Bird's Fort-Viridian Historical Research Repository | Repository

Luis de Moscoso Alvarado was a member of Hernando De Soto's expedition to explore La Florida—today's southeastern United States—and to obtain gold and other riches from the native peoples of the North American continent. The army of an estimated 600 men sighted land on May 25, 1539, on the western coast of Florida near what is now Tampa Bay, and landed on May 30. Over the next four years the expedition traveled throughout the southeastern United States. On May 21, 1542, De Soto died from a fever at the Mississippi River in what is now Arkansas; command of the expedition was transferred to Moscoso. The remainder of the journey is commonly known as the Moscoso Expedition. The primary goal of its surviving members was to find an overland route back to New Spain (now Mexico). Many attempts have been made to reconstruct the route of the expedition, nearly all of which bring it into Texas in the summer of 1542.

Scholars have attempted to trace the Moscoso expedition route through Texas mainly with information found in four primary accounts of the journey. A brief version of the army's exploits in La Florida is found in a narrative by the King's factor, Luys Hernández de Biedma, who accompanied Moscoso. This account was written eleven years after the expedition, while Biedma was living in Mexico. Another account is 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. This work first appeared in 1557—just fourteen years after the expedition—and was produced anonymously by a Portuguese member of the expedition. A third written source is a romanticized account of the expedition by Garcilaso de la Vega, entitled A History of the Adelantado Hernando de Soto. Garcilaso was not a member of the expedition, and his account was written in the latter part of the sixteenth century and published in 1605. It was based on at least two written and one oral account by expedition members. A fourth account was published in 1851 in Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo's Historia general y natural de las Indias. This account was by De Soto's private secretary, Rodrigo Ranjel.

The most exhaustive early attempt to reconstruct the route of the Moscoso expedition, not only in Texas but through the entire southeastern United States, was published in 1939 by the United States De Soto Commission to celebrate the expedition's 400th anniversary. The commission's proposed version of the route through Texas posits that the expedition, led by Moscoso, entered Texas in what is now Shelby County and from there traveled south to a point near San Augustine. It then turned west and went as far as the Navasota River in east central Texas. At this point the soldiers decided that they would not be able to find enough food to feed the expedition if they continued farther west, and thus the Moscoso expedition retraced its route back to the Mississippi River in Arkansas.

In 1942 Rex Strickland used historical, archeological, linguistic, and geographical sources to provide a detailed reconstruction of the army's route through Texas. He suggested that the army entered the state near Texarkana and then moved south along a trail that later became known as Trammel's Trace, until it reached the vicinity of what is now San Augustine. Here the expedition turned westward and traveled as far as the Trinity River. At this point they abandoned their hopes of reaching New Spain by land, and they returned along the same route.

A narrative of Strickland's proposed Moscoso route, along with two other reconstructions—by J. W. Williams and Albert Woldert— were published in the October, 1942 edition of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly. The full text of each of these three reconstructions is provided here.

Later, renewed efforts were made to understand the expedition's route through Texas. Charles Hudson, working in cooperation with the De Soto Trail Study authorized by Congress in 1987, suggested that the army entered Texas from northwestern Louisiana and moved west along Big Cypress Creek; it then turned south and traveled down the Neches River into what is now Angelina County. In his theory the expedition then turned back to the north and finally traveled west, reaching the Trinity River before it abandoned hopes of reaching New Spain overland.

More recently, James Bruseth and Nancy Kenmotsu reconstructed the Moscoso route by relying heavily upon the location of sixteenth-century archeological sites, and, following the lead of Strickland, upon trails that likely existed at the time of the expedition. Bruseth and Kenmotsu bring the army into Texas from Oklahoma. The prominent village site of Naguatex that is mentioned in one of the narratives is argued to have existed along the Red River in what is now Red River or Bowie county. From this point the army traveled south along either Trammel's Trace or the Jonesborough-to-Nacogdoches trail. Both historic roadways connect major prehistoric Caddo Indian villages in East Texas and almost certainly represent prehistoric trails used for many hundreds of years by the Indians. The army moved south to a point near what is now Nacogdoches; turning west it traveled on a trail that later became known as the Old San Antonio Road. The army went as far as the Guadalupe River near the Hill Country but then at this point turned back toward the Mississippi River in Arkansas. During the winter of 1542–43 the Moscoso expedition camped at the Mississippi and constructed boats for a return by water to New Spain. On July 2, 1543, they started down the Mississippi River, and on September 10 some 311 expedition members reached the Pánuco River, which forms the boundary between the states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas, Mexico.

While the expedition failed to find the gold and other riches that similar Spanish explorations had encountered in Central and South America, it did make the first major exploration into the interior of the North American continent and provided some of the earliest observations of Native American peoples, including the Caddo Indians of Texas. Of particular interest is J. W. Williams' reconstruction, which brings Moscoso's expedition to the Caddo villages along what is now known as Village Creek in West Arlington—the same site of the 1841 Battle of Village Creek, led by General Edward H. Tarrant, which resulted in the establishment of Bird's Fort some 300 years after Moscoso's journey.

