MOSCOSO'S TRAIL IN TEXAS
Seeming now as if they had come from the pages of an ancient
story book, a party of Spanish adventurers, headed by Luys de
Moscoso, made the first entrada of Europeans into the northeast
corner of Texas just four hundred years ago. To connect the
journey of these archaic figures--some of whom were clad in
the armor of mediaeval knights--with the Southwest of today
presents a field for no little interesting speculation. An attempt
to follow the actual route of these Spaniards, which is the chief
problem of this paper, holds some of the intriguing aspects of
dragging a bit of mythology into the plain daylight of Texas
history. A brief review of the background of the expedition
will prove helpful.
1
The expedition originated in Spain under the official stamp
of the king, and included several persons of noble birth, chief
of whom was the leader of the party, Hernando de Soto. With
a will of iron, and courage that knew no fear, De Soto conducted
his party from Spain to Cuba, from Cuba to Florida, and from
there across most of the area that is now the southern United
States. His long-drawn-out journey was, in the main, a search
for gold. With his curiosity in microscopic focus looking for
that precious element, he crossed the present states of Georgia,
South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Missis-
sippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and probably parts of Kansas and
Oklahoma. After three years of such wandering, De Soto
turned back to the mouth of the Arkansas.
2 Somewhat broken
in spirit, he sickened and died, leaving his followers to work
out their own salvation.
Indian fights and long exposure had taken a toll of nearly half
of his six hundred men, and only about forty of his two hundred
and forty horses still survived.
3 The search for gold had proved
to be a disappointment; these men who had been fired by
visions of immense riches had worn out their European clothes
and were now dressed in the skins of animals.
4 Probably their
morale had suffered as much as their raiment.
After De Soto's death the luxury-loving Moscoso was selected
as leader. After due consultation with the ranking Spaniards
of the group, he decided to turn the course of travel toward the
settlements in Mexico. Thus the frayed-out remnant of the well
trimmed De Soto expedition came into the land that we now
know as Texas. Slowed to a snail's pace by the lack of horses
and further impeded by a train of captured Indian slaves and
burden-bearers, the party was able to travel little more than
an average of six miles per day.
5 For four months this strange
party of white and red-skinned humanity moved westward and
southwestward under the convoy of the few mounted men who
still faintly resembled Spanish cavalry. Then fear seized them,
fear of starvation if they went ahead, and the party returned to
the mouth of the Arkansas, hoping to escape by water.
But details of the journey are not the purpose of this paper.
Chiefly, this effort is concerned with the route which the
Moscoso party followed in Texas. Difficult as that task may be,
the writer has employed evidence not previously emphasized in
attempting its solution.
To begin the search for a trail at the very end of it is an
odd, and doubtless novel procedure, but that is the method to
be employed in this research. Like raveling an old stocking
by beginning at the toe, that journey of four hundred years
ago seems easier to understand when first approached from
the "wrong end." Here, at the final point of that long, crooked
trail—on the bank of some Texas river—this unique party of
Spaniards gave up the idea of crossing the North American
continent by land. That stream beside which Moscoso's party
stood in early October, 1542, most authorities believe, was the
Brazos, but agreement ends just there. As to the exact place
on that great river, those same authorities disagree by half the
width of Texas.
Why should one believe that the Brazos was the actual stream
upon which that journey ended? First, because it is the one
Texas river that is almost exactly one hundred and fifty leagues
southwest from the mouth of the Arkansas, the exact distance
given by accounts as to this last leg of the Spaniards' journey.
6
Next, this Texas water course was the second large river
mentioned on the route southwest from the mouth of the Ar-
kansas. Finally, the river beside which the Spaniards ended
their journey was a stream so large that certain of the East
Texas Indians could see other Indians on the opposite bank, but
apparently had no communication with them, and did not know
what people they were.
7 Certainly no Texas river other than
the Brazos seems to fit all these descriptions.
The big puzzle, however, still remains: at what place on the
Brazos did Moscoso's Spaniards halt and face eastward? The
writer has attempted the task of hunting down the answer to
that question only because a great length of that important
river is within easy range of the family car and a modest-sized
tank of gasoline.
Clues that throw light on any part of Moscoso's trail are
extremely scarce. Accounts of this expedition have dropped a
few specific phrases or sentences that are probably due more
attention than they have previously received. Most prominent
among such expressions is part of a sentence used by the Gen-
tleman of Elvas. The Spaniards, in an unfruitful search for
other white men, finally reached an Indian village called Guasco.
The natives of this village told the Spaniards of other Indians
who might be of assistance. "... ten days journey . . .
toward sunset was a river called Daycao [probably the Brazos]
whither they sometimes went to drive and kill deer and whence
they had seen persons on the other bank but without knowing
what people they were."
8 Moscoso and his followers did as
directed and pushed westward to the river Daycao, where these
Guasco Indians went to drive
and kill
deer. It was the end of
their long journey previously referred to.
