MOSCOSO'S JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS
In my doctoral thesis, "Anglo-American Occupation of North-
eastern Texas, 1803-1845," I pointed out the necessity for a reex-
amination of the various hypotheses advanced in the effort to de-
determine the route followed by Luís de Moscoso in the course of
his Texas entrada
of 1542. This need I emphasized then by say-
ing: "So far as the location of places in Texas is concerned it
seems to me that Lewis' notes are faulty." The reference, of
course, was to the annotations accompanying "The Narrative of
the Expedition of Hernando de Soto, by the Gentleman of Elvas,"
in Spanish
Explorers
in
the
Southern
United
States,
1528-1542
(edited by F. W. Hodge). More recent study of all available
De Soto materials has served only to confirm my earlier impres-
sion. Furthermore, my interest in the problem has led me to
consider critically the views advanced regarding the Moscoso
itinerary in more recent inquiries: viz., Carlos Castañeda's Our
Catholic
Heritage
in
Texas,
Volume I, Chapter IV; Dr. Robert
T. Hill's articles in the Dallas
Morning
News,
1935-1936 passim;
and the Final
Report
of
the
United
States
De
Soto
Expedition
Commission.
Nor have I been fully convinced of the correctness
of the solution of the entrada
problem proposed in any of
these attempts.
The student of Moscoso's journey in Texas is limited in his
inquiry to three sources, none strictly contemporary. Of these
the most lengthy, Garcilaso de la Vega's La
Florida
del
Ynca:
Historia
del
adelantado
Hernando
de
Soto,
gouernador
y
capitán
general
del
Reyno
de
la
Florida,
y
de
otros
heroicos
caualleros
Españoles
é
Indios,
is secondary rather than primary, colorful
and romantic, but, truth to tell, so obscure and ambiguous that
it possesses little historical value. The second is furnished by
the "True Relation of the Hardships Suffered by Governor
Fernando de Soto and Certain Portuguese. Gentlemen During
the Discovery of the Province of Florida. Now newly set forth
by a Gentleman of Elvas." Buckingham Smith's translation is
readily available in Narratives
of
the
Career
of
Hernando
de
Soto,
edited by E. G. Bourne, or in Spanish
Explorers
in
the
Southern
United
States,
1528-1543,
edited by Frederick W.
Hodge and Theodore H. Lewis. The Fidalgo of Elvas' "Rela-
tion" has been more aptly rendered into English by James A.
Robertson; his translation is found in the Publications
of
the
Florida
State
Historical
Society,
II, 11 (1933). Thirdly, we
have Luís Hernández de Biedma's "Relation" in the Narratives
of
the
Career
of
Hernando
de
Soto.
Unfortunately the conclud-
ing part of Rodrigo Ranjel's account of the De Soto expedition
is missing, and thus the student of the Texas portion of the
entrada
loses the benefit of his clear, authoritative narrative.
So deprived of Ranjel's notes and skeptical of Garcilaso's ob-
scurantism, we are forced back upon the accounts of Biedma
and the Fidalgo, scanty and thin though they may be, in our
study of the journey of Moscoso.
An effort will be made here to use every available source of
information in an attempt to arrive at warrantable conclusions.
Especial attention will be paid to time-place sequence; the
Fidalgo has left enough chronological data for us to build up
a fairly accurate day-by-day calendar of the progress of the
expedition. His descriptions of places are less dependable, but
he does not entirely neglect the distance and direction of march.
The equation of time-distance data often suggests the more
probable of two possible locations. Biedma is to a less degree
helpful, though in more than one instance the correlation of
his notes with those of the Fidalgo furnishes the key to an
apparently insoluble problem.
Linguistic analysis of place and tribal names recorded by
the two chroniclers of the expedition provide a further check.
It must be granted that the Portuguese and Spanish efforts to
reproduce the Indian gutturals are awkward and inapt; yet a
study of the words left to us has yielded satisfying results.
Interesting probabilities have been suggested -- probabilities
which in some instances have served to support hypotheses
built upon quite dissimilar evidence. It should be emphasized,
however, that no identity of a place on the itinerary has been
determined by linguistics alone.
Dr. Herbert E. Bolton's scholarly studies of the location of
Indian tribes in East Texas in historic times has shed much
light on the problem. In every instance, save one, the locations
of the sites assigned by him to the several tribes of the Hasinai
confederacy fit logically into the time-distance sequence indi-
cated by the relations of the Fidalgo and Biedma. It has not
been necessary in any case violently to displace Indian groups
from the sites they occupied in historic times in order to justify
the route hypothecated in this study. Any conclusions estab-
lished upon such wishful dispossession must be suspect.
The Fidalgo and Biedma left little evidence that can be sub-
stantiated by archaeology, but at least once we have been able
to strengthen an otherwise almost unescapable conclusion by
resort to the data supplied by Clarence B. Moore's study of
aboriginal sites on Red River.
1 Pottery serves as well as the
written word to tell its story.
The mention of abundance of fish at two places along the way
has contributed to fix the probable location of two Indian groups.
Climatic conditions have been subjected to inquiry, but with
rather meager results. The location of salt springs and salines
between the Mississippi and Red Rivers has been studied at
length in an effort to determine the route pursued by Moscoso
as he marched from the Father of Waters to Texas in the
summer of 1542. For this data and for an authoritative study
of geologic conditions along Red River in the sixteenth century
the student must acknowledge his debt to A. G. Veatch's account
of the underground water resources of northern Louisiana and
southern Arkansas.
2
So we have given hostages to history, geography, chronology,
linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, zoology, hydrography,
and mineralogy in this synthesis. The results have been prob-
able in most instances and certainly logical.
Of the kindred sciences none has proven a more helpful hand-
maiden of history than geography. The ancient trails of the
Caddo and Hasinai are discernible yet to the student who con-
siders the ways of men who hunted salt, food and water. As
Archer B. Hulbert points out: "The 'pathless wilderness' is a
dearly cherished figment of the American imagination." Never
did the explorer or the pioneer forge forward into trackless
woods; they were obliged ever to seek out the tracks and trails
beat out by the feet of animals and natives in their quest for
subsistence. Again, he has said, "the sites of old ferries, . . .
will be found to be a reliable guide by which to locate the
ancient routes. Infallibly the ferries will mark the strategic
points where the ancient trails descended from the high grounds
to the fords."
3 The ferries, generally, were located at the mouth
of a principal tributary of the river to be crossed--the ancient
trails followed the same laws of topography as do the high-
ways and railroads of today. Elevation and gradient are nat-
ural factors.
Students of the Moscoso entrada
of 1542 are agreed that the
Spaniards entered Texas at or near a place which the Fidalgo
designated as Naguatex. Indeed, De Soto had heard of the
locality while journeying through western Arkansas in the
autumn of 1541 but chose to march elsewhither and thus missed
Naguatex in person. As the Fidalgo points out:
He dismissed the two caciques of Tulla and Cayas,
and set out toward Autiamque. For five days he pro-
ceeded through very rough ridges and reached a vil-
lage called Quipana, where he was unable to capture
any Indian because of the roughness of the land and
because the town was located among ridges. At night
he set an ambush in which two Indians were captured.