Moscoso's Journey Through Texas

by Rex W. Strickland

In my doctoral thesis, "Anglo-American Occupation of Northeastern Texas, 1803-1845," I pointed out the necessity for a reexamination of the various hypotheses advanced in the effort to determine the route followed by Luís de Moscoso in the course of his Texas entrada of 1542. This need I emphasized then by saying: "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 impression. 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 Portugese Gentlemen During the Discovery of the Province of Florida. Now newly set forth by a Genteleman 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’ “Relation” 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 concluding 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 obscurantism, 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 indicated 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 established upon such wishful dispossession must be suspect.

The Fidalgo and Biedma left little evidence that can be substantiated 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.¹Moore, Clarence B., "Some Aboriginal Sites on Red River". Reprint from the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, XIV, 488-644.

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.²²Veatch, A. G., "Geology and Underground Water Resources of Northern Louisiana and Southern Arkansas," United States Geological Survey Professional Papers, No. 46, House Documents, LXVII, 59th Congress, 1st Session. So we have given hostages to history, geography, chronology, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, zoology, hydrography, and mineralogy in this synthesis. The results have been probable in most instances and certainly logical.

Of the kindred sciences none has proven a more helpful handmaiden of history than geography. The ancient trails of the Caddo and Hasinai are discernible yet to the student who considers 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 highways and railroads of today. Elevation and gradient are natural factors.³Hulbert, Archer B., Soil, Its Influence on the History of the United States, 53.

Guahate and Naguatex

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 proceeded through very rough ridges and reached a village 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.⁴⁴Robertson, James A. (trans.), "True Relation of the Hardships Suffered 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.

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 journeying. 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 Indians spoke of Autiamque, the governor decided to go thither. Thus he let slip his opportunity to visit Guahate.⁵Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission, 255.

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 vicinity 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 produces 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 Naguatéx, which had the same name, and by it the whole province was called. . . . Passing from Utiangue to Naguatéx, 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 turning to face them, they took to their heels.

At the end of the seven days they reached the Naguatéx pueblo, found it deserted by its inhabitants, and settled down in it. . . . The governor, having been informed 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 Naguatéx with his army, accompanied by four principal Indians, and led the Castilians into another province. . . . The Spaniards . . . journeyed five days through the province of Naguatéx, and at the end of this time, they reached another called Guancane. . . .⁶⁶Quoted in Pichardo, Treatise on the Limits of Louisiana and Texas, III, 10.

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 Fidalgo preclude any probability of De Soto's visiting Naguatex, it appears certain that Garcilaso's two confused narratives relate 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 Fidalgo's statement that Guahate was "a land plentifully abounding in maize and of much population" with his later description 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 identification fixes within the space of a dozen miles the exact point where the Spaniards crossed Red River in 1542.⁷Elvas, II, 257.

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.

Naguatex and the Way Thither

De Soto spent the winter of 1541-42 at Autiamque on the River of Cayas—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. Luís 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 neighborhood 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 departure; but the Commission’s argument locating Gauchoya near the mouth of the Ouachita seems incontestable.⁸Final Report, 258.

Monday, June 5, 1542,⁹ Moscoso and his ragged followers set out from Gauchoya preferring to reach Pánuco 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 Chuagate, we are told, had visited De Soto at Autiamque in the previous winter.⁹All dates are in the old style of reckoning; add nine days to correct them to the Gregorian calendar.

At Chuagate, 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.¹²¹⁰Elvas, II, 237.
¹¹Ibid, II, 238.
¹²Veatch, A. G., “Geology and Underground Water Resources of Northern Louisiana and Southern Arkansas,” 30.

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 Bodeau, 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 between confluent streams, which may very well have been Dorcheat 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 geographic 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 consideration 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.¹³Elvas, II, 238.
¹⁴Ibid, II, 238.
¹⁵Ibid, II, 239.
¹⁶Ibid, II, 239.

This assumption is strengthened by the statement that Naguatex 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 successfully 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.

Naguatex and Its People

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."¹⁷¹⁷Elvas, II, 242.

Moscoso had reached the ancient habitat of the Caddoan confederacy, 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.¹⁸¹⁸"Douay's Narrative," in Cox, I. J. (ed.), Journeys of La Salle, I, 251.

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.¹⁹¹⁹"Joutel's Historical Journal of Monsieur De La Salle's Last Voyage to Discover the River Mississippi," in Cox, I. J. (ed.), Journeys of La Salle, II, 178.

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.²⁰²⁰Memoir, by Sieur de la Tonty," Ibid., I, 45.

A study of these observations leads us to two or three conclusions worthy of credit: first, in the late 1600's the Kadohadacho (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 Natchitoch, 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.²¹Handbook of American Indians, II, 1.

Thus, while one hesitates to disagree with so eminent an authority 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 tash 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 possible connection between the Naguatex and the later Nachites (Upper Natchitoch) of Douay's account.²²Final Report, 53.
²³Ibid., 61.
²⁴Mooney, "Caddo and Associated Tribes," Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
²⁵Handbook of American Indians, II, 738.

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 "s" 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 settlements in Lafayette and Miller Counties, Arkansas, is abundantly 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.²⁶Elvas, II, 257.

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 Lafayette 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-Lafayette 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.²⁷²⁷Moore, Clarence B., Some Aboriginal Sites on Red River. Reprint from the Journal of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, XIV, 483-644.