It is evident that the Spanish explorers came to a final halt
in the heart of the deer country, a fact which brings us imme-
diately into a search for the habitat of the north Texas deer
of four centuries ago. Facts about deer that were true only one
century ago will probably yield the required truth. Josiah
Gregg, one of the keenest observers of frontier conditions dur-
ing the last century, said that deer did not inhabit the high
plains. These anmials, he observed, were to be found farther
east, in and near the timbered belts and along certain timber-
lined streams that arose to the west of those wooded areas.
9
Marcy, in 1849, crossed West Texas from the Big Spring to
near the site of Denison. His party did not kill any deer until
they had crossed to the east side of the Brazos in present Young
County.
10 Kendall, with the Texan Santa Fe Expedition in 1841,
found deer scarce in the prairie country to the east of the
Brazos, some miles above present Waco;
11 he apparently found
them plentiful in the upper Cross Timbers,
12 and found one
large herd on the Wichita River, not a great distance from
the location of Seymour.
13 This appears, however, to have
been near the west edge of the deer country. Meat became
scarce with the Texans and a special party of experienced
hunters were detailed to keep them supplied. Kendall reported
only one more deer killed.
14
Thus far, the accounts of Gregg, Marcy and Kendall seem
to show a cross section of the deer country with those fleet-
footed little animals most numerous in the upper Cross Timbers,
and less numerous in the prairies to the east and west of that
wooded belt. Other experiences confirm this picture. In 1840
Colonel William G. Cooke and his Texas soldiers found game
so scarce in the open country between the sites of Waxahachie
and Dallas that they were forced to kill their mules for food.
15
Certainly they were not in the heart of the deer country. It
should be added that the game on which they did subsist be-
tween the Waco Village and Waxahachie did not seem to in-
clude venison.
Sixty-eight years earlier, De Mézières crossed this same
prairie that lies to the east of Waco. He reported that the
Quitsey Indians, who lived east of the Trinity, traded the skins
of buffalo and deer to the people of Natchitoches. He also
reported that the "Tancagues" traded these same commodities
to the Tuacana Indians, whose principal village was located in
the prairies west of the Trinity.
16 In each case the supply of
deerskins came from the west. Certainly these statements are
not to be construed as meaning that deer were not found in
the timber of East Texas, but that they were far more plentiful
somewhere to the west. Thoroughly consistent with that fact
is the statement of the Indians of Guaseo [in 1542] that the
place where they hunted deer was ten days' travel toward the
sunset.
17
The Coronado expedition came past the east edge of the
Staked Plains only one year before Moscoso came to Texas.
Coronado's men found deer, so says the account of Castañeda,
but the description left of those animals plainly shows that
what they found were not deer but antelope. Castañeda's state-
ment "the deer are pied with white"
18 contains its own tell-
tale evidence. The pronghorn, or prongbuck, that lived west
of the Cross Timbers and in the high plains, which is popularly
called an antelope, was undoubtedly "pied with white."
19 The
deer of Central Texas were not so colored. All of which con-
firms Gregg's statement that deer did not inhabit the high
plains, for the kind of deer that Coronado saw obviously were
not deer at all. Gregg's statement of one hundred years ago
tells plainly that the high plains was the antelope country and
that the timbered area to the east was the deer country.
20
Castañeda's statement of four hundred years ago tells part of
the same story. That the upper Cross Timbers were the heart
of the deer country on both of these widely separated dates
seems to be borne out by such straws of evidence as present
themselves.
A further fact helps to limit the terminal point of Moscoso's
journey. The Indians of Guasco sometimes went west to wher-
ever that terminal point was in order to drive
and kill deer.
In what kind of country could Indians, on foot, successfully
drive and kill deer? Certainly not in a wide open prairie, say
the best modern deer hunters whom the writer has been able
to contact.
21 The type of terrain where the drive method of
hunting deer was most likely to have succeeded must have
included canyons and, possibly, open places in the timber. The
one place where the upper Cross Timbers are cut with canyons
and at the same time where that timbered area intersects the
Brazos River ranges some sixty to ninety miles west of Fort
Worth, chiefly in Palo Pinto County. Quite by coincidence, a few
wild deer are still at large in that section. It offers something
better than a guess as to where Moscoso ended his journey in
Texas. The nearest landmark for identification is Possum
Kingdom Dam.
Tentatively allowing the end of Moscoso's trail to rest at this
place beside the Brazos, we turn, for additional evidence, to
another animal. De Soto brought a herd of hogs from Cuba
and drove them the entire journey across the present Southern
States.
22 That herd of swine was nurtured by him as something
very precious. Indications are that at night the hogs shared
the camp site with the Spaniards.
23 De Soto kept them as a
kind of insurance policy against starvation.
24 According to
accounts, it seems that only once did he issue pork to his follow-
ers. At the death of De Soto this moving hog ranch had grown
to seven hundred swine.
25 These animals were auctioned among
the surviving Spaniards and driven into Texas.
26 Very likely
some of them strayed off into the woods of East Texas, and
furnished a beginning for the strange species known to pioneers
as "razor-backs." The writer has labored diligently to discover
whether or not these thin-backed swine inhabited the upper
Cross Timbers; the evidence is overwhelmingly in the affirm-
ative, and some of that evidence pre-dates the first Anglo-Amer-
ican settlements by almost one hundred years.