They said Autiamque was six days' journey away and
that another province called Guahate was a week's
journey southward--a land plentifully abounding- in
maize and of much population. But since Autiamque
was nearer and more of the Indians mentioned it to
him, the governor proceeded on his journey in search
of it.
4
October 22, 1541, De Soto came to Quipana, identified by the
United States De Soto Expedition Commission as the village
whose site is yet discernible near the junction of Antoine Creek
and the Little Missouri River, in southeastern Pike County,
Arkansas.
5 There he rested for a day or two as he considered
the way he should turn next in his somewhat aimless journey-
ing. The Indians of Quipana hid in the thickets of the rough,
hilly country, and only at length were a few luckless natives
captured and put to the question. Two possible ways, they said,
were open to the invaders: six days' journey downstream was
Autiamque, and a week's travel away to the southward (actually
eight days) was Guahate. But since the larger number of In-
dians spoke of Autiamque, the governor decided to go thither.
Thus he let slip his opportunity to visit Guahate.
Guahate, in all probability, was none other than Naguatex,
to which, as we shall see, Moscoso came in the summer of 1542.
This identification rests upon the logic of time and distance.
From Quipana (granted that it has been correctly identified as
the junction of Antoine Creek and the Little Missouri River)
to Autiamque (located by the De Soto Commission in the vicin-
ity of present day Camden, Arkansas) is forty-two miles air
line, six days' journey being requisite to cover the distance as
it stretched out by the sinuosity of actual marching. Should
the same daily rate of march have been maintained from
Quipana southward to Guahate for eight days, the distance
between the two places as determined by the same process of
reasoning was fifty-six miles. Furthermore, if we measure
fifty-six miles southward from the mouth of Antoine Creek,
our calipers will rest upon Red River some twelve miles south
of Garland City, Arkansas. Thus we may conclude that the
southern terminus of the Quipana-Guahate trail was near the
center, from north to south, of the long famous, fertile Long
Prairie, on the east side of Red River, in Lafayette County,
Arkansas. The significance of this identification of the location
of Guahate becomes apparent when we recall that from time
immemorial Long Prairie was associated with the Caddoan
culture complex.
Moreover, the application of linguistics to our problem pro-
duces logical and satisfactory evidence of the association of
Guahate with the Caddoan culture. Let us affix the Caddo
gentilic nä-
to Guahate; we have Naguahate.
This suggests at
once that Guahate is nothing more nor less than the Fidalgo's
variant for Naguatex. The elision of the "x" (really "ch")
sound from Guahate awaits the explanation of a more skilled
philologist.
Incidentally, the verbose and obscure Garcilaso de la Vega
hints at the identity of Guahate and Naguatex. In a passage
quoted by Pichardo, the Inca says:
As it was the beginning of April, of the year 1542,
it seemed to the governor that it was time to go ahead
with his exploration. Having agreed upon this, he left
Utiangue, and took the road for the principal pueblo
of the province of Naguatex, which had the same name,
and by it the whole province was called. . . . Passing
from Utiangue to Naguatex, by the route which the
Castilians went, there were twenty-two or twenty-three
leagues of fertile and very populous country. Our men
marched over it in seven days, without anything of note
happening to them on the way, except in some narrow
places in the woods and arroyos, the Indians came out
to make sudden attacks. However, upon our men turn-
ing to face them, they took to their heels.
At the end of the seven days they reached the Nagu-
atex pueblo, found it deserted by its inhabitants, and
settled down in it. ... The governor, having been in-
formed of what was in that province and its vicinity,
both by the account of the Indians, and by those of the
Spaniards who went to examine the country, left the
pueblo of Naguatex with his army, accompanied by
four principal Indians, and led the Castilians into an-
other province. . . . The Spaniards . . . journeyed
five days through the province of Naguatex, and at
the end of this time, they reached another called
Guancane. . . .
6
In the consideration of this passage from Garcilaso, it should
be remarked, in the beginning, that his accounts of De Soto's
visit to Naguatex in April, 1542, and Moscoso's journey there
later in the same year seem to be glosses of the same episode.
Inasmuch as the versions of the routes followed by De Soto
and Moscoso respectively as furnished by Biedma and the Fi-
dalgo preclude any probability of De Soto's visiting Naguatex,
it appears certain that Garcilaso's two confused narratives re-
late to Moscoso's entrada.
Be that as it may, it is interesting
to note his statement that "there are twenty-two or twenty-
three leagues of very fertile and populous country" between
Utiangue and Naguatex. For, if Utiangue (Autiamque) is
taken to be Camden, as indicated by the Commission, and
Naguatex was located on Long Prairie, as we have assumed,
it is fifty-seven miles, as the crow flies, from one to the other.
Despite Garcilaso's obscurantism and ambiguity, his startling
exactness concerning the distance between the sites assumed
to be Autiamque and Naguatex cannot be dismissed lightly.
Possibly he possessed some source of accurate information
even though he was incapable of weaving it into a creditable
synthesis.
We may further fortify our supposition that Guahate and
Naguatex were one and the same place by comparing the Fi-
dalgo's statement that Guahate was "a land plentifully abound-
ing in maize and of much population" with his later descrip-
tion of Naguatex as "a region very well populated and well
supplied with food."
7 The phraseology is reminiscent and the
description is apt--for the land of the Caddo was certainly a
land of corn and people. This equation of Guahate and Naguatex
seems so plausible that it appears strange no previous study
of the Moscoso route has mentioned it. For such an identifica-
tion fixes within the space of a dozen miles the exact point where
the Spaniards crossed Red River in 1542.
As yet, however, we have not made use of all our available
information relative to the identity of Naguatex and Long
Prairie. For the probability that the two can be proven to be
the same becomes almost a certainty as we apply the data
supplied by the Fidalgo and Biedma concerning the Spanish
approach to Red River.
De Soto spent the winter of 1541-42 at Autiamque on the
River of Gayas--the town was in the vicinity of present Camden,
Arkansas, and the river was the Ouachita.
8 The next spring he
followed the river down to its juncture with the Mississippi;
somewhere there nearby De Soto died on May 21, 1542. Luis
de Moscoso was chosen his successor and immediately made
preparations to set out westward overland with the design of
reaching Mexico. Gauchoya, as the Fidalgo and Biedma called
the town where De Soto died, was probably in the neighbor-
hood of Ferriday, Louisiana. This is admitted grudgingly
inasmuch as a location farther up the Mississippi and nearer
the mouth of the Arkansas, say in the vicinity of Arkansas
City, would fit better into our hypothesis as a point of de-
parture; but the Commission's argument locating Gauchoya
near the mouth of the Ouachita seems incontestable.
Monday, June 5, 1542,
9 Moscoso and his ragged followers set
out from Gauchoya preferring to reach Panuco by land rather
than to try to search for it by sea. Fifteen days later, the
Spaniards came to Chaguate, which the Commission maintains
was located somewhere in the area now occupied by Price's
and Drake's Salt Works in Winn Parish. With this conclusion
there seems to be no quarrel. While the Fidalgo does not assert
that the main village of the province of Chaguate was situated
at the salt springs, he does say the Spaniards rested the day
before their entry into Chaguate at a small town where salt
was made. The cacique of Chaguate, we are told, had visited
De Soto at Autiamque in the previous winter.
