Written by Donald E. Sheppard
Drawings: Cheryl Lucente

INTRODUCTION   TRAILS TO THIS POINT
REVERSE COURSE, back to  ARKANSAS
THE DESOTO CHRONICLERS   DeVACA
STATES INDEX  ACK'S & REFERENCES

Louisiana & Texas  EAST LOUISIANA

On June 17th, 1542, Hernando de Soto's army entered Louisiana from El Dorado, Arkansas. DeSoto had died not far from there at Lake Village. His body was placed in Lake Chicot, a part of the Mississippi River at that time. Since that river was flooded by heavy snows from the preceding winter, DeSoto's people could not find their way down it. Their number had been reduced from 650 to 400 soldiers, and only 40 horses remained of the 220 they brought from Cuba. They were tired, broke and miserable; headed for Mexico City, the closest Spanish outpost on the continent.

An officer of that expedition says they left El Dorado, "and after passing through an uninhabited region for six days (into today's Louisiana at Junction City, past the barrens of Kisatchie National Forest around Homer, then through Minden and Barksdale Air force Base), they reached Chaguate (Shreveport) on the twentieth of the month." They would enjoy Shreveport's hospitality until the next Full Moon on June 27th. The Chief met the army; his people helped DeSoto's people cross the Red River, "They passed through a small town where there was a lake (Cross Lake), where the Indians made salt. The Christians made some on a day they rested there from some briny water which rose near the town in pools like springs. The governor stayed six days in Chaguete..." Province © 1993, Univ. of Alabama Press. Others called the Chief of Shreveport's large province "Chavete." It existed between the Red and Sabine Rivers.

"There they got information of the people to the west (who spoke a similar Caddoan language). They told us that three days' journey from there was a province called Aquacay (Tyler, Longview, Carthage and Henderson; all beyond the Sabine River in Texas).       BACK THRU LOUISIANA

This portion of DeSoto's Conquest Trail was unusual in that its army was led by a different General. Hernando de Soto, who had led his army across America searching for gold and a passage to China during the preceding three years, had died just weeks before. The new general, Luis de Moscoso, was amiable and well liked, but not the leader DeSoto had been. Native Americans perceived Moscoso's weakness, gullibility, within days of his Louisiana entry. That weakness would be exploited by Indian guides who would lead the army into dangerous places in Texas, hoping to starve them to death. The army's only Spanish speaking Indian language interpreter had also died the preceeding winter, so the army was forced to rely on sign language and grunts to communicate with deceptive Caddo and Tonkawan Indian guides. Their directions would confuse DeSoto historians for centuries.

DeSoto's people entered Texas under the Full Moon of June 27th, 1542. They would leave Texas four months later... then return to Texas' Gulf Coast the following Summer.

Another officer says, "On behalf of the chief of Aquacay, before reaching that province (at the Sabine River), 15 Indians came to meet him on the way with a present of skins, fish and venison. The governor reached his town (Carthage) on... July 4th..." eight days after leaving Shreveport. The army had camped at Waskom, Marshall, several at Hallsville while exploring the river near Longview, then several at Tatum while crossing the river's swamps on their way to Carthage. The name "Aquacay" is probably a Spanish conjecture, meaning "island," given that the province was bounded by the Sabine River's incredible swamps. "He found the town abandoned and lodged therein. He (General Moscoso and the army) stayed there for some time, during which he made several inroads, in which many Indians, both men and women, were captured..." from Carthage, Henderson, Kilgore and Tyler; all west of the Sabine River. The new general's deception by the Indians at Hallsville, something his predecessor, Hernando DeSoto, would never have fallen for, stirred resentment toward him among his officers. Their writings would be critical of his choice of trails throughout Texas. "There they heard of the south sea." The Indians were probably referring to the Gulf of Mexico but the Spaniards thought the Indians meant the Pacific Ocean. Since DeSoto had died, however, none of them cared to see it; most just wanted to go home.

"On the day the governor left Aquacay, he went to sleep near a small town (probably Gary, between Marvaul Bayou and Brashy Creek) subject to the lord of that province. The camp was pitched quite near to a salt marsh, and on that evening some salt was made there. Next day he went to sleep between two ridges in a forest of open trees (at Garrison, where the East Texas ridges begin). Next day he reached a small town called Pato (in the flats of the headwaters of Bayous Laco and La Nana, just above today's Nacogdoches). The fourth day after they left Aguacay, he reached the first settlement of the province called Amaye (at Douglass). An Indian was captured there who said that it was a day and a half journey (25 miles) to Naguatex (at Mission Tejas State Park), all of which lay through an inhabited region..." of Alto's incredible plain between the Angelina and Neches Rivers at the Caddoan Mounds State Historical Park, the largest Indian Mound Complex in East Texas. Texas got its name from Tejas, the largest Indian settlement in Texas in 1542.