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 identified 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 remain indeterminate.

Moscoso remained quietly at his camp on the east bank of the river until the tenth day after his arrival. On the morning 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 getting 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 returned 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 return (August 3 or 4) an embassy of natives came to visit Moscoso to discover his mood; seemingly reassured, they returned 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 intransigence upon a brother who had been killed in the battle of July 20. Moscoso granted his pardon to the supplicant.²⁸Elvas, II, 244.

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."³⁰²⁹Ibid., II, 245.
³⁰Ibid., II, 246.

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 attained 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."³²³¹Elvas, II, 246.
³²Ibid., II, 247.

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 illuminating 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.³³³³Biedma, "Relation," Bourne (ed.), Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto, II, 36.

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 productiveness 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. Westward 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.

Through East Texas

The heat of summer was now heavy upon the steaming bottoms 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 miserable 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 following 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.³⁴³⁴Elvas, II, 247.

Two things are clearly indicated by this passage. The Spaniards 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 southward 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 Commission's surmise that the Nacao are meant cannot be disregarded, nor should we overlook the possibility that Lacane and Nacaniche may be the same. In any case, these three tribes, Nacono, Nacno 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 82nd parallel. Despite this apparent contradiction, it seems probable in consideration of our time direction data that the Lacane village (waiving all ethnic identifications) was situated 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.³⁵Final Report, 276.

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 Naguatex. 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 importance. 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 County³⁶ 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 ordinarily 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 hypothesis that the Indians of East Texas moved gradually southwestward 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. Therefore, Moscoso probably reached Nondacao on the afternoon of August 30.³⁶Bolton, "Native Tribes About East Texas Missions," in Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XI, 268.
³⁷Final Report, 277; map, 348.

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 particularized as Soacatino. But the four Indian mounds once discernible 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) somewhere 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 reputation 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 morning 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 statement 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 established 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 Redlands 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.³⁸Hodge, F. W. (ed.), "The Narrative of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca," in Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543, 56.

Here we should pause to establish our time sequence as definitely 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 afternoon of September 9. Thence he went to the site of the village afterward occupied by the Hainai; thence he turned and traveled for "about six days in a direction south and southwest," where he halted. So says Biedma. Presumably he had reached Guasco 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 September 11; add six more days required to reach Guasco 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.³⁹³⁹Elvas, II, 250-251.

The puzzle presented by the statement that "he marched for 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 reconstruction 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 19.⁴⁰Final Report, 333.
⁴¹Elvas, II, 247, 248.
⁴²Elvas, II, 254.

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 deviously. Their guides as usual were treacherous and the country 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.⁴³Final Report, 278.

Guasco is the Fidalgo's rendition of the Caddoan word wäscho. The element scho is familiar to students of Caddo linguistics; it means "hill" or "mound." The term is 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 Nascha⁴⁵—it needs no great imagination to find in this word the Caddoan dissyllable na-scha, i. e., "people of the hill," specifically, of course, the people of the great mounds southwest of present day Alto. But Guasco may be equated with wa-scho, or better still, näwä-scho, if we add the gentilie nd-. The presumption 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 by that folk in historic times.⁴⁴Mooney, "The Caddo and Associated Tribes," in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1103.
⁴⁵Handbook of American Indians, II, 50.

But we have further conjectures to offer in support of our identification of Guasco inasmuch as "thence they went to another village called Naquiscoca."⁴⁶ Some students of the entrada problem have suggested that Naquiscoca is recognizable as Nacogdoches, partially, we suspect, because the Nacogdoches are 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.⁴⁶Elvas, II, 251.

At Naquiscoca the Indians at first denied that they had heard of other Christians but when their memories were sharpened by torture the natives said that they (the Christians) had reached "another domain ahead called Nacacahoz and had returned thence toward the west whence they had come."⁴⁷ Moscoso 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.⁴⁷Ibid., II, 251.
⁴⁸Ibid., II, 252.

Who were the Nacacahoz thus introduced, somewhat casually, into our story? Some have seen in them the well-known Natchitoches,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.⁴⁹Handbook of American Indians, II, 37.
⁵⁰Ibid., II, 4.
⁵¹Ibid., II, 49.

There "the Indians told them that ten days' journey thence toward the west was a river called Daycao where they sometimes 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 agricultural 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 further 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.⁵²Ibid., II, 252.

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 designated themselves; bidai is a Caddo word meaning "brushwood."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 designation 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.⁵³Handbook of American Indians, I, 653.
⁵⁴Ibid., I, 145.

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, subsisting 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 horses to travel in eight or nine days as far as possible, 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 wretched 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 interpreter, 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, . . .⁵⁵⁵⁵Bourne, ed., "Relation of the Conquest of Florida presented by Luis Hernández de Biedma" in Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto, II, 37.

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 possessions, 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 captured 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 population to the westward, but there was no Indian in the camp who understood their language.⁵⁷⁵⁶Italics mine.
⁵⁷Elvas, II, 252-253.

From the two passages, often thought contradictory, we can reconstruct the movement of the Spaniards westward from Guasco substantially as follows. Moscoso selected ten horsemen 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 they 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 1542.⁵⁸⁵⁸The notes of of Theodore H. Lewis reconstructing Moscoso's route 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 Quachita 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 (inedentally the small river existed only in Lewis' misreading of Buckingham Smith's 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 followers 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 disregards 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, linguistically 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 probably 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 cannot, 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.