At Chaguate, Moscoso was told "that three days' journey
from there was a province called Aguacay."
10 Aguacay, Biedma
avers, was due west from Chaguate; if, as the Commission
thinks, Aguacay can be identified as the Bistineau Salt Works,
near Doyline, Webster Parish, his sense of direction was sadly
awry. But until a more plausible location than the Bistineau
area can be suggested for Aguacay, it appears to fill most of the
conditions set forth by the Fidalgo. For example, he remarks,
"There a considerable quantity of salt was made from the sand
which they gathered in a vein of earth like slate and which was
made as it was made in Cayas.
11 A glance back at the salt-
making process employed at Cayas shows that there the salt
was leached from a blue clay. At the Bistineau Salt Works
there is an outcropping of just such cretaceous marl on the
shores of Tadpole Lake.
12
Thus far we have agreed with the Commission in its major
conclusions concerning the Moscoso itinerary from Gauchoya to
Aguacay, though some minor discrepancies may be allowed. But
our hypothesis for the journey from Aguacay to Naguatex must
vary from the reconstruction projected by the Commission. It
assumes the Spaniards marched from Aguacay to Red River and
reached that stream in the vicinity of Miller's Bluff, Cedar
Bluff or Peru Ferry, all north of Shreveport, but remarks that
they must have traveled very slowly. But if we locate Naguatex
near the center of Long Prairie, the time-distance sequence
becomes more plausible. In the light of this assumption let us
delineate the journey as they moved out from Aguacay.
On July 16, "the day the governor left Aguacay he went
to sleep near a small town subject to the lord of that province.
The camp was pitched quite near a salt marsh and on that
evening some salt was made there."
13 This was, it appears, not
a full day's journey; the shore of the above mentioned Tadpole
Lake seems quite satisfactory as the site of the camp where
salt was boiled. "Next day [July 17] he went to sleep between
two ridges in a forest of open trees ;"
14 if, as we believe, they
were following the old ridge trail between Dorcheat Bayou (the
northern tributary of Lake Bistineau) and Bayou Bodcau, the
open grove between two ridges was somewhere northwest of
Minden, Louisiana. "Next day [July 18] he reached a small
town called Pato ;"
15 Pato is shown on the "De Soto" map be-
tween confluent streams, which may very well have been Dor-
cheat Bayou and Bayou Bodcau. Really, at present, the two
streams do not join before their junction with Red River but
the cartographer was not obliged to be informed of such geo-
graphic niceties. Pato, then, let us assume, was somewhere
between Cotton Valley and Serepta. "The fourth day [July 19]
after he left Aguacay, he reached the first settlement of a
province called Amaye."
16 The "De Soto" map depicts Amaye
as lying between Bayou Bodcau and Red River. In considera-
tion of the distance covered and the direction of march, we may
conjecture that Amaye was situated somewhere in the vicinity
of Arkana, Arkansas, near the south end of the Long Prairie.
This assumption is strengthened by the statement that Nagua-
tex was a day and a half's journey from Amaye--i.
e.,
perhaps
fifteen to twenty miles at their average rate of march.
On July 20, Moscoso left Amaye and camped at noon on the
edge of a luxuriant grove, standing isolated in the prairie.
There the Spaniards were attacked by the combined bands of
the men of Amaye, Hacanac and Naguatex, whom they success-
fully beat off. They remained on the scene of battle that night
and the next day (July 21) they reached the habitations of
the Naguatex on the east bank of a river (Red River); though
the chief of the Naguatex, they were told, lived on the opposite
side of the stream.
The day was not yet spent and Moscoso marched down to
the very bank of the river; the opposite shore, it was observed,
was occupied by many Indians awaiting the invaders. The
leader, not knowing the strength of the aborigines, the location
of the fords, nor, indeed, the depth of the river, did not attempt
to force a passage; instead he drew back a quarter of a league
(just about two-thirds of a mile) and camped there "in an open
forest of luxuriant and lofty trees near a brook."
17
Moscoso had reached the ancient habitat of the Caddoan con-
federacy, whose several constituent tribes and sub-tribes dwelt
along Red River on either side from the mouth of Sulphur River
as far upstream as the Spanish Bluffs in present day Bowie
County, Texas. As we have seen, the Fidalgo mentions certain
of the groups encountered by Moscoso, namely, the Amaye, the
Hacanac and the Naguatex; he assigns the predominant place
among these to the Naguatex. His omission of the Kadohadacho
from his list renders rather improbable Lewis' conclusion that
the Spaniards crossed the river as far northward as the White
Oak Shoals, north of Texarkana. Obviously there is no reason
to identify any of the three groups of Indians mentioned as
the Kadohadacho, i.
e.,
the Caddo "proper." Rather it seems
we should take a clue from Father Douay, who visited the
region of the Great Bend of Red River in 1687. He says:
This tribe [Kadohadacho] is on the bank of a large
river, on which lie three more famous nations, the
Natchoos, the Nachites, and the Ouidiches, where we
were very hospitably received.
18
Or we should glance at the lists of tribes furnished by his
companion, Henri Joutel, who notes:
. . . Before our departure we were informed that
the villages belonging to our hosts, being four in
number, all allied together, were called Assony, Nath-
osos, Nachitos and Cadodaquio.
19
Tonty, who came to the land of the Kadohadacho in 1690 in
search of La Salle, observes:
The Cadadoquis are united with two other villages
called Natchitoches and Nasoui, situated on Red River.
All nations of this tribe speak the same language.
20
A study of these observations leads us to two or three con-
clusions worthy of credit: first, in the late 1600's the Kadoha-
dacho (to use the terminology adopted by the Handbook
of
American
Indians)
were the predominant tribe of the Caddoan
confederacy; secondly, associated with them were the Natchi-
toch, the Nanatscho and the Nasoni. The presence of the
Natchitoch and the Nasoni in the great bend region of Red
River has been a source of confusion to many students who
forget that these two tribes were divided in historic times
into the "upper" and "lower" Natchitoch and the Red River
and Angelina Nasoni.
Only Douay, it will be marked, mentioned the Ouidiches as
resident upon Red River in 1687, though both Joutel and Tonty
record the presence of Naouidiche or Naouadiche farther south
in the land of the Hasinai. Indeed Bolton proves beyond doubt
that the Naouidiche and the Nabedache were variant names
of the same tribe who dwelt in 1687 on San Pedro Creek, west
of the Neches.
21 The archaic name of the tribe, Gatschet says,
was Nawadishe,
from witish,
'salt'; therefore, they were the
"people of salt." All of which comes to but one fact: the
Ouidiches of Red River were not the same as the Naouidiche
(Nabedache) of the Neches. In default of any other witness
than Douay to the presence of the Ouidiche upon Red River,
one is inclined to assume that he misplaced them through a
forgivable lapse in recollection.
Thus, while one hesitates to disagree with so eminent an author-
ity as Swanton, his equation of Naguatex and Ouidiche seems
unjustified. Taking a clue from Gatschet, he identifies Naguatex
as nawidish,
"place of salt;"
22 in his notes on Indian names,
however, he renders the Caddoan word nawadish.
23 Even so,
this is not a very satisfactory transliteration of the Caddo word
that the Fidalgo was endeavoring to reproduce; let us suppose
instead that he was attempting to approximate syllables which
sounded to his ears näwitash.