"Having left the village of Amaye (Douglass), on July 20th, camp was made at midday beside a brook (at Linwood in the bottom lands of Angelina River) in a luxuriant grove between Amaye and Naguatex. Indians were seen there who came to spy on them. Those of horse rushed at them, killing six and capturing two." The captives told the Spaniards (least they be fed to the dogs) that their chief, along with Chief Naguatex, planned to attack that day. They did, but were lanced by horsemen when they turned and fled.

General Moscoso sent an Indian, missing his nose and one hand, to Chief Naguatex to tell him that the Spaniards were coming. "That night he slept there and next day reached the village of Naguatex which was very extensive (across the plain of Alto). He asked where the town of the chief was and they (the captives) told him it was on the other side of the (Neches) river which ran through that district. He marched toward it and on reaching it (eight miles down a trail we call the Old San Antonio Road) and on reaching it (Neches River) saw many Indians on the other side (at Mission Tejas State Park) waiting for him, so posted as to forbid his passage (of the river). Since he did not know if the river was fordable, nor where it could be crossed, and since several Christians and horses were wounded, in order that they might have time to recover in the town where he was (Caddoan Mounds State Historical Park), he made up his mind to rest for a few days (before striking Mission Tejas, directly across the river, with intention to strike it on the Full Moon with horsemen on a dawn raid: that moon phase was only a few days off). Because of the great heat, he made camp near the village, a quarter of a league (almost three quarters of a mile) from the river (out of range of Hisanai Caddoan Indian arrows), in an open forest of luxuriant and lofty trees near a brook (which drains today's Sunshine Mountain)."

"He asked them (the captives) whether the river was fordable. They said that it was at times (but not then) at certain places. Ten days later he sent two captains, each with fifteen horse, up and down the river with Indians to show them where they could cross. The Indians opposed the crossing of them both as strongly as possible, but they crossed in spite of them. On the other side they saw a large village and many provisions (food, shelter and animal hides); and returned to camp with the news." They had crossed the Neches River just below Mission Tejas on the flats, that river's fording place, then ridden up Hickery Creek toward Crockett's enormous pastures and the villages scattered along San Pedro Creek.

General Moscoso sent word to Chief Naguatex that if he came in peace all would be forgiven; if not, he would be hunted down by the horsemen. "They all came after this manner: one ahead of the other in double file, leaving a line in the middle through which the chief came. They reached the place where the governor was, all weeping after the manner of Tula (their Caddo speaking cousins in Northwestern Arkansas) which lay to the east not far from that place. The chief paid his respects... the governor answered him saying that he pardoned him for the past, that thenceforth he should do as he ought (to do) and that he would consider him friend and protect him in all his affairs. Four days later (the Spaniards) departed, but on reaching the (Neches) river (about 3 miles south of there camp near Caddo Mounds) could not cross, as it had swollen greatly. This appeared a wonderful phenomenon because of the season and because it had not rained for more than a month..."

The Neches River drains Tyler, 50 miles upstream of Mission Tejas. Rains there effected everyone downstream. The Indians told the Spaniards that it flooded often there so the Spaniards conjectured "that it might be the sea which came up through the river. It was learned (by horsemen over the next week) that the increase (in flow) always came from above (Tyler), and that the Indians of that land had no knowledge of the sea (the Gulf of Mexico). The governor returned to the place where he had been during the preceding days. A week later, hearing that the river could be crossed (on the Full Moon of August 25th, 1542), he passed to the other side and found a village without any people (food or supplies; the Indians had fled with everything). He lodged in the open field..." of Crockett, where the Spaniards wrecked havoc on villages from Tejas to San Pedro Creek. "The chief, on beholding the damage that his land was receiving, sent six of his principal man and three Indians with them as guides who knew the (Tonkawan) language of the region ahead where the governor was about to go. He immediately left Naguatex and after marching three days (to the Trinity River) reached a town of four or five houses (on the river's flats not far from Centerville), belonging to the chief of that miserable province called Nisohone." The army entered Tonkawan Indian country, although inhabited at places by Caddoan hunters and traders.

"It was a poorly populated region and had little maize (Tonkawans did not farm). Two days later (at Centerville), the guides who were guiding the governor guided them toward the east if they had to go toward the west, and sometimes they went through dense forests, wandering off the road (around Centerville; that land is the same today; high and dry and broken; Interstate 48 runs through there from Houston to Dallas). The governor ordered them hanged from a tree, and an Indian woman, who had been captured at Nisohone (Centerville), guided him, and he went back to look for the road."