27 But the whole
effort loses point when one continues the search and finds that
wild hogs, at least similar to razor-backs, ranged the surface
of Texas almost wherever there were acorns, from the shinnery
of Motley County to the Sabine River bottom, and even to the
Gulf of Mexico.
28 If these were truly De Soto's hogs, some of
the breed is still left in Jasper County, perhaps to offer a humble
grunt in celebration of this, the four hundredth anniversary of
the first Spanish expedition in northeast Texas. Possibly there
is some slight confirmation of the theory that Moscoso came to
the end of his trail near Possum Kingdom Dam in the fact
that the razor-backs were once unusually numerous from a point
southward of Desdemona (commonly called Hog Town) north-
eastward across Young and Jack Counties.
29
Leaving this statement on its own merits, or demerits, let
us turn to a certain consideration about De Soto's hogs that
drives home an important fact, almost with sledge-hammer
blows. The route of the Spaniards was limited to the country
where there was food for the hogs. Could these explorers have
crossed vast stretches of prairie accompanied by their moving
pork supply? Obviously not, unless Moscoso had seen fit to
conscript an additional seven legions of Indians to carry the
necessary corn and acorns. The Spaniards were, plainly, unable
to camp in the prairie for very long, unless acorn-bearing or
nut-bearing trees were close at hand.
Applying this simple fact to the route of the explorers, one
is almost forced to the conclusion that Moscoso did not go west
of the upper Cross Timbers, since the prairies beyond would
have meant starvation for the hogs.
From the Indian village of Guasco to the end of their trail
the Spaniards were forced to carry corn on their backs for
their food supply.
30 They camped on the banks of the river
Daycao and waited for ten horsemen to return. Meanwhile,
no more corn was in sight and the party faced uncertainty if
they went ahead, or ten days without an additional supply of
corn until they could march back to Guaseo. Under such cir-
cumstances surely the Spaniards did not divide their corn with
the hogs. Or, put another way, surely this last point on Mos-
coso's journey was, at least, near timber that bore either nuts
or acorns. The upper Cross Timbers, which provided a haven
of security for the deer could, at the same time, have furnished
food for Moscoso's hogs.
One may glean still further evidence from the study of the
range of another animal. Apparently the Moscoso party never
did enter the country in which buffalo grazed in immense
herds.
31 It is unthinkable that the Spaniards could have en-
countered these most distinctive animals of the plains in mass
and that both of the two narrators of the journey should have
overlooked the fact; this consideration has, no doubt, been a
major element in many previous discussions of the route of
Moscoso. But part of the import of that statement seems to
have been overlooked. The buffalo country was, of course, west
of the Cross Timbers and on the high plains, but it did not
stop there. On the plains to the west, southwest and to the
east and northeast of Waco, great herds of the bison grazed,
by the hundreds and even by the thousands. In 1841, Kendall
found them very numerous from Austin to a point westward
of Waco.
32 Once, near modern Salado, he remarked that one
could see "... nothing in any direction save the immense
animals. . . ."
33 For at least three days' travel to the north,
Kendall observed that buffalo continued to be numerous. In
the prairie that lies west of Cleburne, he stated that "... the
buffalo had evidently been driven to the south."
34 No more
buffalo were encountered until Kendall and his party had passed
through the upper Cross Timbers, probably near the east line
of Clay County.
Some ten months earlier, Colonel Cooke, with a military de-
tachment, passed over a route near the present towns of Belton,
Waco, and Waxahachie. He found buffalo "in abundance" from
Belton to Waco, and again on the prairie to the southwest of
the site of Waxahachie.
35 However, northward of this area game
became so scarce that Colonel Cooke's soldiers were forced to
eat their dogs, mules, and horses.
36 Supplementing Cooke's
experiences, the diary of a Tennesseean who traveled through
Texas in 1846, tells of some five hundred buffalo in the prairie
north of the site of Corsicana.
37
Almost seventy years earlier, De Mézières made a journey
that extended from the Trinity River westward and up the
Brazos from the site of present-day Waco. He observed that
the number of wild cattle was "incredible."
38 He passed over
the same ground on other occasions and, with less definiteness
of statement, seems to have found somewhat the same situation.
De Mézières, at a later date, journeyed to the southwest of
the Waco Village. His observations about buffalo in that area
confirmed the statements of both Cooke and Kendall.
39 Also,
this early-day Frenchman found buffalo along the San Antonio
road, between the Colorado and Brazos rivers.
40 Probably these
observers have left us something like the true limits of the
portions of the buffalo country that are essential here.
Apparently the upper Cross Timbers served as a barricade
to prevent large herds of buffalo from ranging to the east.
With a minor exception, to be noted later, those animals were
very scarce, to say the least, from Red River south to the prairie
about Waxahachie. However, coming from the plains of West
Texas down the Colorado, and extending east to Waco and even
far toward the Trinity, there was almost continuous prairie.
Along this line, and over many millions of acres extending to
the south and far down between the Colorado and Brazos, was
once the range of the buffalo. More extended research would,
doubtless, paint the picture in finer detail, but the present in-
formation will lend material assistance toward completing this
study.
