Adventures of Roger L'Estrange, sometime captain in the Florida army of His Excellency the Marquis Hernando de Soto ... An autobiography, translated from the Spanish, and prepared for publication [or rather, written] by Dominick Daly ... With a preface by Henry M. Stanley, M.P, and a route map

Preface

MY friend Mr. Dominick Daly, who has undertaken to edit the Adventures of Roger L' Estrange, desires a few words from me as a preface to the book. The intrinsic merits of the work are quite sufficient in themselves to recommend it to that large class of readers which delights in perusing annals of exploration, discovery, and adventure. The impressions and the varied incidents recorded by Roger are written in a language so like that of to-day, that we have to remind ourselves of the dates to make sure that the events related do not belong to the present generation. Liverpool was, however, only a fishing village, Manchester but an insignificant hamlet, and the Mersey but an obscure stream, at the time the story begins. The senti ments, also, which here and there find utterance might belong to one duly impressed with the moralities of Exeter Hall ; though, when in the thick of the strife, the deeds of the hero are such as we might expect from a valiant of the period.

What I most admire in Roger is that he is so fresh, naive, and candid, and can tell a straight story. Even Daniel Defoe, of whose style he reminds me, could not have told it better.

PREFACE.

4 As a follower of Ferdinand de Soto, the discoverer of the "Father of Waters," he is something new. Incidentally he tells us a great deal of a man of whom too little was known. Columbus, Cortes, Pizarro, Da Gama, and many another great leader and discoverer, have been remembered by historians and poets ; but the discoverer of the Mississippi has had but scant justice done to his memory, though, next to the discovery of Columbus, the finding of the great American river ranked as the greatest feat of the sixteenth century. As some amends for the neglect of such a man this book may be accepted. Our knowledge thus gained of him is — I am glad to say — not at all disparaging, but is as honourable to the follower as to the leader of the great enterprise. For the above reasons I heartily welcome the appearance of the Adventures of Roger L Estrange ; and I think that the literary charm and freshness which I have found in it amply justify the few remarks which I have ventured to make.

HENRY M. STANLEY. Cadoxton Lodge, Neath, October 6/h, 1896. INTRODUCTORY TN the year 1891, whilst in Mexico on private business, I -^ was requested by my friend Colonel Hoffman, of New York, to see if there might be found in the literary collections of the Aztec capital any documents on record calculated to be of use to him in the preparation of his forthcoming work upon Quetzacoatl, the Mexican Messiah — that strange legendary white man of the long beard, who, coming from across the eastern sea, seems to have imparted to the ancient Mexicans, the Toltecs, some knowledge of the doctrine and practices of Christianity, hundreds of years before the Spanish Conquest. As I had time at my disposal, and the task accorded with my own tastes and present plan of work, I very willingly agreed to comply with the request as far as possible.

In the event I could find little or nothing fresh, or of use to the Colonel. In the Museum there is a fairly good collection of Aztec picturewritings and works of art, and early Spanish-Mexican compositions. But the largest and best collections of the kind, native or foreign, are not to be found in Mexico at all, but rather at the Vatican at Rome, in the Royal Library at Madrid, or in the Paris Bibliotheque Nationale. For not in vain did Zummaraga, the first Archbishop of Mexico, ruthlessly burn whole mountains of Aztec writings and pictures, and destroy or deface numberless inscriptions and works of art. So well did he do his work that but a small fraction of Aztec literature and art escaped his religious fury, and that mostly what happened to have been previously sent out of the country.

Alas for the fate of a native literature left to the mercy of an ignorant foreign bigot such as he ! But what was to be expected from an ecclesiastical potentate so debased in mind and deficient in understanding as to lend the weight of his authority to the gross and outrageous fraud associated with the miraculous picture of the "Virgin of Guadalupe"— a wretched daub in oil paints, directly handed down from Heaven by the Mother of God herself to a vagabond Indian? Surely the folly of fools in authority is the most pernicious kind of wickedness ! However, in the course of my explorations amongst the dusty shelves, cupboards, and chests in the store rooms of the Library, I came upon many old Spanish documents such as proclamations, charters, grants of land and privi leges — dating back to the time of the Viceroys.

These, for the most part, were neither curious nor important, relating as they mainly did to the private and personal interests of the early Spanish settlers — the extent of their possessions, their rights over the native populations, their obligations to the Crown, and so forth. I persevered in my task with little reward for the time I was spending and the trouble I was taking, and had almost made up my mind to have done with the irksome under taking, when one day I happened to pick out from amongst the contents of an old cedar-wood chest a strongly, though roughly, bound book of quarto size, secured by a broad strap of leather. This I took to be an old account book, several of which I had already come across and replaced after a cursory inspection. But as this particular book was not, externally, quite like the others, and seemed to have had more care taken with it, I went to the trouble of undoing the strap to see what its contents might be.

Instead of the crabbed contractions and figures of a Spanish book of accounts which I half expected to find, I saw to my surprise that the writing at the place where I had opened the book was pure English, ofthe script known as Elizabethan. I read the first few pages of the book with avidity, and quickly formed the opinion that I had happened upon a literary "sind" which might be worth taking some trouble about. As I turned over the leaves I found that the book was not all in English, but partly (and indeed for the most part) in Spanish, of the sixteenth century. Some of the earlier pages were all in English ; but the rest were in Spanish, interrupted here and there by more pages in English. The book was in excellent preser vation, written throughout by the same hand, and supplying one continuous narrative, of which not a line was missing nor a word wanting.

