Part 9 (1/2)
De Soto was very anxious to cultivate friendly relations with the Indians. Whatever may have been his faults, his whole career thus far had shown him to be by nature a kind-hearted and upright man, hating oppression and loving justice. The faults of his character rather belonged to the age in which he lived, than to the individual man. No military leader has ever yet been able to restrain the pa.s.sions of his soldiers. Wherever an army moves, there will always be, to a greater or less degree, plunder and violence. De Soto earnestly endeavored to introduce strict discipline among his troops. He forbade the slightest act of injustice or disrespect towards the Indians. Whenever a captive was taken, he treated him as a father would treat a child, and returned him to his home laden with presents. He availed himself of every opportunity to send friendly messages to Ucita. But the mutilated chief was in no mood to be placated. His only reply to these kind words was,
”I want none of the speeches or promises of the Spaniards. Bring me their heads and I will receive them joyfully.”
The energies of De Soto inspired his whole camp. The provisions and munitions of war were promptly landed and conveyed to Ucita. The place was strongly fortified, and a hardy veteran, named Pedro Calderon, was placed in command of the garrison entrusted with its defence. All the large s.h.i.+ps were sent back to Cuba, probably to obtain fresh supplies of military stores; some say that it was to teach the army that, there being no possibility of escape, it now must depend upon its own valor for existence.
De Soto was very unwilling to set out for a march into the interior for discovery and in search of gold, while leaving so powerful a tribe as that over which Ucita reigned, in hostility behind him. He therefore sent repeated messages to Ucita expressing his utter detestation of the conduct of Narvaez; his desire to do everything in his power to repair the wrong which had been inflicted upon him, and his earnest wish to establish friendly relations with the deeply-injured chief.
These reiterated friendly advances, ever accompanied by correspondent action, at length in some slight degree mitigated the deadly rancor of Ucita, so that instead of returning a message of defiance and hate, he sent back the truly n.o.ble response:
”The memory of my injuries prevents me from returning a kind reply to your messages, and your courtesy is such that it will not allow me to return a harsh answer.”
The man who, under these circ.u.mstances, could frame such a reply, must have been one of nature's n.o.blemen. De Soto could appreciate the grandeur of such a spirit. While these scenes were transpiring, a man was brought into the camp, in Indian costume, who announced himself as a Spaniard by the name of Juan Ortiz. He had been one of the adventurers under Narvaez. In the extermination of that infamous band he had been taken captive and bound to the stake, to be consumed. He was then but eighteen years of age, tall and very handsome. As the tongues of torturing flame began to eat into his quivering flesh, cries of agony were extorted from him.
He was in the hands of a powerful chief, whose daughter is represented as a very beautiful princess, by the name of Uleleh. She was about sixteen years of age, and could not endure the scene. She threw her arms around her father's neck, and with tears of anguish pleaded that his life might be saved. He was rescued; and though for a time he suffered extreme cruelty, he eventually became adopted, as it were, into the tribe, and for ten years had resided among the Indians, sometimes regarded as a captive, upon whom heavy burdens could be imposed, and again treated with great kindness. Juan Ortiz being thus familiar with the habits of the natives and their language, became an invaluable acquisition to the adventurers.
De Soto inquired very earnestly of him respecting the country and the prospect of finding any region abounding with silver and gold. Ortiz had but little information to give, save that, at the distance of about a hundred miles from where they then were, there was a great chief named Uribaracaxi, to whom all the adjacent chiefs were tributary. His realms were represented as far more extensive, populous, and rich than those of the surrounding chieftains. De Soto dispatched a band of sixty hors.e.m.e.n and sixty foot soldiers with presents and messages of friends.h.i.+p to Uribaracaxi. The object of the expedition was to explore the country and to make inquiries respecting gold.
A weary march of about forty miles brought the party to the village of Mucozo, where Ortiz had resided for some years. The chief of this tribe, whose name was also Mucozo, was brother-in-law to Uribaracaxi.
Mucozo received the Spaniards with great hospitality, and learning that they were on a friendly visit to Uribaracaxi, furnished them with a guide. Four days were occupied in a tedious march through a country where pathless mora.s.ses continually embarra.s.sed their progress.
This expedition was under the command of Balthazar de Gallegos. He reached his point of destination in safety. But the chief, deeming it not prudent to trust himself in the hands of the Spaniards, whose renown for fiendish deeds had filled the land, had retired from his capital, and nearly all the inhabitants had fled with him. He left for his uninvited guests no message either of welcome or defiance.
Gallegos found all his attempts to open any communications with him unavailing. There was no plunder in the city worth seizing, and De Soto's commands to the expedition were very strict, to treat the Indians with the utmost kindness and humanity.