One or two further observations, indicative rather than confirmatory 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 drooping needles of the pine, the cicada droned constantly throughout 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.

Moscoso's Trail in Texas

by J. W. Williams

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 medieval 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.¹¹¹Edward Gaylord Bourne, Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto 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 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, Mississippi, Arkansas,² Missouri, and probably parts of Kansas and Oklahoma. After three years of such wandering, De Soto turned back to the mouth of the Arkansas. Somewhat broken in spirit, he sickened and died, leaving his followers to work out their own salvation.²Herbert E. Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands (New Haven, 1921), 69.

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.³Bolton, The Spanish Borderlands, 69.
⁴Bourne, De Soto, I, 214.

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.⁵A study of the actual time traveled from the mouth of the Arkansas to 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.

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 Arkansas. 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.⁶Bourne, De Soto, I, 182.
⁷Ibid., I, 179.

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 Gentleman 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.⁸Ibid., I, 178, 179.

It is evident that the Spanish explorers came to a final halt in the heart of the deer country, a fact which brings us immediately 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 during 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.¹⁴⁹Josiah Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies (Dallas, 1933), 369.
¹⁰Grant Foreman, Marcy and the Gold Seekers (Norman, 1939), 385. 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.
¹¹George Wilkins Kendall, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition (Austin, 1935), I, 107.
¹²Ibid., I, 111.
¹³Ibid., I, 167.
¹⁴Ibid., I, 199. The hunting party on this Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, unable 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.

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 between the Waco Village and Waxahachie did not seem to include venison.¹⁵Mattie Davis Lucas and Mita Holsapple Hall, A History of Grayson County, Texas (Sherman, Texas, 1936), 45. Colonel Cooke's Report is copied in full in this volume, pp. 44-47.

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 Guasco [in 1542] that the place where they hunted deer was ten days' travel toward the sunset.¹⁷¹⁶Herbert Eugene Bolton, Athanase de Mézières and the Louisiana Frontier, 1768-1780 (Cleveland, 1914), I, 286, 290. Hereafter cited as Bolton, De Mézieres.
¹⁷Here it is not essential to find the entire deer country, but only the part 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 Guasco 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.

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 statement "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 confirms 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.¹⁸F. W. Hodge and Theodore J. Lewis (eds.), Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543 (New York, 1907), 363.
¹⁹H. E. Anthony, Animals of America, 35; also photographs on pp. 36, 37; see also Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 369.
²⁰Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 369, 370.

A further fact helps to limit the terminal point of Moscoso's journey. The Indians of Guasco sometimes went west to wherever 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.²¹The most successful deer hunter with whom the writer has discussed this 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 succeeded, 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.

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 followers. 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 affirmative, and some of that evidence pre-dates the first Anglo-American 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 Mexico²⁸ 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) northeastward across Young and Jack Counties.²⁹²²Bourne, De Soto, I, 14, 21, 163, 192; II, 12, 23, 63, 93, 95, 139.
²³Ibid.. II, 23. When Indians burned De Soto's camp at night, 300 hogs were killed in the fire.
²⁴Ibid., I, 95.
²⁵Ibid., I, 163.
²⁶Ibid., 1, 163-164.
²⁷Bolton, De Mézières, II, 202.
^28>That wild hogs ranged through the timbers of East Texas is well 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 Texas Santa Fe Expedition, 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 northeast 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 subsisted 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 Henrietta, Texas, hunted over this area as a boy as early as 1874, and makes this report.
²⁹See footnote 28. The usual testimony of the many persons interviewed about wild hogs was that they were numerous in the parts of the upper Cross Timbers nearest Desdemona, and Young and Jack Counties.

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 Guasco. Under such circumstances surely the Spaniards did not divide their corn with the hogs. Or, put another way, surely this last point on Moscoso'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.³⁰Bourne, De Soto, I, 179; II, 38.

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 encountered 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.³¹Bolton, Spanish Borderlands, 75.
³²Kendall, The Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, I, 79, 80, 87, 90.
³³Ibid., I, 80.
³⁴Ibid., I, 107.

Some ten months earlier, Colonel Cooke, with a military detachment, 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.³⁷³⁵Lucas and Hall, History of Grayson County, 45. The reference is to Colonel Cooke's Report.
³⁶Ibid.
³⁷A copy of the diary of G. W. Day of Tennessee was furnished the 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.

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.³⁸Bolton, De Mézières, I, 293.
³⁹Ibid., II, 279-280.
⁴⁰Ibid., II, 188.

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 information 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.⁴¹Almost the entire length of the Colorado River was either in the buffalo country, or so located that Moscoso must have passed through a portion of the buffalo range to have reached it.

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 believe 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.⁴²⁴²Bourne, De Soto, I, 174, 181.

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 Mountains, and includes the large, government-built Possum Kingdom Dam already referred to. It is the same area in which a few deer are still running wild, and is also the section previously 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 information 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. Pioneer 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.⁴³According to the 1928 Texas Almanac, 222-224, corn production figures 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).