If one accepts the thesis that Moscoso did not enter the buffalo
country, then it must follow: first, that he and his Spaniards
did not reach the Colorado River;
41 second, that he did not
reach the Brazos near Waco, or that he did not traverse the
country east of Waco and south of Waxahachie; and third,
that he did not go north of the Cross Timbers.
From the above discussion it becomes apparent that to avoid
the buffalo country entirely one is limited to two areas in
which he might approach the Brazos. One of these begins
some miles below Waco and extends to the Gulf of Mexico, a
section properly termed the lower Brazos. It is difficult to be-
lieve that Moscoso's Spaniards entered an area so near the coast
because all of the Indians contacted by these explorers on this
last part of their journey displayed an utter lack of knowledge
of the sea.
42
The other area in which one might approach the Brazos and
still avoid the buffalo country as delimited above is the span
of that river west of Fort Worth that extends from a little
above Graham to a little below Weatherford, a span of perhaps
seventy miles by direct line measurements. This section cuts
through the upper Cross Timbers and the Palo Pinto Moun-
tains, and includes the large, government-built Possum King-
dom Dam already referred to. It is the same area in which a
few deer are still running wild, and is also the section pre-
viously noted beyond which natural food for Moscoso's hogs
would have reached the vanishing point.
Plainly these studies of game-ranges throw the spotlight of
probability on the Palo Pinto Mountains as the final point reached
by the De Soto expedition. A careful observer may travel across
the countryside and find in the Texas corn fields another bit of in-
formation that is perhaps equally illuminating, i.
e.,
an imaginary
line that divides the good corn country from the poor corn country
which runs just west of Fort Worth. East of the line there is from
three to ten times as much corn grown per county as just west
of it, and corn production thins out to nearly nothing a hundred
miles up the Brazos.
43 Up the Red River, corn production is
moderately successful almost to the hundredth meridian. Pio-
neer farmers tried industriously to raise corn in the country
west of the "good corn belt" but the result was largely failure,
and other feed crops were substituted.
One hundred and seventy years ago De Mézières found the
villages of corn-producing Indians west of the Trinity, near
present-day Waco, and a short distance up the Brazos from
that point. But these villages stopped at the same imaginary
line that now lies at the west edge of the good corn country.
44
Later the pressure of white population drove these Indians up-
stream into the upper Cross Timbers and finally into a reserva-
tion near the site of Graham, Texas. However, they must have
had their difficulties with farm production, for a white agricul-
tural expert was furnished
45 them throughout most of the
history of the reservation.
The corn belt, probably the same as shown, both by modern
statistical tables and by a glance at Indian geography of one
hundred and seventy years ago, appears to have presented a
very real problem to the Moscoso expedition of four hundred
years ago. These Spaniards found corn in some measure wher-
ever they went until they reached the village of Guasco; here
there was enough corn to supply them on at least two occasions.
At last, loaded with corn from this Indian village, they began
the final ten-day march west toward the river Daycao. Appar-
ently neither corn nor Indians were found along the route, and
even though ten horsemen scoured the country ahead, there
was no more corn to the west.
46 The Indians found west of
the river did not farm at all, and were not even able to speak
the language of any of the numerous captives which the Span-
iards had collected from a vast range of corn-producing vil-
lages.
47 Between Guaseo and the river Daycao, Moscoso and his
men had evidently stepped over an economic boundary line.
They had passed out of the corn belt and away from Indians
who lived on corn into the area where red men lived on "flesh
and fish."
48
Such a boundary line, by all the standards which we are able
to muster, lay just west of the site of Fort Worth and, by the
same reasoning, the village of Guasco was not a great distance
from Fort Worth itself, and the crossing on the river Daycao
must have been a place on the Brazos somewhere to the west
in the region of the Palo Pinto Mountains. In no other section
of Texas does the Brazos enter the corn belt, and to assume
that either the Trinity or the Colorado was the stream ap-
proached by the Spaniards leads one into difficulties that can
hardly be explained away. The Trinity west of the corn belt
is only a creek and the Colorado above that belt is so far into
Central Texas that it is beyond the estimated range of Moscoso's
journey.
Accepting the Palo Pinto Mountains area on the Brazos as
the terminal point of the Spanish expedition, one may anchor
one end of the Moscoso trail at that point and begin to study
the route of that journey in reverse.
Indian villages were scattered along some portions of that
route, and furnish the key to part of the search for the trail.
Within the corn belt the Indian's plan of economy limited him
to small portions of the vast acreage now cultivated by white
men. He could not build his villages in the stream valleys that
were subject to overflow, and his failure to obtain water by
digging wells, or by other artificial means, prevented him from
making use of most of the uplands. Thus, of the whole economic
kingdom on which the white race has since waxed wealthy, he
was denied all but a few fragments.
One of those fragments was the valley of Village Creek that
lies some ten miles eastward and southeastward of Fort Worth.
In 1841 it supported a Caddoan Indian population that ran well
into the hundreds.
