DE SOTO AND ALARIC THE VISIGOTH.

25

Like Alaric, who ravaged the Roman empire, De Soto came from a far country to waste and to destroy. The one poured his barbarian hordes from the Alpine hills over the plains and valleys of Italy; the other, crossing the Atlantic with destruction at his prow, and terror at his helm, desolated the fairest portions of the sunny South. The one had beaten down the ironbreasted legions of Rome, and hoisted his Visigothic banners on the Palatine, boasting that where he went the spot was cursed; the other had vanquished the stern warriors of the forest, thrown out his Castilian flag over conquered tribes, and scathed, with more than vandal barbarism, the aborigines of America. The one, scorning the pageant train, and hollow pomp, and marble bust, commanded his soldiers to hollow out his grave in the bed of the river Busento, which was turned from its course till he was interred, and then caused to flow back again in its original channel, that no man might know his secret resting-place; the sepulchre of the other, to prevent a like discovery, was beneath the waters of the great father of western rivers. No pillar or mound marks the spot of either's grave; but each left a lasting record of his deeds, and each, in his sphere, realized the boast of Attila, that he was "The Scourge of God."

The survivors of that once gallant band, now toilworn and sick at heart, after more than a year's wandering, reached the Gulf of Mexico; and not one half those who landed in Florida, lived to enter the city of Mexico.

It is almost impossible to trace, with accuracy, the route of De Soto through Georgia; for so little did the narrators of this expedition understand the Indian languages, and so migratory were the natives in their

26

DE SOTO'S ROUTE THROUGH GEORGIA.

4

habits, that but few of the names mentioned can now be identified. He found no settlements. Remains of ancient fortifications have been found in this State, made in accordance with military rule and arms; coins and implements of various kinds, have been dug up in various places; but it is very evident that the mounds, terraces, pyramids, and embankments, found upon the Altamaha, the Ogeechee, the Savannah, in the valley of Naucoochee, in De Kalb, upon the Chattahoochee and Etowah rivers, are not of Spanish origin. They are but portions of a series of ancient mounds

4 This is the opinion of all who have attempted to trace his course. McCulloch (Researches) says, p. 523: "I have found this inquiry concerning Soto's route attended with many circumstances of difficulty and perplexity, not only from the uncertain orthography of the Indian names, often spelt three or four different ways, and maps also sufficiently inaccurate, but especially from the vague and imperfect manner in which the route of the march is described. Sometimes estimates of the length of the journey are given in days' marches, and at other times in so many leagues, while again it is also evident, that no notice has been taken of other journies in any manner whatThe direction or course has been partially given for about the first half of their route, but in the latter part no such aid has been afforded to our research." Albert Gallatin writes: 'It is extremely difficult to reconcile in all their details either of the two relations, (the Portuguese or Vega,) as they respect distances and courses, with the now well-known geography of the country."-Arch. Amer. ii. 102.

soever.

McCulloch thinks that he identifies the following places: Anaica or Anhyca, where De Soto wintered, he places north of the Uchee river, in Decatur co.; Achalaqui, in Houston co.; Talomeco, in Monroe co.; Chonalla, in Hall co. ; and Ichiaha, or Chiaha, is evidently the Etowah. Gallatin suggests that Anaica is in the vicinity of the Ocklockne river, and Cofachiqui indeterminately on the Oconee or Savannah river. Bancroft (Hist. i. 46) is very indefinite upon the route of De Soto in Georgia. Leaving their winter quarters, he says, they "hastened to the north-east, crossed the Altamaha, passed a northern tributary of the Altamaha, and a southern branch of the Ogeechee, and at length came upon the Ogeechee itself." Then all is indistinct, until he makes him to pass from the head-waters of the Savannah, or the Chattahoochee, to the head-waters of the Coosa; then, with a mere mention of Cannesauga, he takes him out of Georgia. Upon this subject there is but little that is positive, while there is much that is conjectural.

MOUNDS AND RELICS-THEIR ORIGIN.