Näwi
means in Caddo "below"
or "down there;"
24 task
is the familiar term written elsewhere
techás,
i. e., "friends," or, more technically, "allies."
25 Thus
conceivably Naguatex was näwitash,
"friends down there." But
down where? Surely downstream from the main Kadohadacho
village, which was located, in historic times at least, on the
river above present day Fulton. Down there just where we
should expect to find the Naguatex in their villages on Long
Prairie. Perhaps it would not be too bold to suggest a pos-
sible connection between the Naguatex and the later Nachites
(Upper Natchitoch) of Douay's account.
The Amaye were clearly Caddoan, taking their name from
amay,
"man." Whether they can be recognized as any specific
one of the historic Red River tribes is debatable. As for the
Hacanac--if the Fidalgo originally spelled the word with the
Portuguese "ç" we should have azanaz,
i.
e.,
Nasoni. This
conjecture is lent some color of support by a notation on the
"De Soto" map which shows a village by the name of Aznauz,
though it is located far south of the region commonly allotted
to the Hacanac.
Surely we must seek for Naguatex on Red River. With our
problem thus delimited, we have but to search out a locale
that fills the conditions adduced by the Fidalgo in order to
determine its exact location. First, we must look for a populous,
fertile region inhabited by a confederacy of kindred folk, living
on either side of the river; secondly, this large, aboriginal
population must possess the ability to produce a superior sort
of pottery. For the Fidalgo has not neglected to observe that,
"Pottery is made there little differing from that of Estermez
or Montemor."
26 The presence of extensive aboriginal settle-
ments in Lafayette and Miller Counties, Arkansas, is abun-
dantly attested not only by the accounts of early explorers but
by archaeological evidence from many mound sites clustered on
either bank of the river from the mouth of the Sulphur Fork
up to Dooley's Ferry. Indeed, in no other Red River section
are the remains quite so prevalent save near the mouth of the
stream. Concerning the pottery taken from the southwest
Arkansas mounds, Clarence B. Moore observes that its makers
paid much attention to the ceramic art--even cooking vessels
were exquisitely modeled and profusely decorated.
Three sites warrant especial attention. Taken in order as we
ascend the river are the Haley Place, the Battle Place, and
the Foster Place. The Haley Place mounds are on the west
bank of Red River, just north of its juncture with the Sulphur
Fork; Moore rated this site as the most notable he studied in
Arkansas because of its extent, having both domiciliary and
burial mounds. The Battle Place mounds are located in La-
fayette County, four or five miles below Garland City but on
the opposite side of the river; they are on the shore of Battle
Lake, an old bed of the river; they are noteworthy not only
for the size of the principal mound but because the Battle Place
site is in close proximity to the Harrell and Cabinas Place
mounds on the east side of the river and has the McClure
Place site just across the river in Miller County. The Foster
Place mounds are situated just south of the Hempstead-La-
fayette County boundary; the site furnishes a pottery, a fine
polished black ware, of higher average excellence than any
found elsewhere on Red River, except possibly that discovered
at Gahagan far south in the vicinity of Coushatti.
27
In view of the size of the mound at the Battle Place, its
proximity to other sites both on the east and west side of
the river, together with the cumulative evidence furnished by
the study of time-distance sequence, it appears that no other
place in the Long Prairie area has a better claim to be iden-
tified as the village of the Naguatex on the left bank of Red
River. The village at the Haley Place may well be one of the
Naguatex habitations of the right bank; the "De Soto" map
shows Naguatex just so located between the Sulphur Fork and
Red River at the junction of the two streams. The Foster Place
site represents a town of kindred folk, whose identity must re-
main indeterminate.
Moscoso remained quietly at his camp on the east bank of
the river until the tenth day after his arrival. On the morn-
ing of July 31, he sent out two parties of horsemen, each guided
by Indians, to seek out the fords up and down the river. The
scouting parties, though opposed by hostiles, succeeded in get-
ting across to the opposite side, where they found extensive
habitations and much food; they, however, returned at evening
to the camp on the east bank of the river.
A day or two later Moscoso sent an Indian courier to inform
the cacique of Naguatex that if he did not come in and receive
pardon he would inflict upon him the chastisement he deserved
for his perfidy. The day after the emissary's departure he re-
turned with a message that the chief would visit the Spaniard
the next day; thus it would appear, from the time needed to go
and come from the chief's village, that the principal town of
the Naguatex was located at the distance of a day's journey
from Moscoso's camp. The day following the messenger's re-
turn (August 3 or 4) an embassy of natives came to visit
Moscoso to discover his mood; seemingly reassured, they re-
turned to their chief, who came in two hours later. The cacique
and his retinue presented themselves to Moscoso, as the Fidalgo
remarks, "all weeping after the manner of Tula which lay to
the east not very far from that place."
28 The chief emphasized
his humility in a speech which laid the blame for his intran-
sigence upon a brother who had been killed in the battle of
July 20. Moscoso granted his pardon to the supplicant.
Four days later (August 8) Moscoso set forth upon his way,
that is, he marched out from his camp in the grove. "But on
reaching the river he could not cross, as it had swollen
greatly."
29 Robertson's rendering of the Fidalgo's account
makes it clear that the freshet-filled stream was the one in
front of the camp and not another as Buckingham Smith's
awkward translation has led some students to believe. Balked
by the high water, "the governor returned to the place where
he had been during the preceding days."
30
Eight days after (August 16) Moscoso's first attempt to
cross the river, he set out again and "passed to the other side
and found a village without any people."
31 Profiting by former
experiences, Moscoso did not trust himself in the deserted village
where he would be liable to ambush but camped in the open
fields. He demanded guides of the chief of the Naguatex, who
neither came himself nor sent the assistance asked; after some
days, Moscoso sent scouting parties up and down the river to
burn the towns and seize captives. Both objectives were at-
tained so effectively that the cacique sent six principal men
and three guides "who knew the language of the region ahead
where the governor was about to go."
32
Inasmuch as Moscoso had lingered some days in the land of
the Naguatex on the west bank of the river, it may be assumed
that he used up the major portion of a week, let us say five
days. Thus it was not until August 22 that he was ready to
resume his journey. He had loitered first and last for a full
month plus a day or two more in the neighborhood of Naguatex.
All this we find in the True
Relation
of the Fidalgo, since Biedma
neglects entirely the episodes connected with Naguatex.
Biedma, however, in speaking of Aguacay (where Moscoso
had stopped on his way to Naguatex), interjects one illumi-
nating comment:
After leaving this place [Aguacay], the Indians
told us we should see no more settlements unless we
went down in a southwest-and-by-south direction,
where we should find large towns and food; that in
the courses we asked about, there were some large
sandy wastes, without any people and subsistence
whatever.
33
Thus Moscoso's inquiries concerning the ways thence from
Naguatex had elicited the reply that westward there were but
sterile, unpeopled areas. To the natives used to the lush pro-
ductiveness of the river bottom fields such must have seemed
the open Black Prairies westward with their interspersed mottes
of blackjack and post oak. Neither sterile nor sandy to us, to
the Caddo they were lands of deer and the buffalo, scarcely
fitted for corn; if the Spaniards sought towns and people they
must journey southwestward. The men of Naguatex knew the
speech of the natives in that direction and well they might, for
the language of the Caddo and Hasinai differed little. West-
ward along Red River the explorers could only expect to meet
the wandering Tonkawas and Kichai who spoke "barbaroi"
and find lands whose inhabitants were not acquainted with
even the primitive hoe culture of the Caddo.