One hundred and seventy years ago De Mezières 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 upstream into the upper Cross Timbers and finally into a reservation near the site of Graham, Texas. However, they must have had their difficulties with farm production, for a white agricultural expert was furnished⁴⁵ them throughout most of the history of the reservation.⁴⁴Bolton, De Mézières, I, 283-297. The village of the Ouidsitas in 1772 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.
⁴⁵Record, 1894, No. 4, Original United States vs. The State of Texas, 592. Dr. J. J. Sturn of Waco went among the Indians of the lower reservation 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.

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 wherever 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. Apparently 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 Spaniards had collected from a vast range of corn-producing villages.⁴⁷ Between Guasco 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."⁴⁸⁴⁶Bourne, De Soto, I, 179.
^47>Ibid., I, 179; II, 37. Less than a peck of corn was found among these Indians, and probably even that small amount was an importation since the Indians "neither planted nor gathered anything."
⁴⁸Ibid., II, 37.

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 approached 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 Waxahachie⁵¹ 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.⁴⁹James T. De Shields, Border Wars of Texas, 355-359.
⁵⁰Bolton, De Mézières, I, 283-297.
⁵¹Sketch Showing the Route of the Military Road from Red River to Austin, Wm. H. Hunt, Engineer, 1840. Drawn by H. L. Upshur, 1841. This old map is in the library of the University of Texas.

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 probable reason why an area so rich in agricultural possibilities did not support a large population of corn-producing Indians. Immediately west of Greenville are the Caddo Forks⁵² of the Sabine River. The name suggests that the area was once habitable for some of these agricultural Indians, and authoritative maps show that such Indians did live nearby at least a century and a half ago.⁵³⁵²A plat acompanying the survey of the Central National Road of the Republic of Texas, dated 1844, in the State Land Office, lists these streams as the "Caddo" forks of the Sabine.
⁵³Fray J. A. Morfi, History of Texas, 1673-1770. Translated with biographical introduction and annotations by C. E. Castaneda (Albuquerque, 1935), map opposite p. 426.

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 impossible.

However, to the north of Sulphur River, along the ridge between 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 villages 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.⁵⁴Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century.

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.⁵⁵Bourne, De Soto, I, 174.

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.⁵⁶⁵⁶Diary of G. W. Day. See footnote No. 37.

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 pottery has been found in modern times in the valley of Red River eastward of Paris.⁵⁸⁵⁷Bourne, De Soto, I, 183.
⁵⁸Neville to Williams, February 12, 1942. Mrs. A. W. Neville of Paris, Texas, is editor of the Paris News, author of The History of Lamar County, and a long-time resident of that area.

Another of the miscellany of common earmarks between Moscoso'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 somewhat 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.⁵⁹Bourne, De Soto, I, 175; II, 37.

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 Spaniards saw some buffalo at a place called Aays (or Hais).⁶⁰ The evidence is unmistakable that buffalo once grazed along the prairies 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 villages, 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.⁶⁰Ibid., II, 36-37.
⁶¹A. W. Neville, The History of Lamar County, 68. The Neville history 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."

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 Greenville was once covered by the Black Cat thicket and the Jernigan Thicket which, together, made it a veritable jungle.⁶³ Possibly this was the site of Socatino.⁶²Bourne, De Soto, II, 37.
⁶³Personal interview with J. B. Jetter, Wichita Falls, Texas, an early resident of the Greenville area.

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 probably 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 southward,⁶⁶ but Biedma gives the impression that there was a confusion 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 westward from Guasco to the river Daycao.⁶⁹⁶⁴Bourne, De Soto, I, 75.
⁶⁵Ibid.
⁶⁶Ibid., I, 177.
⁶⁷Ibid., II, 37.
⁶⁸Ibid., I, 182.
⁶⁹Ibid., I, 178.

These three phases of Moscoso's journey and the direction of travel indicated are in harmony with the route of the expedition 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 near 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 supposed detour up Village Creek is in harmony with the fact of known history that Indian habitations were stretched for miles up that stream in 1841.⁷¹⁷⁰The Peters Colony Map of 1852 in the Texas State Land Office shows an early road that branched from the Preston-Austin road, and passed by 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.
⁷¹De Shields, Border Wars of Texas, 355-359.

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 clarification. Up that very route was a long forgotten horse path over which some of the gold seekers of 1849 traveled to California.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 Arrowsmith 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.⁷²Northern Standard, Clarksville, Texas, February 16, 1850.
⁷³Northern Standard, Clarksville, Texas, March 2, 1850.
⁷⁴John Arrowsmith, Map of Texas, compiled from surveys recorded in the Land Office of Texas and other official surveys (London, 1841).
⁷⁵McDonald to Williams, November 27, 1941. A. J. McDonald, formerly of Graham, Texas, discovered these relics. Through his courtesy, the writer obtained a photograph of the crucifix.

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 sunset.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?⁷⁶Francis Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, 414.
⁷⁷Bourne, De Soto, I, 181.

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 direction 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.⁷⁸From the Elvas account of Moscoso's journey (Bourne, De Soto, I, 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 October . . ." 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 Naguatex; 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 Dayeno. 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."

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 language 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 northeast 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.⁷⁹The Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission, 263.

