Columbiana County, Ohio - Chapter 1: Valley Op the Mississippi, 1879

The discovery of San Salvador by Columbus was an event which aroused the latent powers of England and France, and stimulated the already awakened energies of Spain to efforts in what promised to be a rich field for conquest and dominion. Though at war among themselves, the possessors of the unexplored land to the westward were doomed to an unequal conflict, which was to result in practical extirpation at the hands of peoples of whose existence they had not dreamed, and who appeared to come up in swarms from the prolific ground or from the heaving sea.

The discovery of the mainland of the Western Continent was reserved for John Cabot, a Venetian, who, under a commission from Henry VII., King of Great Britain, issued May 5, 1496, sailed westward, and after a tedious voyage reached the coast of Labrador. After exploring the country he hoisted the. English flag, and in the name of the king took formal possession of the country. " Near the flag of England he planted the banner of the republic of Venice, little thinking, doubtless, that as the centuries rolled on not the flag of proud Albion, but that of a republic, would float from ocean to ocean."*

Columbia, as the newly-discovered continent should have been named, became the land of adventure, and the country drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries, since known as the "Valley of the Mississippi," did not long remain unknown to Europeans. Among the rival nations Spain, by the patronage of whose king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, the success of Columbus was insured, was the first to obtain, through her adventurous subjects, a knowledge of the existence of the " Father of Waters the first to plant her standard upon its border ; the first to carry it in gloomy triumph to the mouth of the majestic river.

Moved by the fabulous tales concerning vast riches hidden in the unexplored regions around the Mexican Gulf, Spain and Portugal sent forth numerous fleets and armies on errands of discovery. While the principal efforts of these powers were directed towards the treasures of Mexico and Peru, individual adventurers came forth ; among them was Ponce de Leon, a former companion of Columbus, and ex-governor of Porto Rico. He discovered the peninsula of Florida on Palm Sunday (Paschua Florida), March 27, 1512, while upon an insane expedition in search of the Fountain of Youth, " whose waters, it was said, possessed the property of perpetuating youth beyond the power of time and disease," and which was reputed by tradition among the Indians to be situated in one of the Bahama Islands. De Leon, as the reward for his discovery, was subsequently appointed governor of Florida by Charles V., and landing again upon the inhospitable shores of that country, in an attempt to plant a colony, was driven off by the natives, himself receiving a mortal wound of which he died soon after reaching Cuba.

The second adventurer within the limits of Florida was V asques de Ayllon, who sought to secure numbers of the natives to serve as slaves in the mines of Mexico. In 1520 he landed on the eastern coast of Florida, " where the vessels were anchored in a river, in latitude 32° north, in a country called by the natives Chicorea." Enticing many of the natives on board his ships, he treacherously confined them below decks, and set sail for St. Domingo. One of his two vessels was lost; the other reached its destination, but " the Indians on board remained sullen and gloomy, and, refusing all food, most of them died of famine and melancholy." In a subsequent visit, in 1525, with an outfit which cost him his fortune, having authority from the Emperor of Spain to subdue and govern the country of Chicorea, nearly all his soldiers were entrapped and slaughtered by the natives, who exercised a strategy and duplicity fully equal to his own. Some accounts say that Vasquez himself was slain.

In 1528, Pamphilo de Narvaez was appointed governor, with the title of commander-in-chief, over " all the country of Florida from Cape Sable as far as the River of Palms" (probably the Colorado), " in the west of Texas." Narvaez sailed in March, 1528, from Cuba, and entered the bay of Espiritu Santo, or Tampa Bay, with four ships, and landed his forces, reputed wealth of the interior was still the spring of action, and deluded by the belief that the country he was about to visit embosomed populous and wealthy cities, such as Mexico, he boldly pushed forward. Perpetrating outrages and cruelties upon the natives as he advanced, such as usually characterized the progress of the armies of Spain, the commander drew upon himself and followers the vindictive hatred of the Indians, whom he forced to serve as guides. These led the army tedious marches through swamps and thickets, while the land of gold, like an ignis-fatuus , remained provokingly distant, while yet alluring. This land, the guides declared, was in what is now Georgia, " between the Alapahaw and Withlacoochy Rivers, east of Flint River." When finally they reached the place, they found, instead of a great city, a deserted village of " two hundred and forty huts and sheds," and their visions of rich plunder were dispelled. Their retreat was one of merited hardship and disaster, " through dismal swamps with deep lagoons," until finally in famishing plight they reached the village of Ante, recently deserted by the Indians, within a day's march of the sea and near the present site of St. Mark's. One-third of the force had perished in the campaign ; the remainder embarked in five vessels, which had been provided with great labor.