49 It ranges some sixty to ninety miles east of
various parts of the Palo Pinto Mountains and, considering the
slow speed of Moscoso's footmen, the two places were separated
by a distance of about ten days' travel. By all the reckonings of
space and direction, it was the proper site for the community
of Guasco. Other known village sites were southward on the
Brazos,
50 and near and along another stream eastward of Waxa-
hachie
51 that also is now called Village Creek--all of them miles
too far from the Palo Pinto Mountains to blend into the picture
left us of Moscoso's trail.
If the real Guasco of four hundred years ago was located on
the Village Creek that now skirts the town of Fort Worth, it
must have been isolated from similar habitations by a number
of miles toward the northeast, for apparently history has not
left a record of any large Indian community between that
stream and the area near Greenville. That the Trinity River
and many of its tributaries are subject to overflow is the prob-
able reason why an area so rich in agricultural possibilities did
not support a large population of corn-producing Indians. Im-
mediately west of Greenville are the Caddo Forks
52 of the
Sabine River. The name suggests that the area was once hab-
itable for some of these agricultural Indians, and authoritative
maps show that such Indians did live nearby at least a century
and a half ago.
53
Eastward of Greenville, the valleys of Sulphur and Cypress
Rivers, subject to great inundations, were hardly suitable to
the uses of crop-growing Indians. Still further to the east, in
the section below Texarkana, is a condition known as the Raft
in Red River where that great stream meanders across a flat
country, formerly blocking its own course with logs and drift,
and making habitation near its wide stream bed all but im-
possible.
However, to the north of Sulphur River, along the ridge be-
tween Paris and Texarkana and northward of that ridge on
both sides of the valley of Red River, is an area where corn-
producing Indians could supply their full requirements. The
best evidence of this is not a review of theory but reference
to the well known historic fact that a whole chain of the vil-
lages of such Indians was once located in this section. Nearly
two and a quarter centuries ago the Cadodachos lived along
Red River,
54 above the site of Texarkana, in such numbers as
to make it probable that they were the largest population of
their kind anywhere near the northeast corner of Texas.
Moscoso came into a land, part of which was called Naguatex,
that was very similar to the home of these Cadodacho Indians
of known history. The Naguatex Indians were great corn
farmers and they lived on both sides of a large river that, to
the amazement of the Spaniards, stayed at flood stage for eight
days when it had not rained for a whole month.
55 There is no
stream except Red River anywhere near the northeast corner
of Texas that has a large enough and long enough drainage
area to have kept its banks full for so many days without a
considerable amount of local rainfall.
Other evidence of similarity can be found between the land
of the Naguatex and the land of the Cadodachos. Just four and
a half days (say twenty-five to thirty miles of travel) before
Moscoso came to Naguatex, he made some salt from a lake.
About twenty-five miles north of Texarkana was once a great
salt works that employed fifty boilers to turn out its product.
56
Still another tie has been found between the land of the
Naguatex Indians and the valley of Red River. These redmen
of Moscoso's day were pottery-making Indians,
57 and such pot-
tery has been found in modern times in the valley of Red
River eastward of Paris.
58
Another of the miscellany of common earmarks between Mos-
coso's route and the Red River country must be arrived at by
indirection. During the two weeks after crossing the large
stream (assumed here to be Red River), the Spaniards were
several times treacherously led astray by Indian guides, into
thickets.
59 Certainly the inference is that if they had to be led
astray into thickets they were normally traveling in a some-
what more open country, which could hardly have been to the
south or southwest into the deep woods of East Texas. On the
other hand, the ridge westward from Texarkana and reaching
beyond Paris, was a somewhat open country, flanked, however,
on the south by the thickly timbered bottom of Sulphur River,
which could have furnished thickets equal to the wildest dreams
of mischief-making Indian guides.
In this connection, it should be remembered that about ten
days' travel (probably from fifty to one hundred miles) after
crossing the stream that must have been Red River, the Span-
iards saw some buffalo at a place called Aays (or Hais).
60 The
evidence is unmistakable that buffalo once grazed along the prai-
ries to the east and west of Paris.
61 If these animals at any
time grazed within fifty to one hundred miles in any other
direction from the land once occupied by the Cadodacho vil-
lages, or say Texarkana for convenience, the writer has been
unable to find the evidence. If the heavily wooded section of
East Texas that lies to the south and southwest of Texarkana
has ever been the range of the buffalo the fact seems not to
have been handed down to modern historians.
Assuming that Aays was somewhere near the site of Paris,
the route of Moscoso, a little further along its course, also fits
the topography of that part of Texas. Three days' travel from
Aays the Spaniards came to a place called Socatino, which was
among "close forests."
62 The country to the northeast of Green-
ville was once covered by the Black Cat thicket and the Jer-
nigan Thicket which, together, made it a veritable jungle.
63
Possibly this was the site of Socatino.
Here it is convenient to call attention to the three phases of
Moscoso's journey in Texas and to note, as far as possible, the
direction of travel in each case. During the first phase of this
journey, from Naguatex to Socatino, the explorers were prob-
ably traveling nearly west.
64 A significant statement from the
Elvas account informs us that three days after crossing the
large river in Naguatex, an Indian guide was hanged for leading
the party "east" instead of "west."