The Expedition of Luís de Moscoso in Texas in 1542

by Albert Woldert

He who would see the new world
The golden pole the second,
Other seas, other lands,
Achievements great and wars,
And such things attempted
As alarm and give pleasure,
strike terror and lend delight,
Read of the author this pleasing story
Where nothing fabulous is told.¹¹Words of the Gentleman of Elvas in regard to the expedition of Hernando de Soto in F. W. Hodge and Theodore H. Lewis (eds.) Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543 (New York, 1907), 133; hereinafter referred to as Elvas

INTRODUCTION

The expedition of Luís de Moscoso, having been a continuation of that of Hernando de Soto through the tier of southern states in 1541 and 1542, was of such great interest that a few words should be devoted to de Soto as a tribute to the memory of this great explorer and to the members of his remarkable expedition before referring to his successor, Moscoso.

Hernando de Soto was the son of an esquire of Xerez de Badajoz, who "went to the Indias of the Ocean sea belonging to Castile."² De Soto, having gained immense wealth from his adventurous journey with Pizarro in conquering Peru, and subsequently having returned to Seville, "employed a superintendent of household, an usher, pages, equerry, chamberlain, footmen, and all the servants requisite for the establishment of a gentleman.³ It has been said that in Seville de Soto spent large sums and went about arrayed in costly apparel.²Ibid., 135.
³Ibid., 135.

The citizens of Seville, whose interest had already been aroused by the relation of Cabeza de Vaca regarding the riches of the New World, saw evidence of the wealth acquired by de Soto in Peru. Repetitions of these reports gained momentum and so inflamed the imagination of the people that it was not long before many citizens of Spain and Portugal expressed a willingness to go with de Soto to this land of glittering gold. Some sold their vineyards, their houses, and their lands to go to this newly discovered country. Encouraged by the enthusiasm of the people, de Soto bought seven ships and gathered together those who desired to go with him to the new land. "Portuguese turning out in polished armor, and the Castilians dressed very showily in silk over silk, pinked and slashed. Some were in shirts of mail; all wore steel caps or helmets but had very poor lances. Six hundred men in all followed de Soto to Florida."⁴ Among his principal companions were Luís de Moscoso and his two brothers.⁵⁴Elvas, 139.
⁵Ibid., 137.

In the month of April, 1538, de Soto, having received the appointment of Adelantado of New Spain,⁶ delivered the vessels to their seven captains, took for himself a new ship fast of sail, placed aboard sufficient cattle, swine, provisions, and equipment for his followers, unfurled the sails of his ships, and with a favorable wind got his ships over the bar of Sanlúcar on Sunday morning of Saint Lazarus with great festivity, after commanding the trumpets to be sounded and many charges of artillery to be fired. With high hopes and great confidence in the leader, the expedition was now on its way toward the sunset and the new-found land called "Florida."⁶Ibid., 139.

Accompanying de Soto in this enterprise was his faithful wife, the former Doña Ysabel de Bobadilla, daughter of Pedrarias Dávila Count of Puñonrostro, and with her the wives of Don Carlos, of Baltasar de Gallegos and of Nuño de Tobar.

The emperor, in conferring upon de Soto the honor of "Governor of the Island of Cuba, and Adelantado of Florida," had given the explorer all the authority needed.

The first landing of the de Soto expedition was at the Canary Islands, from which the adventurers went on to Havana. In May, 1539, de Soto left his wife, Doña Ysabel, with the ladies accompanying her, to govern the island of Cuba during his absence, and, having acquired two more ships, he with his eager followers landed on the west coast of Florida on the 30th day of May, 1539. "Two hundred and thirteen horses were unloaded to unburden the ships,"⁷ and the men landed on shore. The expedition started to the northward, where they met with stout resistance from the Indians. Moscoso was made master of camp and set the men in order.⁸⁷Elvas, 146.
⁸Ibid., 146.

Continuing the march the expedition reached the town of Ucita on Trinity Sunday. From there with much endurance and fortitude and numerous pitched battles with the natives, the Europeans slowly fought their way through the northern part of what is now Florida. Going northward they passed through the present states of Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, then, according to the Final Report of the United States de Soto Expedition Commission, de Soto again returned to Louisiana,⁹ still searching for the gold and precious stones which apparently were never found. The fierce encounters with the Indians, the hardships endured, and the failure to secure the long sought wealth, doubtless preyed heavily upon the mind of de Soto. A fever came on him of such severity that it caused him to take to his bed at Guaychoya, on the west bank of the Mississippi River in the present Louisiana. Realizing his death was near, de Soto called about him the remainder of his followers and thanked them for their great qualities, "their love and loyalty to his person," and asked them whom they desired to lead them to New Spain, whereupon they answered Moscoso, and in conformity with their wishes de Soto appointed Luís de Moscoso de Alvarado Captain General to lead them. On the following day at Guaychoya, May 21, 1542, "departed this life the intrepid Captain Don Hernando de Soto, Governor of Cuba and Adelantado of Florida."¹⁰⁹Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission, 349; hereinafter referred to as Final Report.
¹⁰Elvas account in Hodge and Lewis (eds.), Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543, 233.