Storms scattered and wrecked most of the vessels, and " out of the whole number who landed at the bay of Espiritu Santo for this expedition only five escaped, Alvar Nunez Cabcxa de Yaca and four of his companions. They were in the other bark that remained after the night storm, and were afterwards cast upon the inhospitable shore; and, as Mr. Irving* observes, ' After the most singular and unparalleled hardships, they traversed the northern parts of Florida, crossed the Mississippi, the desert mountainous regions on the confines of Texas and the Rocky Mountains, passing from tribe to tribe of Indians, and often as slaves, until, at the end of several years, they succeeded in reaching the Spanish settlement of Compostella. From thence Alvar Nunez proceeded to Mexico, and ultimately arrived at Lisbon in 1537, nearly ten years after his embarkation with Pamphilo de Narvaez.'

Nunez and his companions were doubtless the first white men who'looked upon the broad expanse of the Mississippi; but from their discovery nothing practical resulted. Despite his harsh experiences and the fate of Narvaez, Nunez encouraged further exploration in Florida, which land he represented as richer than Mexico, and was the chief inciting cause of the hapless campaign of Hernando de Soto.

De Soto sailed from Spain, April 6, 1538, for Havana, and on May 12, in the following year, with eight large and three small vessels, and a force of one thousand men, inclusive of three hundred and fifty horsemen, set sail for the bay of Espiritu Santo, where in a fortnight they arrived. By permission from Charles, Emperor of Spain, De Soto had undertaken the conquest of Florida, "at his own risk and expense;" and the entire army engaged with him were no less than a horde of unscrupulous freebooters. His march through the country of the Indians was one of exceeding cruelty, unequaled by that of his predecessors, but was not exempt from serious disaster to his own followers. Notwithstanding his great losses in a conflict with the warriors of the native King Tuscaluza, at the ancient town of Mauvile, or Mobile, De Soto pressed forward, and in March, 1541, reached the eastern bank of the Mississippi. " At this place," says the Portuguese historian, " the river was half a league from one shore to the other, so that a man standing still could not be seen from the opposite shore. It was of great depth and wonderful rapidity. It was very muddy, and was always filled with floating trees and timber, carried down by the force of the current."

Having crossed the river at a point about thirty miles below the present site of Helena, he made, with his fast lessening army, numerous expeditions towards the north and west in a vain search lor gold, and having penetrated to near the present western boundary of Arkansas, in latitude 30° north, returned at the approach of winter to the Mississippi. He reached the river at the native town of Capaha, which, it is supposed, was situated about eight miles below the site of Helena. Here, discouraged by his fruitless search for the precious metals and by the prospect of evils to come, he relapsed into melancholy, fell ill of a fever of which he died about the 5th of June, 1542, and was buried in the depths of the magnificent river.

Luis de Mosc-oso, whom De Soto had appointed to command as his successor, led the remnant of the army westward, reached the Red River a little north of the present State of Texas, and in October again turned eastward and gained the Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas. Having constructed rude vessels, the Spaniards embarked upon the former stream July 2, 1543, and after serious conflicts with the savages, who in their light canoes swarmed around them from the eastern shore, in twenty days reached the open sea at the river's mouth.

Florida, according to the claims of Spain after the campaign of De Soto, extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the mouth of the St. Lawrence; but this immense province, now that the dreams of mineral wealth were dissipated, was practically abandoned for a considerable period as unworthy of the Spanish arms.