65 On the second phase of
the journey, stretching from Socatino to Guasco, the Elvas
statement indicates that the Spaniards were traveling south-
ward,
66 but Biedma gives the impression that there was a con-
fusion of directions which, during the last six days of this leg
of the journey, terminated "in a direction south and south-
west."
67 If the two accounts can be taken to mean that the net
direction was toward the southwest, they will harmonize with
the general observation made elsewhere in the Elvas narrative,
namely, that the direction of travel was "always westwardly."
68
A third phase of the journey, after a short side trip, led west-
ward from Guasco to the river Daycao.
69
These three phases of Moscoso's journey and the direction
of travel indicated are in harmony with the route of the expe-
dition as presented in this paper. Briefly stated, and with a
few details that have not been previously mentioned, that route,
as suggested here, crossed Red River not many miles above
Texarkana, passed near Clarksville, Paris and Greenville, and,
after some wandering about, reached the eastern edge of the
lower Cross Timbers, possibly west of the site of McKinney.
From here, following in a southward direction along the margin
of this timber belt, the trail reached Village Creek southeast of
Fort Worth, at the village known as Guasco. Here there was a
detour southward up Village Creek, but the trail returned to
Guasco and finally passed toward the west near the sites of
Fort Worth and Weatherford. The route continued westward
lear Possum Kingdom Dam and came to a final halt in Bone
Bend (on the Brazos) near the northwest corner of Palo
Pinto County. . .
Certainly this statement of a route contains minute details
for which there is no absolute proof, but there is a somewhat
plausible reason for each. Passing over the east end of the
route as far as the lower Cross Timbers without additional
comment, one may ask why the suggestion that the Spaniards
followed the edge of this timber belt southward to Guasco. The
answer seems to be that Biedma reveals that these explorers
were traveling south and southwest when they concluded the
second phase of their journey, and it is a physical fact that
the eastern edge of the lower Cross Timbers approaches Village
Creek in the very direction stated by Biedma.
70 Even the sup-
posed detour up Village Creek is in harmony with the fact of
known history that Indian habitations were stretched for miles
lid that stream in 1841.
71
From a point on Village Creek southeast of Fort Worth (at
the place which seems probable as the location of Guasco) the
suggestion here that Moscoso's route extended up the Brazos
to a horseshoe curve called Bone Bend, requires additional clari-
fication. Up that very route was a long forgotten horse path
over which some of the gold seekers of 1849 traveled to Cali-
fornia.
72 Much of the path followed well-beaten Indian trails
that lead to Bone Bend. The Northern
Standard
of Clarksville
recommended it as one of the two routes from North Texas to
California.
73 It was undoubtedly a natural path, for no road
workers had preceded the California-bound emigrants. Much
of this route appears on the Arrow
smith
map
of 1841 as a
Comanche Indian trail to East Texas.
74 Recently a very old
crucifix and a string of rosary beads were discovered near this
trail in the Possum Kingdom Dam area.
75 This discovery may
be evidence of early communication between the old missions of
East Texas and points up the Brazos.
Even before the period of these missions, La Salle found
Comanche Indians in an East Texas village with loot which
they had stolen in Santa Fe.
76 But one hundred and fifty years
before La Salle, Moscoso himself found turquoise and cotton
shawls at Guasco that had come from the direction of the sun-
set.
77 Guasco, near the west edge of the corn belt and the last
town west of all the farming Indians, should certainly have
had first contact with a trade from the area near the turquoise
mines of New Mexico. Is it possible that this trade route from
Guasco to New Mexico, the Indian trail down the Brazos to
East Texas and Moscoso's route from Guasco to--shall we say
Bone Bend--were, in part, the same dirt road?
Permitting the question to rest on the information already
presented, let us turn for a moment to a consideration of the
elements of time and distance involved in the three phases of
this journey. From Naguatex to Socatino required about fifteen
days' travel; from Socatino to Guasco required twenty days;
and from that place to the river Daycao required ten days.
78
These points, as interpreted in this paper, were apart by about
one hundred and twenty miles, seventy miles and eighty miles,
respectively. Plainly, the middle section is out of proportion to
the remainder of the journey, but the lack of a consistent direc-
tion of travel on this leg of the journey, and the difficulty of
obtaining food (corn) at the end of each day offer a reasonable
explanation.
Leaving these more minute details of route for whatever they
seem to be worth, it should be noted that in this paper Moscoso's
trail has been studied largely by attempting- to eliminate certain
portions of Texas from the area visited. To have stayed far
away from the sea, out of the buffalo country and at the same
time not to have exceeded the limits of the section where there
was food for the herd of hogs, Moscoso's trail was limited to
a relatively small portion of North Texas. This area was almost
a rectangle one hundred miles wide by three hundred miles long.
It lay north of the site of Waxahachie and east of Graham,
and if Moscoso remained within it he could travel no other
direction except "always westerly" as stated by the Gentleman
of Elvas.