Some of the men reported to an historian of their time about the Indian who had led them astray, "The governor, being angered by this and at seeing his army in such want through the Indian's malice, ordered that he (a Caddoan guide) be tied to a tree and that the dogs be loosed upon him. One of them shook and dragged him badly... this was the revenge our Christians took on the poor Indian who had led them off the road, as if it were any satisfaction for past hardships or remedy for present evils." Once back to Centerville, they set out in the direction the Indian told them to go before he died, "This was that they should march toward the west without turning to one side or the other." Had the Spaniards taken that advice it would have saved them much future hardship, but they would chose otherwise just down the road.

The officer continued, "Two days later (at Navasota River, west of Centerville on highway 7) he reached another wretched land called Lacone. There he captured an Indian who said that the land of Nondacao (Waco's name, to Caddoan linguists) was a very populous region and the houses scattered about one from another as is customary in mountains (the ridges west of Waco around the giant Fort Hood Military Reservation), and that there was abundance of corn..." beyond the Brazos River, the next provincial border. The Spaniards had been chasing legends of gold, reported to lie just over the next horizon, during the preceding three years in North America. The Texas Indians perceived that and sent the Spaniards searching for corn, this time, just over the next horizon.

The men said, "They sighted inhabited country from the tops of some hills through which they were going..." just inside of Lacone Province on the hills overlooking Bald Prairie. "This gave them relief that can be imagined, though on reaching the settlements (of today's Headsville, Harmony and Kosse) they found that the Indians had gone to the woods and that the land was poor and sterile (in Tonkawan Indian Country). The villages were not like the others they had seen, but the houses were scattered through the fields in groups of four or five, badly built and worse arraigned... On the second day of their march through that sterile and poorly inhabited province... they encamped on a plain (the land flattens beyond Kosse)... three days after... they saw coming across a beautiful plain (the Brazos River Valley below Waco) two Indian Nobles (of Nondacao). They were decked out in long plumes with their bows in their hands and their arrows in quivers on their backs." The Spaniards proceeded up the Brazos River flats, northwestward, against the advice of the dying Caddoan Indian guide... "and they saw (the following week) that there were large mountain ranges and forests to the west...(at Fort Hood)."

The officer concluded this chapter of his report with the following remark; "The chief (of Nondacao at Waco) and his Indians came weeping like those of Naguatex (the Indians of Mission Tejas), that being their custom in token of obedience." The chief brought "a great quantity of fish" and provided a guide to Soacatino (Killeen)." The army would not stay there for want of corn for the horses.

"The governor departed from Nandacao for Soacatino and after he had marched for five days arrived at the (Coahuiltec tribe, another of the Hokan speaking group) province of Aays..." at Gatesville, having marched west, up the Brazos River to Valley Mills then around Middle Bosque River gorge. Another officer with the expedition says an Indian, "guided us across rugged land and off road, until finally he told us that he no longer knew where he was leading us, and that his lord had commanded him to lead us where we would die of hunger..." in the desert plains well west of Waco.

Continuing, he says, "We took another guide who led us to a province that is called Hais (Gatesville), where cows (buffalo) are in the habit of gathering..." on the edge of the western plains. The first officer continued, "The (Coahuiltec) Indians who lived there had not heard of Christians (from their Tonkawan neighbors), and as soon as they perceived them the country was aroused... the affair lasted the greater part of the day before they reached the village... Great damage was done the Indians. The day the governor departed thence, the Indian who was guiding them said that he had heard (Chief) Nondacao say that the Indians of Soacatino (Killeen) had seen Christians. At this all were very glad, as they thought it might be true and that they might have entered New Spain (Mexico)... that Indian led them off the road for two days (southward, to Copperas Cove; still on the edge of the plain). The governor ordered him to be tortured... and another guided him to Soacatino ("east to other towns..." of Tonkawan Indians), whether he arrived the next day (at Killeen then at Belton and Temple a few days later; all east of Copperas Cove's through that large east-west valley where deer are abundant, even today). It was a very poor land and there was great lack of corn there (because the Tonkawan Indians did not plant it; they ate deer, fish and natural vegetation instead). He asked the Indians whether they knew of other Christians. They said they had heard it said that they were traveling about near there to the southward (Cabeza de Vaca had been through San Antonio years before). We marched for twenty days (to and around Austin) through a poorly populated region (below Little River, including Salado, Holland, Bartlett Granger, Georgetown, Round Rock, Taylor, Coupland and Elgin along the way) where they endured great need and suffered; for the little corn the Indians (probably Caddoan traders) had they hid in the forests and buried it where..." the Spaniards could find only a little, because Tonkawan Indians did not grow corn.

