dunnellon, where the Lancers took a more southerly course over the Withlacoochee River's flats to the Great Swamp, avoiding the villages on the phosphate ridge near the "Cove" of the Withlacoochee River; cutting off about one league.^{I 220} They captured several females from the outlying fields along that way, and they would eventually be taken to Havana.^{E 72} Anasco's second shortcut bypassed Paracoxi Village to the west.^{I 224} There are no swamps or rivers to preclude that cut-off. In that neighborhood DeSoto had been misled to Tocaste on his way up, adding at least eight leagues to his trip. Anasco proceeded southeast from the Great Swamp, then south from today's Mulberry, saving perhaps another league. To avoid Mococo's Village, not knowing if Spain still held favor there, Anasco and the Lancers rounded the village to westward then forded the Myakka river well below the village. They captured more Indians who were engaged in a ceremony of fish baking in the woods, Mococo's people,^{I 224-5} at moonrise on harvest moon.

DeSoto had timed the Thirty Lancers departure from Iviahica to be lit by Harvest Moon at their worst obstacle, the Great Swamp, with bright moonlit nights on either side to enable long overnight passages through that neighborhood.^{E 72} Once at Ucita, where the "rescued" men shouted with joy almost in unison about the gold the army must have found by then,^{I 227} the troops had only one week to march and catch the next Full Moon at Caliquen, the most populated village on their pedestrian journey to northwest Florida. The men spent that week celebrating with and distributing hardware to Chief Mococo and his people.^{I 228-230}

The army had been introduced to lighter and more effective Indian arrow-shielding: long, thick quilted jackets.^{I 236} Excess armor was, therefore, given to Mococo's people and would end up scattered around their village site and be found by Florida's pioneers, who called that place "Old Spanish Fields". On their trip up DeSoto's trail, the men would suffer the loss of several of their own and seven horses,^{E 72, R 268} some at the Apalache Swamp, others at the Ravine.^{I 237-242} All were jubilant to reunite with DeSoto's army in search of gold and treasures.

At Ucita, Anasco had only one week to catch the next Spring Tide, on the New Moon, to pass over Charlotte Harbor's channel shallows. He used the time to careen and load the brigs. That timing was no accident, it was calculated;^{I 243} it would take Anasco just under two weeks to sail from there to Panama City^{R 268} to catch the favorable Spring Tides at that harbor. Only today can we realize DeSoto's genius.^{I 244} Desoto's trail from Ucita to the bay where Narvaez built his boats was only 173 leagues long (148 leagues traveled by the lancers from Iviahica to Ucita, plus two leagues cut off by Anasco's shortcuts, plus the eight leagues DeSoto marched back and forth below Lake Hancock, plus twelve leagues from Iviahica to Aute, then three more to the bay). Vaca's estimate of 280 leagues traveled by Narvaez to the bay^V probably included scouting for food, plus the distance from his landing site to Ucita, then the greater distance to the Great Swamp on his trail up the east side of the Peace River through Arcadia's rich grain fields. Narvaez never got to meet Chief Mococo or his fine people; Mococo's Village was eight leagues north of the route Narvaez took from his entrance port to Ucita and beyond.

Biedma says, after "Juan de Anasco sent the people by land, and he came back by sea as the Governor commanded him... he endured much hardship and danger, because he did not find that coast; he did not find a trace of what he had seen by land before he went there by sea, because the inlets were shallow, and at high tide they had water but at low tide they were dry. We made a piragua that each day went out two leagues into the sea to see if the brigantines were coming, in order to show them where they were to stop. Thanks to God they came to them by sea and the other people by land."

Captain Maldonado was then dispatched westward along the coast in DeSoto's brigs to find an entrance to the sea at which to meet him the following year or, barring that, the next year.^{E 73, B 228, R 268, I 244} Maldonado found "Ochuse" sixty leagues down the coast at Mobile Bay. He took captives from there to lead DeSoto overland to it.

From Iviahica, DeSoto would explore for nearly a year and a thousand miles before an ambush took place above Mobile Bay. DeSoto's precise cartography accounts for his knowledge that the captives led him toward Mobile: the place from which DeSoto planned to settle and hold North America.

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