27

and relics, commencing in the State of New York, stretching along the western slope of the Alleghanies; thence crossing this range to the eastward, they enter Georgia in Habersham county, and are terminated by the Atlantic in Florida; while the branch of the series, spreading over the valley of the Mississippi and the Missouri, is lost among the splendid ruins of Mexico and Central America.5

The ancient monuments of art, the identity of which can be fully settled, were not the product of a roving expedition, or the hastily thrown up entrenchments of migratory tribes. They are the substantial workmanship of a permanent people-built, not for military, but civil and religious purposes. They are the remains of cities and temples, of which history has no record ―tradition, no legend. A conjecture has been, indeed, thrown out, and sustained by well-digested evidence, that these were the works of the Toltec tribes, who led the great van of the Aztec migration from the North to Mexico; and whose migrations, according to the hieroglyphical records, occurred at successive dates, ranging from the middle of the seventh to the end of the twelfth century.

The pre-existence of a people in America, characterized by many of the elements of ancient civilization, centuries before its discovery by Columbus, is abundantly evident. What are all the tumuli and mural

6

5 Bradford, Antiq. America, 37, 60. nopsis of Indian Tribes, sect. v.; the Adair, Amer. Indians, 378. chapter on the origin of Mexican civilization in Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, vol. i.; Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, vol. i. book ii., Cullen's translation, London, 1787.

6 Bradford, 63. Prof. Rafinesque on Ancient Annals of Kentucky, in Marshall's Hist. of Kentucky. General Harrison's Historical Discourse on the Aborigines of the Valley of the Ohio, p. 46. See also Gallatin's Sy

This assertion derives further support from the comparative craniology

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EVIDENCES OF REMOTE CIVILIZATION.

remains scattered throughout the South and West, formed upon scientific principles, and some of them placed with all the skill of military engineering? What are all the still existing temples and palaces, rich in their oriental architecture, teeming with the sculpture of antiquity, which are now found in Central America? History has not preserved the record of a single fact concerning them. The very language of the inscriptions over their altars and porches is lost; and yet, from those massive marble roofs, upheld by gigantic columns, carved all over with the curious devices of Shemitic art-from those court-yards, surrounded by heavy corridors and halls of banqueting, have grown up trees many centuries old, almost burying the ruins by their hanging branches, and ripping open the solid masonry by their spreading roots. Whence came the people who reared these structures? Where have they gone? Echo reverberates the sound through those silent chambers and along those deserted walks, but gives back no answer, save that one word, "Gone." From the remains which still exist, we must conclude that millions of people there lived and moved in all the pride and splendour of a gorgeous magnificence; but now, like Babylon, once “the glory of kingdoms," they are but the abodes

race, and probably to the Toltecan family." The same fact is stated by Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, in a communication made to the "British Association for the Advancement of Science," at Liverpool, 1837.

of the skulls found in these mounds, and those of the Toltecs and Aztecs in Mexico and Peru. Vide Delafield's Enquiries into the origin of the Antiquities of America; also Crania Americana of Dr. Morton, who expressly declares, as the result of his persevering, McCulloch, in his Phil. and Hist. precise, and scientific collections and Researches, has also condensed much measurements, "that the cranial re- and valuable information on this submains discovered in the mounds from ject. Peru to Wisconsin belong to the same

NATURE OF SPANISH COLONIZATION.

29

of "wild beasts and doleful creatures. Dragons are in their pleasant places, and the satyrs dance upon their walls." This is the "terra incognita" of American History; and as in the maps of old geographers they placed pictures of divers men and beasts over every unexplored country, so in this unknown region of antiquity we may paint upon its surface a variety of imaginary creations; but they will be, after all, imaginary still.

Seventy years had passed since Columbus opened the way to the New World, and the Atlantic coast of North America was still uncolonized by any European nation. Every attempt of the Spaniards had failed; and they deserved to fail. Their treatment of the Indians was cruel and oppressive. They regarded them as specially given to them by the God of nature for their use and convenience. They tried to make them converts to religion by force; and, failing of this, they burnt their villages-destroyed their fieldsmenaced their aged and helpless-reduced to chains and slavery those whom they captured-and killed in open battle, or by midnight surprise, whole tribes and armies which met to defend the graves of their forefathers. The Spaniards found this country blooming and beautiful-its inhabitants simple and unsuspecting; they changed the character of both, and tracked their way from the Atlantic to the Mississippi in fire and blood.