On the positive side of the picture, Moscoso did go far enough
toward the southwest corner of this rectangle to reach a river
at some place beyond the corn belt and in the heart of the deer
country. The translation of the Elvas narrative employed by
the United States De Soto Expedition Commission includes lan-
guage concerning this deer country that hardly leaves any room
for one to doubt its location. According to this translation, the
Indians of Guasco recommended that Moscoso go to a place
on the river Daycao "where they sometimes went to hunt in
the mountains and to kill deer."
79 This language can hardly
have an ambiguous meaning, for the only place in the north-
east half of Texas where there are mountains along a river is
in and near Palo Pinto County, west of Fort Worth. Moscoso
did as directed and concluded his journey in those mountains.
Since the study of his entire trail depends heavily on this
western anchorage, perhaps the few significant words of the
above translation, when taken with the chief considerations of
this paper, do much to drag the route of Moscoso into plain
daylight.
FOOTNOTES:
in the Conquest of Florida, as told by a Knight of Elvas and in a relation
by Luys Hernández de Biedma (2 vols.; New York, 1904). Hereafter cited
as Bourne, De Soto. The introduction to this article is based chiefly on
these narratives.
the river Daycao (Bourne, De Soto, I, 166-180) reveals that about seventy
days were so spent. This does not include the detour at Guasco. Accepting
the estimate of 150 leagues (Bourne, De Soto, I, 182) as something near the
correct distance traversed in those seventy days, the result is an average
near six miles per day.
This volume contains the diary of Randolph B. Marcy made in 1849 on his
expedition across the Texas plains and return. Marcy observed that the
deer had probably been driven out of the area just west of the Brazos by
Indian hunters, but that fact does not materially change the evidence as
to their habitat.
(Austin, 1935), I, 107.
able to find deer, killed a mustang and, in true Texas fashion, made a joke
of it, allowing it to be eaten before explaining that the delicacy was horse
meat.
County, Texas (Sherman, Texas, 1936) 45. Colonel Cooke's Report is
copied in full in this volume, pp. 44-47.
Frontier, 1768-1780 (Cleveland, 1914), I, 286, 290. Hereafter cited as
Bolton, De Méziéres.
of it that lay on the Brazos River. Since deer were not numerous in open
prairies, and since the only timbered belt that intersected the upper Brazos
was the upper Cross Timbers, it is logical to suppose that the deer country
known to the Indians of Guaseo was in that timber-belt. The lower Cross
Timbers, it will be noted, did not reach the Brazos River. Probably the hill-
country northwest of San Antonio, with its natural water supply and
numerous hiding places, was a great deer country in 1542, as well as now.
Cabeza de Vaca found deer more numerous inland from the coastal plain.
The Palo Pinto mountain country in the upper Cross Timbers has the same
natural advantages for deer as has the San Antonio hill-country. Probably
it was a good deer country in 1542.
Southern United States, 1528-1543 (New York, 1907), 363.
37: see also Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 369.
subject is Mr. L. T. Cowden of Wichita Falls, Texas. Having hunted deer
in Texas during each of the last eighteen years, and in New Mexico almost all
of these years, he has killed forty-six deer during those seasons, almost the
total number which was permitted by law. Mr. Cowden regards it as
highly improbable that any drive method of deer hunting could have suc-
ceeded, except where timber or canyons—preferably the latter—aided the
hunter. To this he adds, "You don't find deer in open prairie, unless they
are near 'cover' anyway."
were killed in the fire.
known; they were numerous far down the coast of Texas (J. Frank Dobie,
A Vaquero of the Brush Country, 35). They were along the wooded stream,
bottoms near modern Belton in 1841 (Kendall, The Texan Santa Fe Expe -
dition, I, 87). They were numerous in the woods of southwest Jack County
in 1885 (Interview with W. J. Ribble of Graham, Texas). Also, many wild
hogs were in the timber of Montague County in 1856 (Interview with
Cash McDonald near Bowie, Texas). They were along Red River in north-
east Fannin County in 1875 (Interview with W. G. Bralley of Wichita
Falls, Texas). They were in the same area as early as 1803 (Sibley's
Report, No. 4. Original U. S. vs. Texas, 755). A strange herd of some
seventy-five wild hogs lived in the tall grass covering a flat on Soap Creek,
seven miles southwest of Midlothian, Texas, in 1877. They apparently sub-
sisted on roots and acorns that grew nearby, and made their bed for
winter protection of the tall grass (Interview with George F. Smith,
Wichita Falls, Texas). Pioneer citizens in Erath and Eastland Counties
rounded up the wild hogs on Armstrong Creek, in the autumn of 1877.
The hogs were vicious—formed themselves in a protective circle, with noses
pointed outward. Only by cautious and persistent efforts, and the use of
many dogs could this circle be broken and the drive continued (Interview
with R. H. Williams, Abilene, Texas). In the 1870's local citizens of
Young County had a regular camping place on Salt Creek northeast of
modern New Castle, where they hunted wild hogs each year (Interview
with Henry Williams, New Castle, Texas) In 1880 wild hogs were
numerous in the shinnery of Dickens County (W. C. Holden, Rollie Burns
80) Wild hogs were found in the shinnery of Motley County in 1881
(Holden to Williams). In 1882, a wild unbranded hog was killed near the
northwest corner of Jack County (Interview with Paul Christian, Antelope,
Texas) However, it appears that no wild hogs lived in the bottoms of the
Little Wichita River, on the east fork of that stream; or on the several
thousands of acres of oak timber adjoining. George Cunningham of Hen-
rietta, Texas, hunted over this area as a boy as early as 1874, and makes
this report.
about wild hogs was that they were numerous in the parts of the upper
Gross Timbers nearest Desdemona, and Young and Jack Counties.