Moscoso, in an effort to prevent the news of the death from becoming known to the Indians, secretly buried the body of de Soto, but within three days it was exhumed, and during the night under the orders of Moscoso it was enshrouded with shawls, covered with an abundance of sand, placed in a canoe, and "committed to the middle of the stream."¹¹¹¹Ibid., 234; the stream referred to is the Mississippi.

Soon after the death of de Soto, Moscoso called the principal personages together to consult regarding the best method of procedure. It was agreed that the expedition toward New Spain should be continued. Accordingly, they started out from Guaychoya and apparently crossed the northern part of Louisiana,¹² passing just north of what is now the city of Shreveport. The expedition then turned sharply toward the southwest to the province of Nondacao, finally arriving on the east line of what is now Texas and entering this state in the neighborhood of Joaquin apparently about August 20 to 25, 1542. (The Nondacaos in later years it is believed migrated toward the west and were found in the section known now as Rusk, Gregg, and part of Smith Counties.¹³)¹²Final Report, map, 349.
¹³See map accompanying Herbert Eugene Bolton, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century (Berkeley, 1915).

According to Dr. John Reid Swanton, Chairman of the de Soto Expedition Commission, the Moscoso party marched from the region of Joaquin to Ays (Hais, Ais = San Augustine, Texas), and, according to the report of the commission, "when the Spaniards reached Hais they were on their way to a province called Soacatino which, it is therefore reasonable to suppose, lay still farther toward the southwest."¹⁴ Continuing from Soacatino to the southwest the Moscoso expedition passed through what is now Angelina County just below Lufkin, then through Trinity County above Groveton, touched the extreme southwest tip of Houston County, and thence came to Daycao (Trinity) River on the east border line of Madison County, just above the junction of the Bedias Creek with the Trinity. Crossing the Daycao, the expedition sent out a detachment of men to explore the section slightly west of that stream.¹⁴Final Report, 289.

After having given more thorough study to the historic data in regard to the route of Moscoso in Texas, and being acquainted with the general geography of East Texas, the writer desires to state that he is in substantial agreement with the de Soto Expedition Commission in regard to the route of Moscoso in Texas as far as the province known as Ays, but it is the opinion of the writer that the expedition of Moscoso after leaving that place proceeded some fifteen to twenty-five miles south of present San Augustine to Soacatino; and from Soacatino eastward toward the Sabine River where water could be obtained during August. After making many turns and looking for Christians who might come to their aid, the members of the expedition possibly proceeded as far south as the east central portion of Newton County, but finding neither Christians nor gold, they finally turned toward the west, reaching the Neches or Angelina River. Proceeding northward up the Angelina River the expedition reached Guasco, possibly situated on the east side of that stream in what is now the extreme southeastern border of Nacogdoches County. From Guasco, the party continued to Nacquiscoca and still further northward to the Nacacahoz (Nacogdoche). Here the expedition turned and marched southward, returning to Guasco, possibly situated on or near an old Indian Trail where water was abundant; this point would in a general way correspond with the crossing of the road later known as the La Bahía road on the Angelina River. Leaving Guasco and proceeding to the southwest along this trail (possibly the La Bahía road in later years), the expedition came to the river Daycao (the Trinity), across which ten horsemen had been sent to explore the region west of the river.

According to the Gentleman of Elvas, the Moscoso expedition "returned over the way"¹⁵ which they had come, and, if the writer's inference is correct, the party evidently passed through Guasco again on the way to Aminoya on the west bank of the Mississippi River, where seven brigantines were built¹⁶ to hold the remnant of three hundred twenty-two Spaniards, who subsequently made their way down the Mississippi River in these vessels to the Gulf of Mexico, and by good fortune and favorable winds, turned westward and finally arrived at the River Pánuco.¹⁷¹⁵Elvas, 247.
¹⁶Ibid., 254.
¹⁷Ibid., 266.

SUMMARY

The following evidence is offered in support of the writer's interpretation of the route of the Moscoso Expedition in Texas:

1. The account of the Gentleman of Elvas, as translated by Buckingham Smith with corrections made by J. Franklin Jameson.¹⁸ Regarding this account the United States de Soto Expedition Commission makes the following statement: "In our study of the route [of the de Soto-Moscoso Expedition] we shall, therefore, accept the Ranjel narrative as basal, supplement it by means of the Elvas relation and the sketch by Biedma, and finally, in the light of these three, study what Garcilaso's informants have to tell us. Unfortunately, as already stated, the Ranjel narrative breaks off at the point where de Soto took up his winter quarters in the fall of 1541. From there on our principal guide will be Elvas, supplemented by the meager data of Biedma, and whatever can be distilled from the romantic pages of the Inca."¹⁹¹⁸Published in Hodge and Lewis (eds.), Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543, 133ff.
¹⁹Final Report, 10.

2. The map of the Gentleman of Elvas.²⁰ This map shows the names and locations of provinces in a vertical line just west of the river (probably the Sabine), and extending almost in a vertical line south of the province of Ays (San Augustine).²⁰Hodge and Lewis (eds.), Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543, 133.

3. The Swanton map of North America.²¹ This map shows the province of Xautatino lying south of the province of Ays.²¹21Thomas Gaither, The Fatal River (New York, 1931), 180.