At Temple, before heading south, the King's Agent says that the guides "were leading us to where there were other Christians like us... It seemed afterward to be a lie and that they could not have any news of any others but us; (but) since we had made so many turns, in some of these (towns) they must have heard of our passing..." through Marlin, just east of there, weeks before. Had they followed the advice of the dying Indian at Centerville, they would have saved 10 days getting to Temple. He continues, "We turned south again, with purpose of living or dying traversing to New Spain (Mexico), and we walked about six days journey south and southwest..." pillaging the above mentioned villages around Austin. The first officer says, "On reaching a province called Guasco (Austin, on the Colorado River) they found corn which they loaded (onto) the horses and the Indians whom they were taking..." to serve as pack animals for the army. These Indians, unlike their Tonkawan neighbors, probably grew corn along the banks of the mighty Colorado River.

Austin was the end of the road for DeSoto's army. Scouting parties were sent out, in several directions, to explore under Harvest Moon; one west, up the Colorado River through the Texas Hill Country, the other southwest, to San Antonio. "There (at Austin) the Indians told them that 10 days' journey thence toward the west was a river called Daycao, where they sometimes went to hunt in the mountains and kill deer (probably near the Llano/Colorado River junction); and that on the other side (of the mountains) they had seen people, but did not know what village it was..." probably Llano Indians.

"There (at Austin) the Christians took what corn they found and could carry (on the scouting parties) and after marching for ten days through an unpeopled region reached the (Llano) river of which the Indians had spoken." They found a poor village and brought back two captives "to the river where the governor was awaiting them (on the Colorado River at Austin). They continued to question the Indians in order to learn from them the population to the westward, but there was no Indian in the camp who understood their (Llano) language."

The other officer says, at Austin, "There we halted and sent ten men on swift horses to travel eight or nine days, or as many as they were able (with the corn they carried from Austin for their horses), to see if they could find some town in order to replenish the corn so we could continue on our way, and they traveled as far as they could and came upon some poor people who did not have houses..."

The scouts that went southwest reported, "...they went to another village called Naquiscoso (San Marcos). The Indians said they had never heard of other Christians. The governor ordered them put to the torture, and they said that Christians had reached another domain ahead called Nasacahoz... (Cabeza de Vaca, a shipwrecked Spaniard, had passed through there 5 years before)."

"The governor (with the scouts) reached Nasacahoz (New Braunfels, probably in the same province below the Colorado River) in two days and some Indian women were captured there. Among them was one who said that she had seen Christians and that she had been in their hands but escaped. The governor sent a captain and 15 horsemen to the place where the Indian woman said she had seen them (at San Antonio), in order to ascertain whether there were any trace of horses or any token of their having reached there." Ten miles down the road the woman recanted her story and the scouts explored the area, "...and inasmuch as the land (around San Antonio) was very poor in corn, and there was no tidings of any village westward (of San Antonio), they returned to Guasco (Austin)." Both scouting parties had gone out and returned about the same time while the army pillaged the villages north of Austin, accounting for the reported twenty day time span for them to reach Austin from Killeen.

"The governor (Moscoso) ordered the captains and principal persons summoned (once the army had reassembled at Austin), in order to plan what he should do after hearing their opinions (based on their intelligence of the land, as is done there today: Austin is the Capitol of Texas). Most of them said that in their opinion they should return to the great river of Guachoya (the Mississippi River at Lake Village, Arkansas), for there was plenty of corn at Nilco and thereabout (just below Arkansas Post). They said that during the winter they would make brigantines and the following summer they would descend the river in them to look for a sea (the Gulf of Mexico), and once having reached the sea, they would coast along it to New Spain (Mexico), which, although it seemed a difficult thing... it was their last resort because they could not travel by land for lack of an interpreter (who could lead them to a place where there was enough food to sustain the army). They maintained that the land beyond the river of Daycao (the Colorado River), where they were, was the land which Cabeza de Vaca said in his relation he had traveled (he actually traveled through San Antonio then up the Rio Grande, which DeSoto's people mistook for the Colorado River, the largest they had seen in the west), and was of Indians who wandered about like Arabs without having a settled abode anywhere, subsisting on prickly pears (cactus buds), the roots of plants and the game they killed. And if that were so, if they entered it and found no food in order to pass the winter, they could not help but perish, for it was already the beginning of October; and if they stayed longer, they could not turn back because of the waters and snows, nor could they feed themselves in such a poor land. The governor, who was desirous now of getting a good night's sleep, rather than govern and conquer a land where so many hardships presented themselves to him, at once turned back to the place whence they had come ...it grieved many of them to turn back, for they would rather have risked death in the land of Florida than to leave it poor."