Nor were there trails toward the west. In my long study of
the area between the Red River and Sulphur Fork, I have
found no evidence of an aboriginal ridge trail, though it is
reasonable to suppose that there must have been a hunting
path along the divide. But to the southwest there had led since
the time when the memory of man ran not to the contrary the
trail from the land of the Caddo to the habitations of their
kinsmen, the Hasinai of the East Texas pinelands.
The heat of summer was now heavy upon the steaming bot-
toms of Red River; on August 22, Moscoso departed from the
vacant fields of Naguatex on this side of the river, moving, as
Biedma makes evident, southwest-and-by-south. Surely he was
following the ancient road from Red River to the Hasinai.
At the end of the third day (August 24), he "reached a town
of four or five houses, belonging to the cacique of that mis-
erable province, called Nissohone." Students of the entrada
have correlated Nissohone -- Nisione, in Biedma's spelling --
with the Nasoni who in later years were living some thirty
miles north of Nacogdoches on the headwaters of an eastern
branch of the Angelina River, but they forget that in 1687
the "Upper" Nasoni were resident on Red River. It seems safe
to assume that the Nissohone of the Fidalgo were a small village
group of the Red River Nasoni, living poorly and miserably apart
from the main tribe on the river. The three days' march
requisite to cover the distance from Naguatex combined with
the Fidalgo's observation.that theirs was a poor region, thinly
peopled and producing scant corn, suggests that Moscoso had
reached the sandy upland west of Atlanta somewhere near the
junction of Cherry Branch and John's Creek. To this proposal
one objection can be offered: travelling at their average rate
of march (eight to eleven miles per day), the Spaniards could
scarcely have covered the distance between Naguatex and the
Nasoni camp in three days. But it must be remembered that
they had guides familiar with the country, that they were fol-
lowing a well-defined road and that their horses were rested
by the long stay at Naguatex.
The Fidalgo continues:
. . . 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. The governor
ordered them hanged from a tree and an Indian woman,
who had been captured at Nissohone, guided him, and
he went back to look for the road. Two days later, he
reached another wretched land, called Lacane.
34
Two things are clearly indicated by this passage. The Span-
iards wished to follow a well-known trail or road, and the native
guides (those who had come with them from Naguatex?) sought
to lead them away from it to the eastward. The trail could
hardly have been any other than the ridge road that led south-
ward along the divide between Jim's Bayou on the east and
Black Cypress Bayou on the west down to the famous crossing
on Big Cypress, in the environs of Jefferson. Their guides were
attempting to entangle their unwelcomed guests in the thickly
timbered bottoms of the creeks tributary to Red River. Only
after Moscoso had hanged the recreant guides and employed
the services of a captive Nasoni woman did he find the road
which brought him four days after his departure from the
Nasoni village to another "wretched land called Lacane." They
arrived there in the afternoon of August 28. Lacono should
be equated with Nacono perhaps, though the De Soto Commis-
sion's surmise that the Nacao are meant cannot be disregarded,
nor should we overlook the possibility that Lacane and Naca-
niche may be the same. In any case, these three tribes, Nacono,
Nacao and Naconiche, lived to the northeast of all the Hasinai,
35
though in historic times, at least, none was located as far north
as the 32nd parallel. Despite this apparent contradiction, it
seems probable in consideration of our time-direction data that
the Lacane village (waiving all ethnic identifications) was sit-
uated somewhere in present day Harrison County alongside
the old Caddo path that bent crescent-wise east of Marshall
to reach the Sabine at the point where the Rusk-Panola County
boundary line now touches the river.
At Lacane, an Indian was captured and questioned concerning
the country beyond. The luckless captive told of the land of
Nondacao, populous, with its houses scattered about the fields
as was the custom of the Hasinai, and productive of much corn.
Its cacique, being summoned in advance by Moscoso, came to
meet the governor with weeping as had the chief of the Na-
guatex. Especially significant is the Fidalgo's statement that the
Indians presented the invaders with an abundance of fish;
Nondacao was undoubtedly close to a stream of some impor-
tance. Immediately the Sabine comes to mind. Considering
the direction and distance traveled since they had left Naguatex,
it seems fairly certain that they had reached one of the ancient
Anadarko (for Nondacao is equated with Anadarko) villages
south of the Sabine. Two such towns existed there in historic
times: an upper in the northern part of Panola County
36 and
a lower on the East Fork of the Angelina River in the extreme
southern part of Rusk County. The Fidalgo does not mention
the time requisite to go from Lacane to Nondacao but if we
glance ahead it will be seen that the Spaniards spent five days
on the road from Nondacao to Aays. If we measure back from
San Augustine (which we will accept tentatively as the site
of Aays) we find the distance to the old Caddo crossing on
the Sabine to be a little less than seventy miles, too great a
distance to be covered in five days at their customary leisurely
pace. From the Rusk County Anadarko site to San Augustine
is more nearly fifty miles, or just about the distance ordi-
narily covered in five days. The abundance of fish offered the
invaders at Nondacao argues rather for the Panola County site.
The De Soto Commission may offer the solution in its hypoth-
esis that the Indians of East Texas moved gradually southwest-
ward between 1542 and 1690;
37 in which case the Anadarko
met by Moscoso may have been living on the headwaters of
Attoyac Bayou where Shelby, Rusk and Panola Counties meet.
One day at the least and three days at the most would have
been sufficient to reach the various Anadarko sites discussed;
let us accept the median and allow two days' march. There-
fore, Moscoso probably reached Nondacao on the afternoon of
August 30.
From Nondacao Moscoso sought to reach Soacatino (Xacatin,
according to Biedma's variant); Soacatino breaks down into
two Caddo words, Scho-atino,
or, perhaps more properly, Sha
-
atino.
In either case, we have Red Hills or Red Mounds. As
near as our meager evidence ever approaches certainty, we have
here a geographic term for an area long later appropriately
named by the white settlers the Redlands. Of course Redlands
(Soacatino, Red Hills) is a generic term and we have no way
to determine definitely the exact village which the natives par-
ticularized as Soacatino. But the four Indian mounds once dis-
cernible in the north portion of Nacogdoches give evidence of
an aboriginal village.
But the guide conscripted at Nondacao played the usual game
and led the group out of the way to the eastward. After five
days they came to Aays (Hais is Biedma's spelling) some-
where in the neighborhood of present day San Augustine.
There they were attacked by the natives who sallied forth,
exclaiming, "Kill the cows--they are coming." Inasmuch as it
was September 4 (September 13 new style), the Indians may
well have expected the southward migration of the buffalo;
certainly they assumed that the horses, with which they were
not familiar, were a strange sort of bison. The hostility shown
by the Aays (Hais) was quite in character; the Eyeish, with
whom we must identify them, long maintained their reputa-
tion as a perverse and contentious folk. Moscoso defeated the
natives after a sharp fight and marched into their town. In
the fighting the Indians suffered heavy losses; no Spaniard was
seriously wounded though men and horses incurred some slight
injuries.
