overthrew the ancient Mexican Empire. When De Soto was in Alabama they were wandering in the West, pursuing the Alabamas, with whom they were at war. Finally they followed the Alabamas to the country of the Coosa and Tallapoosa and there settled, conquering the tribes which were living in those regions in De Soto's time. Several versions of this story of a migration from the west have been taken down in the language of the Indians and preserved.

For several reasons, however, Milfort's account is not now credited by students of Indian history. The Creek legends are confused and full of miraculous stories. They are also in conflict with similar traditions among other tribes. The Alabamas, for example, had a notion that their tribe came out of the earth, somewhere between the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers. Some of the Choctaws likewise held that their ancestors came out of the earth at a mound called Nani Waya, in Winston County, Mississippi.

There is very strong evidence, too, that the Creeks, the Alabamas, the Choctaws, and most of the other tribes we have mentioned were living in De Soto's time just where they were two hundred years later. The names of places mentioned by the chroniclers of De Soto's expedition correspond to later names, and evidently belong to the dialects of the Muscogee Indians. Ullibáhali, for example, is an Alabama word. Tuskaloosa is made up of two Choctaw words, taska, warrior, and lusa, black. By such examples the students of Indian languages demonstrate pretty clearly that if the Creeks ever migrated from the west they did so long before De Soto's time. This sort of reasoning from names is one of the best means we have of getting at the truth concerning periods of which no histories exist.

As far as we can see into the mysterious past, we find the lands now covered by the State of Alabama occupied by the Indian tribes whose peculiar manner of life we have been examining. We cannot positively declare that no other race ever inhabited these regions, but it seems unlikely that any ever did.. The red men have left but few traces of their occupation-mounds fast yielding to the plow, arrow-heads scattered over the soil and on the bottoms of the streams, and some sweet-sounding names of towns and rivers and hills, which white men have now adopted for themselves.

How the Indians lost possession of their homes, and who the white men were that came and took their places-these are things which a history of Alabama should make clear.

HISTORY OF ALABAMA.

CHAPTER I.

THE MARCH OF THE SPANIARD.

HERNANDO DE SOTO.

IN April, 1538, six hundred men, armed and equipped for a warlike expedition, embarked from the harbor of San Lucar in Spain. Many of them were nobles; some were knights clad in mail. Their leader was Hernando de Soto, who had won wealth and fame in the conquest of Peru. The king of Spain had recently named him governor of Cuba and commissioned him to

conquer and occupy Florida. At that time Florida meant not merely the peninsula at the mouth of the Gulf, but also unknown regions to the north and west.

Little had been discovered of the mainland north of the Mexican Gulf by the Spanish explorers who succeeded Columbus. They had passed along the shore, however, and it is almost certain that they had explored Mobile Bay. De Soto, confident that greater riches would be his reward, was eager to find out what lands and peoples, what mines of gold and what wealthy cities, lay beyond the forest walls.

In Cuba he completed his preparations. May 12, 1539,

with a fleet of nine vessels and a force largely increased, he set sail for Florida. He landed on the west coast of the peninsula, doubtless at Tampa Bay.

The arms and equipments of his troops, fashioned according to the usages of European warfare, were cumbrous burdens for such a march. They had helmets, breastplates, shields, coats of mail, swords, lances, rude guns called arquebuses, crossbows, and one piece of artillery. More than

two hundred of the men were mounted cavaliers. Provisions, supposed to be sufficient for two years, were brought along, and there were swine, cattle, and mules. Priests and monks, with their robes, holy relics, and sacramental bread and wine, were there, bent on spreading the Christian faith among the savages. To us the importance of this expedition lies in the fact that its path was across the territory of the present State of Alabama. With the exception, perhaps, of a member of a previous expedition under Panfilo de Narvaez, these were probably the first Europeans who ever trod its soil.

De Soto and his men met with much ill fortune; but it

DE SOTO ON THE COOSA.

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cannot be said that their ill fortune was altogether undeserved. In their dealings with the Indians they were haughty and cruel. An old chronicler, writing of De Soto, says: "This governor was very fond of this sport of killing Indians." In fact, throughout the history of the Spanish expeditions to North America, one finds little display of justice, not to speak of kindness, to the Indians. The cruelties of Narvaez, who had been driven on the coast of Florida eleven years before De Soto came, had left the Indians of the peninsula in a revengeful mood. There was, however, something to make up for the ill effect of Narvaez's expedition. One of his followers, Ortiz, had been captured by the Indians, and he was found and freed by De Soto's men. Having lived among the natives for eleven years, he was fitted to act as an interpreter.

De Soto spent the winter in the Florida peninsula. In March, hearing an Indian rumor about gold to the northward, he entered the territory of the present Georgia. Crossing several rivers, he came to the Savannah, and rested for some time at a town called Cofitachiqui (Cutifachiqui), the guest of an Indian "queen." Thence he proceeded in a generally northwestern direction, and in May he reached a town called Chiaha, supposed to have stood at the junction of the Oostanaula and Etowa rivers-the site of the modern city of Rome. Here he rested for a month, sending men to the northward to look for gold. The Indians in this regiondoubtless Cherokees-were quite friendly. They gave De Soto some pearls, but no gold mines were discovered, and he again took up his march to the westward, compelling the Indians, as was his custom, to furnish him with bearers for his baggage. He proceeded along the west bank of the Coosa, and on July 2d entered the town of Costa. Here. he stood on the soil of the present Alabama and within the limits of the present county of Cherokee; and here, for the first time, the natives beheld horses and white-faced men.

The next long halt of the Spaniards was at a town called Coosa (Coça), within the limits of the present county of Talladega, where they remained for nearly a month. It was, we are told, the principal town of the whole region. Its chief received the strangers with great kindness, and urged De Soto to establish a colony in the neighborhood. But the Spanish leader detained him as a hostage in order to extort slaves and provisions. The savages were indignant at this, and they fled to the woods to prepare for war. Many of them were captured and reduced to slavery.

Leaving the Coosa, De Soto now marched in the direction of the Tallapoosa. Passing several small villages, he came to Ullebahale (Ullibahali), probably on Hatchet Creek, a rudely fortified town, which made a show of resistance but soon submitted. About the middle of September the great town of Tallase (Tallise) was reached. It was almost surrounded by a river, which must have been the Tallapoosa. Here, after some days, De Soto received a visit from a young savage, the son of a powerful chief whose domains lay further west. The young man brought word that his father, Tuscaloosa (Taskalusa, "Black Warrior"), awaited the Spanish captain about thirty miles below. Thither De Soto marched after a delay of twenty days, and found the chief, a man of gigantic stature, surrounded by greater pomp than the explorers had yet seen among the Indians. He greeted the newcomers courteously but proudly. The meeting is supposed to have taken place below Line Creek, in the present county of Montgomery.

Riding side by side with the gigantic chief, De Soto continued his journey through the region covered by the present counties of Montgomery and Lowndes and southeastern Dallas. Probably in upper Wilcox they came to a town called Piache, situated on a large river-the Alabama. Thence they proceeded along the western bank of the river. Soon, however, De Soto began to suspect Tuscaloosa of hostility,

high words passed between the two. Taking Tuscaloosa