"From Daycao (Austin), where they were, it was 150 leagues (400 miles, a precise measure) to the great (Mississippi) river, a distance they had marched continually to the westward." The other officer says, "We returned along the same road that we had followed..." The army timed its departure from Austin to arrive at Mission Tejas, the most populated part of Texas at that time, under the Full Moon of October 23rd, 1542, so the horsemen could raid it from afar at dawn; their normal style of taking heavily populated areas. They had 3 weeks to get there. Some of the men told an historian, "...to avoid the bad country and the uninhabited regions they had passed through when they came (to Austin from Mission Tejas), they learned that by returning by a circular route to the right of the one by which they had come, the road they would travel would be shorter... (we call it the Old San Antonio Road) ...they marched in an arc toward the south." They departed Austin southward to Bastrop and spent several days there, gathering what they could, "and it seemed to them that they were going too far down from the province of Guachoya, to which they wished to return (Lake Village, Arkansas), so they turned toward the east, taking care always to ascend somewhat to the north." They followed the (very) Old San Antonio Road from Bastrop to Bryan and Crockett, spending days at each, and on to Mission Tejas, which the horsemen struck, on Full Moon, in advance of the army, then on to Nacogdoches. There they departed the Old San Antonio Road for Shreveport, Louisiana. That trail and Road would become the main entrance route for Texas settlers three centuries later.

An officer says, "On the backward journey, they found corn to eat with great difficulty, for where they had already passed the land was left devastated (Indians had been infected by the world's diseases brought in by the Spanish army), and any corn which the Indians had, they had hidden. The towns which they had burned in Naguatex, which was now regretted by them, had now been rebuilt and the houses were full of corn." The Hasinai Caddoan people, who lived at Mission Tejas, had avoided the Spaniards while they were there; they were not as effected by European and African diseases as tribes which had mingled. "This region (Mission Tejas/Caddo Mounds) was very populated and well supplied with food..."

Inland Texas Postscript

Most tribe names recorded in Texas by DeSoto's army appear to be of Caddoan origin, despite the fact that many other language groups of Indians lived in Texas at the time; particularly the Tonkawan Indian group, from Waco southward, and the Coahuiltec Language group to westward. The Spaniards had relied on Caddoan Indians from Shreveport for translations while in Texas, however, which would account for the lack of certain Tonkawan place names in the Spanish journals. The Aays, as mentioned above, were probably Coahuiltec; hostile toward Caddoans and not very well known by Caddoan guides. The guide for the army in that region was said to have been assigned by his chief (of Waco) to deliberately lead the army into a region where they would perish. That guide led the army to the Coahuiltec village of Aays, where the only battle in that neighborhood took place. The fact that the Mission Tejas/Caddo Mounds area had been restored when the army returned would indicate that its surrounding villages, others of the Caddoan language group, had helped the Hasinai rebuild their villages during the army's absence. The army was in Tonkawan or Coahuiltec Indian Country while those Tajas Caddoan villages were being rebuilt.

Back thru Louisiana

At the end of October, 1542, the Spaniards re-entered Louisiana... "At Chavete (Shreveport), the Indians, by order of the chief, came in peace... (but) for lack of corn the governor could not stop... He left Chavete and crossed the (Ouachita) river before Aays (Province), and going down it came to a town called Chilano (Monroe), which they had not seen until then..." because they had passed north of Monroe's hills, through El Dorado, Arkansas, on their way to Texas. Chief Chavete had probably told the Spaniards, on pain of death, that Monroe had the corn they needed to feed their horses. The army passed through Bossier City, Minden, Arcadia and Ruston during the week it took them to march to Monroe, striking that city during the darkness of New Moon, November 7th, 1542. There the army turned northeast, up Ouachita River through Bastrop (in Aays Province), and returned to Arkansas.

The men described their Texas/Louisiana trip thusly: "On this last journey that our people made after the death of Governor Hernando de Soto they traveled, going and returning, and counting the expedition that the scouts made (beyond Austin), more than 350 leagues (900+ miles, a remarkably accurate measure), during which a hundred Spaniards and eighty horses died at the hands of the enemy and from sickness..." They would be back in both Louisiana and Texas the following Summer.

Winter in Arkansas          YOUR STATE           Site Search