The length of the stay at Aays (Hais) is not indicated by
the Fidalgo or Biedma; Garcilasso, always suspect, says two
days. If we accept his reckoning, they left Aays on the morn-
ing of September 7; three days after their departure they
reached Soacatino, their journey having been lengthened by
the ruse of their guide (a native of Nondacao), who, as usual,
sought to lead them off the road. By highway the distance
from San Angustine to Nacogdoches today is thirty-five miles,
an interval which at the slow pace of the Spaniards would
have required three days' march. If, as we surmise, Soacatino
is an awkward attempt to render scho-atino
(sha-atino),
there
can be little doubt that the adventurers found Soacatino among
the Redlands of the East Texas Pine forests; Xuacatino, Biedma
observes, lay amid close forests. For our purposes the four
ancient mounds on the approximate site of present Nacogdoches
was the Soacatino of the Fidalgo.
To retrace briefly, on the day they left Aays (Hais) their
guide, a man of Nondacao, informed them that his people had
heard that the Indians of Soacatino had seen other Christians.
Moscoso, on his arrival at Soacatino, inquired anxiously if
this rumor was true. No, the Indians replied, they had not
actually seen the white men but they had heard it said that
they were traveling about near somewhat to the south. Biedma
adds his recollection of the report, saying, "Hence the Indians
guided us eastward to other small towns, poorly off for food,
having said that they would take us where there were other
Christians like us, which afterward proved false." His state-
ment that the Indians led them eastward, from which direction
they had just come, has confused most students of the entrada;
obviously through an error in transcription the phrase al
este
has been substituted for al
oeste
-- the Indians really guided
them westward. Westward to the site of the Hainai village on
the east side of the Angelina where later, in 1716, was estab-
lished the mission of Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción.
Most commentators have either chosen to discredit altogether
the rumors concerning the other Christians or have elected to
build upon them a problematic account of the proximity of
Coronado. Especially have a few made use of the approach of
other white men to prove that Moscoso ascended Red River
far enough westward to meet with natives who had seen
or heard of Coronado. More reasonably, it seems, we may
assume that the people of Soacatino had heard of Christians,
who surely were not members of the Coronado expedition but
rather Cabeza de Vaca and his associates. Cabeza had traded
inland from Galveston Island in 1530-31 to a distance of thirty
or forty leagues;
38 he had not gone as far north as the Red-
lands but the rumor of his presence to the southward had
doubtless passed from tribe to tribe until it came to the land
of the Hasinai.
Here we should pause to establish our time sequence as defi-
nitely as possible. First, let us recall that Moscoso left Aays
(Hais) on the morning of September 7 and reached Soacatino
in three days' marches—thus he reached Soacatino in the after-
noon of September 9. Thence he went to the site of the village
afterward occupied by the Hainai; thence he turned and trav-
eled for "about six days in a direction south and southwest,"
where he halted. So says Biedma. Presumably he had reached
Guaseo at the time he came to a temporary stop. If we assume
he left Soacatino on the morrow of his arrival there, he set
forth on September 10, and used x
days in reaching Hainai
(two days should suffice), bringing him to the evening of Sep-
tember 11; add six more days required to reach Guaseo and
we have September 18. Singular confirmation of this date is
found in a statement of the Fidalgo:
... He marched for twenty days through a poorly
populated region where they endured great need and
suffering; for the little maize the Indians had they hid
in the forests and buried it where, after being well
tired out with marching, the Spaniards went trailing
it, at the end of the day's journey looking for what
they must eat. On reaching a province called Guasco,
they found maize with which they loaded the horses
and the Indians whom they were taking.
39
The puzzle presented by the statement that "he marched tor
twenty days through a poorly populated region where they
endured great need and suffering" before he came to Guasco
may be solved by adopting the Commission's suggestion, "this
20 may include part of the preceding itinerary."
40 If we
count back twenty days from September 18 (our tentative
date for the arrival at Guasco) we have August 30; further
inquiry shows they probably arrived at Nondacao on that day.
A rereading of the Fidalgo's account will reveal further that
he had insisted upon the poverty of the country since their
departure from Nondacao, although he had recorded that "the
land of Nondacao was a very populous region, . . . and there
was an abundance of maize."
41 But we have not exhausted our
time data; they camped in the vicinity of Guasco for four days,
certainly, and perhaps a day or two more; after which they
went ten days' journey to the River Daycao, from whence they
decided to retrace their steps eastward, "for it was already the
beginning of October."
42 And so it was according to our recon-
struction of the time-sequence; quite probably they turned back
from Daycao during the first week of October. Thus if we are
right in our time-sequence hypothesis -- and it cannot be in
error more than two or three days -- Moscoso came to Guasco
either on September 18 or 19.
To reach Guasco, Biedma says they marched for six days in
a direction south and southwest. The journey thither from the
small town poorly off for food (which we have agreed was
the village later occupied by the Hainai, if, indeed they were
not resident there in 1542) was accomplished slowly and de-
viously. Their guides as usual were treacherous and the coun-
try through which they were marching afforded little food.
The location of Guasco lies at the very heart of the entrada
problem; thus we need to use every available scrap of evidence
to determine the place's identity. Guasco, we note first of all,
was not a town but a province or region; secondly, it was fertile
and productive of much corn. All of which argues for an area
populated by a number of Indian groups, sedentary in their
customs and essentially agricultural in their life. At once,
the distance traveled, the direction followed and the nature of
the folk found at the end of the march suggests Guasco should
be identified as the ancient habitat of the Hasinai which spanned
the Neches River to include the vicinity occupied at present by
Alto and Weches. Although the De Soto Commission spent
some effort in an attempt to identify Guasco as a variant
Caddoan name for a tribe of that people, possibly the Yscani,
43
the answer seems simpler and clearer.
Guasco is the Fidalgo's rendition of the Caddoan word wä
-
scho.
The element scho
is familiar to students of Caddo lin-
guistics; it means "hill" or "mound." The term variously
reproduced by early travelers as scha,
sco
or scho
and in
Mooney's modern glossary as sha.
44 In the Representation of
the Missionary Fathers, 1716, the Neche are termed the
Nascha
45--it needs no great imagination to find in this word
the Caddoan dissyllable na-scha,
i.
e.,
"people of the hill, spe-
cifically, of course, the people of the great mounds southwest
of present day Alto. But Guasco may be equated with wä-scho,
or better still, näwä-scho,
if we add the gentilic nä-.
The pre-
mmption that Guasco and Nascha are the same appears too
strong to dismiss as mere coincidence. Until a more plausible
solution is advanced, it seems we are justified in identifying
Guasco as the land of the Neche, if not the very village occupied
ov that folk in historic times.
But we have further conjectures to offer in support oi our
identification of Guasco inasmuch as "thence they went to an-
other village called Naquiscoca."
46 Some students of the entrada
problem have suggested that Naquiscoca is recognizable as
Nacogdoches, partially, we suspect, because the Nacogdoches
better known than other more obscure members of the Hasinai
confederacy. The correlation is not impossible, of course, but
a scrutiny of the Fidalgo's appellative, Naquiscoca, reveals the
presence of three Caddoan elements which may be rendered
näwi-scho-cha,
a phrase which quite probably can be translated
"lower hill place." The old Nabedache village on San Pedro
Creek across the Neches River from the land of the Neche fits
the description.