Gallegos made earnest inquiries of the Indians whom he met, as to the provinces where gold and silver could be found. They told him that there was a country many leagues west of them, of marvellous luxuriance and beauty, where gold was found in such abundance that the warriors had ma.s.sive s.h.i.+elds and helmets made of that precious metal.
The more shrewd of the Spaniards placed very little reliance upon this testimony. They thought they saw evidence that the Indians were ready to fabricate any story by which they could rid themselves of their visitors.
Soon after the departure of Gallegos, De Soto received the intelligence that the chief Ucita had taken refuge in a forest, surrounded with swamps, not far from the Spanish camp. The vainglorious Porcallo was exceedingly indignant that the Indian chief should presume to hold himself aloof from all friendly advances. He entreated De Soto to grant him the privilege of capturing the fugitive. De Soto complied with his request. The impetuous old man, fond of parade, and lavish of his wealth, selected a band of hors.e.m.e.n and footmen, all of whom were gorgeously apparelled for the occasion.
He, himself, was mounted on a magnificent steed and cased in glittering armor.
It seems that the n.o.ble Ucita kept himself well informed of every movement of the invaders. With a spirit of magnanimity which would have done honor to the best Christian in the Spanish ranks, he sent a courier to meet Porcallo, and to say to him,
”You will only expose yourself to infinite peril from the rivers, mora.s.ses, and forests through which you will have to pa.s.s in your attempt to reach my retreat. My position is so secure that all your attempts to take me will result only in your own loss. I do not send you this message from any fears on my own account, but because your leader, De Soto, has manifested so much forbearance in not injuring my territory or my subjects.”
It is really refres.h.i.+ng to find here and there, among all these demoniac deeds of demoniac men, some remaining traces of that n.o.bility of character which man had before the fall, when created in G.o.d's image he was but little lower than the angels. Man, as we see him developed in history, is indeed a ruin, but the ruin of a once n.o.ble fabric. When we think of what man might be, in all generous affections, and then think of what man is, it is enough to cause one to weep tears of blood.
Porcallo could not appreciate the magnanimity of Ucita. He regarded the message as one of the stratagems of war, dictated either by fear or cowardice. He therefore ordered the trumpets to sound the advance, his only fear being, that the chief might escape. Porcallo, a Quixotic knight, had no element of timidity in his character. He led his troops. He never said ”Go,” but ”Follow.” Pressing rapidly forward, the little band soon arrived upon the border of a vast and dismal mora.s.s, utterly pathless, stretching out many leagues in extent.
The hot-headed cavalier, thinking that the swamp might be waded, put spurs to his horse and dashed forward. He had advanced but a few rods when the horse, struggling knee-deep through the mire, stumbled and fell. One of the legs of the rider was so caught beneath the animal as to pin him inextricably in the mora.s.s, covering him with water and with mud. The weight of his armor sank him deeper in the mire, and in the desperate struggles of the steed for extrication, he was in great danger of being suffocated. None could come to his aid without danger of being swallowed up in the bog.
The unfeeling and brutal soldiers stood upon the borders of the mora.s.s with shouts of merriment, as they witnessed the sudden discomfiture of their leader; a discomfiture the more ludicrous, in contrast with his gorgeous attire, and his invariably proud and lofty bearing. At length Porcallo extricated himself, and, drenched with water, and covered with mud, led his equally bemired steed to the land. He was humiliated and enraged. The derision of the soldiers stung him to the quick. He had embarked in the expedition to gain glory and slaves. He had encountered disgrace; and the prospect of kidnapping the natives, under such a leader as De Soto had proved himself to be, was very small.
It is probable that before this disaster he had seriously contemplated abandoning the expedition and returning to his princely mansion in Trinidad. Ordering his men to face about, he sullenly and silently returned to the Spanish camp. Throwing up his commission with disgust, he embarked for Cuba, and we hear of him no more.
”His train of servants,” writes Mr. Theodore Irving, ”Spanish, Indian and negro, were embarked with all speed. But when the gallant old cavalier came to take leave of his young companions in arms, and the soldiers he had lately aspired to lead so vain-gloriously, his magnificent spirit broke forth.
He made gifts to the right and left, dividing among the officers and knights all the arms, accoutrements, horses and camp equipage, with which he had come so lavishly and so ostentatiously provided, and gave, for the use of the army, all the ample store of provisions and munitions brought for the use of himself and his retinue. This done, he bade farewell to campaigning and set sail for Cuba, much to the regret of the army, who lamented that so gallant a spirit should have burned out so soon.”[B]
[Footnote B: Conquest of Florida, by Theodore Irving, p. 81.]