4. The statement of Jesús María,²² who enumerates with others the Guasco (in 1691) as living "toward the north and east" of his mission, Nombre de María.²³²²Mattie Austin Hatcher, "Description of the Tejas or Asinai Indians, 1691-1722," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXX, 286.
²³For the location of the mission see Albert Woldert, "The Location of the Tejas Indian Village (San Pedro) and the Spanish Missions in Houston County, Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXXVIII, 204.

5. The names of the tribes or provinces marched through in East Texas are Caddoan.

6. The statement of the Gentleman of Elvas in which he says: "The country [of Soacatino, Sacatin, Xautatino, etc.] was very poor, and the want of maize was greatly felt; [the] natives being asked if they had any knowledge of Christians said that they had heard that near there towards the south such men were moving about."²⁴ It is to be noted that at this time there seemed to be no difficulty in interpreting the words or language of these probably Caddoan tribes. After hearing the report of the Christians somewhere toward the south the Gentleman of Elvas says: "For twenty days the march lafter leaving Soacatino] was through a very thinly peopled country, where great privation and toil were endured; the little maize there was, the Indians having buried in the scrub."²⁵²⁴Hodge and Lewis (eds.), Spanish Explorers in Southern United States, 1528-1543, 244.
²⁵Ibid., 244.

7. The statement of Biedma in his narrative where he says: "We went from this place [Hais], and came to the province of Xacatin, which was among some close forests, and was scant of food. Hence the Indians guided us eastward to other small towns poorly off for food, having said they would take us where there were other Christians like us, which afterwards proved false, although as we made so many turns it might be in some of them they had observed our passing. We turned to go southward [from Xacatin] with the resolution of either reaching New Spain or dying. We travelled about six days in a direction south and southwest when we stopped.²⁶ If the Moscoso expedition on leaving Xacatin [Soacatino] travelled eastward, and if this province of Xacatin was south of Ays, as it seemed to be, Moscoso apparently marched toward the Sabine River, where his army could obtain water during the hot month of August. If one should go to a point some fifteen or more miles south of San Augustine, and from there eastward, he would be in the vicinity of the Sabine River; then by turning southward for some forty miles he would reach the neighborhood of the eastern portion of what is now Newton County. The topography of this region fits the description of sand, pine, and oak trees, and not far to the south is the "Big Thicket," which even at the present time is known for its almost impenetrable nature, being composed of large trees, bushes, swamps, and thick undergrowth. The "Big Thicket" is said to extend roughly from the Sabine River on the east more or less to the Trinity River, the northern edge of the thicket being only a few miles south of Livingston, Polk County.²⁶Biedma, "Relation," in E. G. Bourne (ed.), Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto (2 vols., New York, 1904), II, 37.

8. The references of the Gentleman of Elvas to the narrative of Cabeza de Vaca.²⁷ These references indicate that Moscoso was familiar with the descriptions of the country as given by Cabeza de Vaca. One might offer a supposition that the Christians referred to by the Indians at Soacatino were members of the ill-fated Narváez expedition who might have been rescued by the native Indians residing in South Texas and not to the Christians of the Coronado expedition in northwest Texas.²⁷Hodge and Lewis (eds.), Spanish Explorers of Southern United States, 1528-1543, 246, 248, and 149.

9. After the wanderings of Moscoso and his men of from six to twenty days he apparently came to Guasco.

10. From Guasco, Moscoso went to another settlement called "Nacquiscoca," and from there to "Nacacahoz,"²⁸ which latter name sounds so much like the word "Nacogdoche" that the writer's interpretation is that the term Nacacahoz meant Nacogdoche. The old San Antonio trail or road passed through the present town of Nacogdoches; it was found in one locality in 1686 or 1687 by the men of la Salle's expedition, who said that the road they travelled was as good as between two cities in France, thus showing its antiquity.²⁸Ibid., 244.

While at the province of Nacacahoz, Moscoso sent out a captain with fifteen cavalrymen to "discover if there were any marks of horses or signs of any Christians having been there."²⁹²⁹Ibid., 244.

From the Nacacahoz province Moscoso returned to Guasco where he was told that: "Ten days journey from there toward the sunset was a river called Daycao, and that they had seen persons on the other bank but without knowing what people they were. The Christians took as much maize as they could find and journeying ten days through a wilderness [note that they were not here in an open or prairie country] they arrived at the river Daycao [Trinity] of which the Indians had spoken,"³⁰ and where ten horsemen had crossed the river Daycao and captured two natives. After the captives were brought into camp it was discovered that no one could interpret their language, thus indicating that the two captives were unfamiliar with the Caddoan dialect. They were believed to belong to some tribe who wandered like Arabs and lived on prickly pears.³¹³⁰Ibid., 245.
³¹Ibid., 246.

From the Daycao the expedition "returned over the way,"³² which, according to the writer's interpretation, means that they returned by way of Guasco, thence to Anilco on the Mississippi River, a distance of 150 leagues.³²Ibid., 247.

In this contribution the writer does not go so far as to claim that all of his interpretations are entirely correct. Some day it is to be hoped that a lost or misplaced manuscript may be found which will throw more light upon the question of the exact route of the Moscoso expedition in Texas. History is anxiously waiting for that day.

Repository, 1940 - 1949

Moscoso's Trail Through Texas