At Naquiscoca the Indians at first denied that they had
heard of other Christians but when their memories were sharp-
ened by torture the natives said that they (the Christians) had
reached "another domain ahead called Nacacahoz and had re-
turned thence toward the west whence they had come."
47 Mos-
coso moved on to Nacacahoz, spending two days on the way;
there a captive Indian woman told a fantastic story of her
capture by white men from whom she had subsequently escaped.
To ascertain the truth of her story, Moscoso sent a party of
horsemen, guided by the woman, to search out the place of her
supposed capture. After the party had gone three or four
leagues the woman confessed that she had lied; "and so they
considered what the other Indians had said about having seen
Christians in the land of Florida."
48 Having found the land
about Nacacahoz poor in corn, they returned to Guasco.
Who were the Nacacahoz thus introduced, somewhat casually
into our story? Some have seen in them the well-known Natchi-
toches,
49 but more reasonably it appears that Nacacahoz is the
Fidalgo's attempt to render Nacachau, which had as its variants
Nacachao and Nacachas.
50 But in 1716 the Nacachau were
living on the east side of the Neches River just north of the
Neche; if they were resident there in 1542 they do not fit into
our scheme very clearly. But if the Nacacahoz of the Fidalgo
could be identified as the Nechaui, who were living, according
to Peña's diary,
51 some five and a half leagues southeast of
the old crossing between the Neche and the Nabedache in 1721,
then we have settled the Guasco-Naquiscoca-Nacacahoz problem.
To sum up briefly: Moscoso reached Guasco (Nascha, Neche),
southwest of the present site of Alto, September 18 or 19;
thence he went across the Neches River to the village of the
Nabedache near Weches; from there he journeyed somewhat
southeast to the village of the Nechaui, a distance of about
fourteen or fifteen miles, in search of other white men. A
scouting party failed to find any evidence of other Christians
thereabout, if indeed the rumor of their presence was not just
a lie served up to please the Spaniards. From Nacacahoz, as
we have previously stated, the weary adventurers returned to
Guasco.
There "the Indians told them that ten days' journey thence
toward the west was a river called Daycao where they some-
times went to hunt in the mountains and to kill deer; that on
the other side of it they had seen people, but did not know
what village it was."
52 Much thought and not a few guesses
have been devoted to the identity of the River Daycao. Of one
thing we can be certain: it was beyond the land of the agri-
cultural Hasinai. Furthermore, ordinarily a ten days' journey
would enable them to cover approximately a hundred miles, but
their rate of march had declined to nearer six or seven miles
per day. Again, though the Fidalgo says that Daycao was
toward the westward (but he does not say due westward),
Biedma indicates the direction pursued was rather toward the
southwest. This time-direction datum, without the aid of fur-
ther evidence which will be brought to bear on the problem,
suggests that the River Daycao was the Trinity. If they moved
along the old hunting path from the Neches to the Trinity,
approximating the later Camino Real, they reached the Trinity
somewhere in southwestern Houston County. In no instance
could they have gone as far west as the Brazos--time did not
permit.
Here it should be explained that the Caddo word for "river
was a nasalized vocable which the Fidalgo rendered cao
and
Joutel transliterated into French as cano,
ex., Canohatino,
Red
River.
53 Nor should we overlook the established fact that in
very early times the Bidai Indians were located just south of
the famous crossing of the Old Spanish Road on the Trinity.
It is not known definitely by what name these Indians desig-
nated themselves; bidai
is a Caddo word meaning "brush-
wood."
54 Tribal traditions asserted that the Bidai were the
oldest inhabitants of the area, and, though surrounded by the
Caddo, at least in later times, they remained aloof and retained
their independence. Daycao, therefore, was the Caddo designa-
tion for the river west of their principal habitat; it meant
"River of the Bidai," or, in its shortened form, "Brushy
River." Persons acquainted with the natural features of the
Trinity bottoms can testify to the accuracy of the descriptive
appellation.
A cursory reading of their accounts may give the impression
that the Fidalgo and Biedma are not in accord concerning the
course of events involved in the march from Guasco to Daycao
and their sojourn at the latter place. The Fidalgo implies that
the Spaniards moved as a unit from Guasco to the east bank
of the River Daycao, whence Moscoso sent a few horsemen
to explore the opposite side, but they went westward only a
few miles at the most. Biedma, on the other hand, says that
a party of ten mounted on swift horses went farther to see if
maize could be found; they traveled for eight or nine days and
found a wretched folk without houses but living in huts, sub-
sisting on fish and flesh. But a careful comparison of our
two sources suggests a reasonable explanation of the apparent
differences in the accounts.
Let us examine Biedma's narrative first; he says:
Thence [i.
e.,
from Guasco] we sent ten men on swift
ble, and see if any town could be found where we
might re-supply ourselves with maize, to enable us to
pursue our journey. They went as far as they could
go, and came upon some poor people without houses,
having wetched huts into which they withdrew; and
they neither planted nor gathered anything, but lived
entirely upon fish and flesh. Three or four of them,
whose tongue no one we could find understood, were
brought back. Reflecting that we had lost our inter-
preter, that we found nothing to eat, that the maize
we brought upon our back was failing, and it seemed
impossible that so many people could cross a country
so poor, we determined to return to the town where
the Governor Soto died, . . .
55
Place over against this the Fidalgo's account:
There [i. e.,
at Guasco] the Christians took what
maize they found and could carry and after marching
ten days through an unpeopled region reached the
river of which the Indians had spoken. Ten of horse,
whom
the
governor
had
sent
on
ahead,
56 crossed over
to the other side, and went along the road leading to
the river. They came upon an encampment of Indians
who were living in very small huts. As soon as they
saw them, they took to flight, abandoning their posses-
sions, all of which were wretchedness and poverty. The
land was so poor, that among them all, they did not
find half an 'alquire' of maize. Those of horse cap-
tured two Indians and returned with them to the river
where the governor was awaiting them. They continued
to question them in order to learn from them the popu-
lation to the westward, but there was no Indian in the
camp who understood their language.
57
From the two passages, often thought contradictory, we can
reconstruct the movement of the Spaniards westward from
Guasco substantially as follows. Moscoso selected ten horse-
men to ride in advance of the main force for some days (not
necessarily eight or nine days) while he followed more slowly
with the remainder of his army, who were obliged to adjust
their pace to that of the foot soldiers and bearers carrying
corn on their backs. Ten days were thus used up in reaching
the Daycao. Meanwhile the scouts, who had ridden ahead,
reached the river, crossed over to the west side, captured two
to four of the unfortunate natives and returned to join the
governor at his camp. The reconnoitering party reported the
poverty of the country across the stream. Its miserable folk
lived in huts (both Biedma and the Fidalgo emphasized the
wretchedness of the dwellings); nor could the captives speak
a tongue intelligible to Moscoso's Hasinai guides. They had
reached at last the westernmost terminus of their fruitless
Odyssey. Disheartened by the unfavorable report of their
scouts and faced by the lateness of the season, for it was the
beginning of October, they decided it was the better part of
judgment to return eastward to the Great River from whence
thev had come.