Colonel Cooke's Report.
writer through the courtesy of A. W. Neville of Paris, Texas. The diary
was published in a recent copy of the Paris News. The date is not available.
country, or so located that Moscoso must have passed through a portion of
the buffalo range to have reached it.
for 1924, in a block of fourteen counties that lie just east of the 98th
Meridian and from Waco on the Brazos, northeast to Red River, showed an
average of 650,000 bushels per county. The three westernmost of those
counties were Montague, Wise and Parker, with a production of 442,000,
434,000, and 372,000 bushels, respectively.
Following the Brazos River upstream to the west of the 98th Meridian,
corn production by counties was as follows: Palo Pinto, 128,000; Young,
82,000; Stephens, 40,000; Throckmorton, 10,000; Baylor, 40,000; Haskell,
30,000; Knox, 52,000; King, 2,800; Stonewall, 7,300; Dickens, 15,000; and
Kent, 9,500. Obviously the west line of Parker County, which is almost
identical with the 98th Meridian, was the point at which corn production
made its sudden drop.
Figures for 1934 (which was a very poor corn year in Texas) show a
similar line of contrast in corn production, except that the west boundary
of the corn belt in that year was some thirty miles east of the 98th Meridian
(see The Texas Almanac for 1939-40, 177-179).
was up the Brazos in a very dry area, beyond the corn belt. De Mézières
explains that the plentiful supply of meat was the reason why the village
had not been abandoned.
592. Dr. J. J. Sturn of Waco went among the Indians of the lower reserva-
tion near the site of Graham, Texas, in 1857. His capacity was that of
farmer. He continued his stay among them as long as they were in Texas
and moved with them to Fort Cobb in Indian Territory in 1859. Dr. Sturn
married a Caddo Indian woman and continued to live among the people
of that tribe.
Indians, and probably even that small amount was an importation since
the Indians "neither planted nor gathered anything."
Austin, Wm. H. Hunt, Engineer, 1840. Drawn by H. L. Upshur, 1841. This
old map is in the library of the University of Texas.
Republic of Texas, dated 1844, in the State Land Office, lists these streams
as the "Caddo" forks of the Sabine.
graphical introduction and annotations by C. E. Castañeda (Albuquerque,
1935), map opposite p. 426.
Texas, is editor of the Paris News, author of The History of Lomar County
and a loner-time resident of that area.
quotes a report of 1849 made by John Barrow and Dr. Edward Smith. The
essential part of that quotation is as follows: "... buffalo had been
plenty about the prairies near Paris, Clarksville and Bonham."
resident of the Greenville area.
an early road that branched from the Preston-Austin road,
Bird's Fort on its southwesterly course, missing Village Creek (then Caddo
Creek) by less than a mile. This route, as shown by the old map, followed
the east edge of the lower Cross Timbers and, in view of this fact of
topography, was probably a trail used by Indians and white men alike.
the Land Office of Texas and other official surveys (London, 1841).
of Graham, Texas, discovered these relics. Through his courtesy, the writer
obtained a photograph of the crucifix.
169-180) a time table may be constructed without great error. The
Spaniards came to a place near Naguatex, either on the 20th or 22nd of
July, 1542, and reached the river Daycao "... the beginning of Octo-
ber ..." following. This time interval is about 75 to 80 days. Most of
these days are definitely accounted for; it was one day from this first
point to Naguatex; then 10 days were spent resting near a river in Nagua-
tex; the horsemen spent an unknown amount of time investigating and
forcing their way about Naguatex; for two days Moscoso awaited an
answer to his message to the chief of Naguatex; one day later the chief
came to Moscoso; four days longer Moscoso waited before he resumed his
journey (it is possible this time overlapped the three days during which
he awaited and received the Chief of Naguatex); eight days rise on [Red]
River caused further delay; for "some" days he awaited the cacique, but
finally he burned the towns and received guides; it was three days' travel
to Nissohone; it was two days' travel to Lacane; it was an unknown time
(probably but a day or two) to Nondacao; it was five days to Aays; then
three days to Socatino; then twenty days to Guasco; an unknown time
to Naquiscoca; two days to Nacacahoz; the horsemen hunted Christians
possibly one day; possibly two days back to Guasco; then ten days to the
river Daycao. The total days accounted for is either seventy-one or seventy-
four, depending on the meaning of the language of one of the passages.
Obviously it accounts specifically for nearly all the time between July 20
and "the beginning of October."
How to cite:
J. W. Williams, "Moscoso's Trail in Texas", Volume 46, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v046/n2/contrib_DIVL1916.html
[Accessed Mon Nov 23 14:07:25 CST 2009]