So far as the evidence, specific and cumulative, can be brought
to bear on the problem it indicates that Moscoso had reached
the Trinity River in what is now southwestern Houston County,
Texas. Perhaps the camp was located some miles south of the
old crossing, long afterward known as Robbins' Ferry, opposite
the mouth of Bedias Creek, today the boundary between Walker
and Madison Counties. How long the Spaniards remained there
does not appear in the record, but only a few days at the most;
thence they turned back along the way they had come. As
they retreated they began to repent their folly in despoiling
the Indian villages on the outward march and it was only when
they returned to Naguatex that they found the houses rebuilt
and filled with corn. From Naguatex they pressed on to
Guachoya, whence the next year they went to Mexico. But
that segment of their adventure does not belong to our story
of Moscoso's journey through Texas in 1542.
58
One or two further observations, indicative rather than con-
firmatory of the validity of conclusions reached in this account
concerning the route pursued by Moscoso, should be offered here.
First, much has been said by the exponents of the Red River
route about the sterility of the soil and the dryness of the
climate in the area traversed by Moscoso. The commentators
forget that summer was upon the land: the heat of August
and September had dried the corn brown in the fields, the
dusty-gray leaves of the oak hung intermingled with the droop-
ing needles of the pine, the cicada droned constantly through-
out the drowsy day, and above all, a copperas sky—surely one
who knows the drought of summer in East Texas will not need
the semi-aridity of the Grand Prairie to provide the stage for
Moscoso's entrada.
For the summer of 1542 was droughty; the Fidalgo expresses
the amazement of the Spaniards at finding Red River running
at flood stage when rain had not fallen for weeks in the vicinity
of their crossing. Thereafter, throughout their journey, they
passed through a country that had not had rain for some time
prior to their coming. This may and perhaps does account for
the chroniclers' failure to mention the crossing of the rivers
they found--the Sulphur Fork, the Sabine, the Angelina and
the Neches. Certainly, a century and a half later Joutel and
Douay, who traveled over the Texas portion of the route in
reverse direction, but in spring and not in summer, had occasion
to note the presence of all four streams.
FOOTNOTES:
the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, XIV,
483-644.
Louisiana and Southern Arkansas," United States Geological Survey Pro -
fessional Papers, No. 46, House Documents, LXVII, 59th Congress, 1st
Session.
States, 53.
by Governor Fernando de Soto . . . by a Gentleman of Elvas," in the
Publications of the Florida Historical Society, No. 11, II, 201. Robertson's
translation will be used throughout this paper. It will be cited simply
as Elvas.
III, 10.
them to the Gregorian calendar.
Louisiana and Southern Arkansas," 30.
Discover the River Mississippi," in Cox, I. J. (ed.), Journeys of La Salle,
II, 178.
the Bureau of American Ethnology.
the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, XIV,
483-644.
nando de Soto, II. 36.
Historical Quarterly, XI, 268.
in Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543, 56.
Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1103.
54Ibid., I,145.
Hernández de Biedma" in Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto,
II, 37.
according to his hypothesis will be found appended to "The Narrative of the
Expedition of Hernando de Soto, by the Gentleman of Elvas in Spanish
Explorers in the Southern United States, 1528-1542. His notes are quoted,
and my comments are set off in italics. He located Aguacay on the
west bank of the Ouachita River, two miles south of Arkadelphia, in
Clark County, Arkansas. The attack by the chiefs of Naguatex, Hacanac
and Amaye occurred "probably on the Prairie de Roane, near Hope. The
small river upon which they camped the next day (incidentally the small
river existed only in Lewis' misreading of Buckingham Smiths faulty
translation) was "Little River in Hempstead County." The place where
they crossed Red River was "about three miles east of the line between
Texas and Arkansas, in the latter state, and is known as White Oak
Shoals." At that point, Lewis thought he saw just such an island as the
one upon which Pato is shown on the De Soto map. But Pato was on the
thither bank of Red River, not on this side. This is "in the elbow or
'great bend' of Red River, and is about forty miles long, and from two to
thirteen miles wide. At the upper end of the island and just south of the
ford, is an overflowed piece of land known as the Bench Farm, which is
the property of Mrs. Edna L. Orr. It was here that Moscoso and his fol-
lowers camped for several days. This is the only large island above Fulton
on Red River, and the next ford, forty miles above by land, is too far up."
Lewis has Moscoso camping on the wrong side of the river. Lewis dis -
regards Nisione, Lacane, and Nondacao completely, but locates Aays
(Hais) "to the southward of Gainesville, Texas, the town being located
just west of the 'Lower Cross Timbers,' on the prairie." (He fails to state
his reasons for placing Aays just there.) Soacatino, he asserts, was in the
Upper Cross Timbers in the vicinity of Wichita Falls. Guasco he places in
Palo Pinto or Young County and identifies with the name Waco, linguisti -
cally an almost impossible equation. He thinks the Naquiscoca was the
tribe known to the Spaniards as the Naquis and to the French as the
Haquis. He does not mention the Nacacahoz. Now comes the return to
Guasco and the trip to the river Daycao, which he identifies as the Double
Mountain Fork of the Brazos. The Indians captured on the other side of
the river were Comanches. The southward migration of the Comanche
probably had not reached Texas in 1542. "The point at which they prob-
ably stopped was at the south angle of the river, in the northwestern part
of Fisher County, distant about 100 miles from the fort." There, of course,
they turned back to Naguatex. This hypothesis overlooks the logic of time
and distance entirely; from the White Oak Shoals to Wichita Falls, thence
to Young County, to Naquiscoca (not definitely located by Lewis), and
then out to the Double Mountain Fork of the Brazos is roughly four hundred
and twenty-five miles air line. This distance had to be covered in forty-three
or forty-five days, since it is fairly evident that Moscoso left Naguatex
August 23 and reached Daycao at the beginning of October (say October
6). Such a rate of march was not impossible, granted that the invaders
were constantly on the move, which they were not. The Fidalgo states
that the distance from Naguatex to Daycao, whatever route was followed,
was approximately two hundred and sixty-five miles, i. e., three hundred and
ten from Aguacay to Daycao, less about forty-five miles. Finally, we can-
not, except by the most radical dislocation of Indian groups, conceive of
the Nasoni, Anadarko, Eye-ish and other Hasinai confederates living in
the upper Red River-Brazos region in 1542.
Dr. Robert T. Hill's reconstruction of the Moscoso route may be found
in the Dallas Morning News, September 1, 1935, March 29 and October 4,
1936. Substantially he outlined the itinerary as follows: from Bowie
County westward up Red River as far as Spanish Fort in Montague County,
where he placed Soacatino. Thence twenty days southward to Guasco,
identified as modern Waco, then to Navasota (his Naquiscoca), thence
back to Guasco and from there out to the juncture of the Concho and
Colorado in the vicinity of Paint Rock. One needs only to say that the
distances covered by such a march would have been impossible within
the time limits set by the Fidalgo.
How to cite:
Rex W. Strickland, "Moscoso's Journey Through Texas", Volume 46, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v046/n2/contrib_DIVL1626.html
[Accessed Sun Mar 21 15:59:39 CDT 2010]