Having mastered the contents of the book, I considered that it would repay transcription and translation, with a view to publication. I was not permitted (and very pro perly so) to remove the volume from the Library ; but, by the courtesy of the Minister of Education, both myself and a secretary were afforded every facility for dealing with the book on the premises in the Plaza Mayor ; and I am glad to have this opportunity of publicly and gratefully acknow ledging the Minister's kindness. I do not well understand why Roger L'Estrange wrote partly in English and partly in Spanish. It may be that, living amongst Spaniards for many years, Spanish had be come easier to him than his native language, and that it was with a view to keeping himself up in the latter that he commenced writing the book in English, lapsing into the easier language from time to time, and again resolutely reverting to his mother tongue.

This, at least, is the only explanation I can suggest. The full title of the work, as now printed, is exactly the same as in the original manuscript, only that I have added the self-suggestive words, "An Autobiography," &c. It appears to me that L'Estrange must have had the idea of composing a work which should, at one and the same time, be accurately historical, and interesting to his posterity as a personal narrative. The original work is not divided into chapters; these, with their headings, being my work, and intended to convenience the reader. It is right I should say that I have not fully supplied the text, Spanish or English, of L'Estrange's manuscript, but omitted, for the sake of brevity, many passages which appeared to me of small importance or interest, and not essential to the personal adventures of L'Estrange.

He seems to have been a conscientious and scrupulous recorder of all he observed, great or small ; but I thought it best to omit, or pass over lightly, much that seemed of secondary consequence, or which had exclusive relation to military matters. I did this the more readily when I came to know that two contemporary and very full histories of the operations of the army, from first to last, were extant. For I must frankly confess that at first I knew very little about the Expedition of De Soto. But on reading up the subject, I found that, on the whole, L'Estrange's narrative agreed with the above mentioned contemporary histories. One of them is in Spanish ; the other was written by a Portuguese nobleman, who served in the army from its formation, in 1538, to the arrival in Mexico of all that remained of it in 1543.

An abridged translation of the former by T. Irving was pub lished in New York in 1835 ; a full translation of the Portuguese narrative was supplied to the Enghsh reading public by the press of the Hakluyt Society in 1847. The latter is also epitomised in Purchase's "Pilgrims." The Spanish account mentions, without giving names, that two young Englishmen were with the Expedition ; and no doubt these were L'Estrange and his cousin Henry Stanley. Of the Stanleys of Hooton, in Cheshire, I was even more ignorant originally than of the Expedition of De Soto. On making certain inquiries, however, I found that L'Estrange was here again quite reliable. The Stanleys of this part, with whom he claimed close relationship through his mother, were an ancient and highly distinguished family, of some historical notoriety, at the time about which L'Estrange wrote, and also before and afterwards.

It is quite correct that they were ardent Catholics, and strong opponents of the Protestant Reformation in England and elsewhere. They were high in royal favour during the short reign of Queen Mary, which was natural ; but they stood equally high in the esteem of Elizabeth (at least at first), which was somewhat remarkable. In both reigns. Sir William Stanley and his son Edward held important offices in Ireland, and also in the Netherlands later on, when Elizabeth was helping the Dutch to shake off the yoke of Spain. The war was one of religion in all its main aspects, and the conscientious strain became at last too great for the loyalty of the Stanleys. They very de liberately betrayed the fortified town of Deventer to the Spaniards, and took service under the Spanish Crown, and Hooton and England knew them no more.* An earlier * Motley, in his History of the Netherlands, gives a full account of this historical event. member of this family, also named Sir William, was present at the Battle of Bosworth Field, as mentioned by Sir Thomas Moore in his history of Richard III.

He is not to be confounded with Lord Stanley, who also took part in the same battle. I should be glad to have obtained some knowledge of the ultimate fate of Roger L'Estrange, or of the history of his descendants ; and I see no reason for thinking that such knowledge is not to be had. Unfortunately I could not, during my short stay in Mexico, devote any time whatever to making the necessary inquiries in the most likely place for information; namely, the district of Cuer navaca, where L'Estrange's estate was situated. It seems to me that a family so prosperous and numerous can scarcely have disappeared altogether, and that probably inquiries on the spot would supply traces of its continued existence. It is not likely that I shall ever have an opportunity of making such inquiries myself. While still in Mexico I heard tell of an officer of the army of the name of L'Estrange, but was unable to pursue any in quiries in relation to him.

It may be advisable to remind the reader that in the days of De Soto, the name Florida was the vague appella tion of the then little known continent now called North America. The Spaniard who first discovered the peninsula at the south-east corner of that continent called the country Florida, without having an idea of the vast extent of the territories stretching away to the north and west for thousands of miles. Thus for a long time " Florida " was a kind of geographical expression of wide but un certain application. In the course of time and political changes the name came to be more and more restricted in application, until now it applies only to that com paratively small area which is included in the United States under the name of the "State of Florida." The narrative of Roger L'Estrange, and those of his contemporary historians and companions in arms, bring out very strongly and strikingly the fact that the greater part of " Florida," as explored by De Soto, was occupied by numerous, populous, and civilized native communities.

This fact is not sufficiently recognised, nor indeed generally known. It is a popular assumption, on both sides of the Atlantic, that all the natives of North America were nomadic savages, wandering from place to place in search of game, and having no permanent dwelling-places, and no towns and villages. As a general proposition this is not, and never has been, true. In all the regions east of the Mississippi penetrated by De Soto, and over a large area to the west of the river included in his survey, he found the natives settled and civilized, living in large and well-built houses, and occupying villages and towns, some of con siderable size. They cultivated the ground and raised great crops of maize and other produce. Often as far as the eye could reach the country was seen to be covered with growing corn, and dotted in all directions with houses and hamlets.

More than once De Soto's army was saved from the worst extremes of starvation, by coming upon vast stores of food laid up by the natives for winter use. In the matter of clothing the Indians were well supplied. They made a kind of cloth from cotton and other vegetable fibres, and were able to manufacture for themselves com fortable and even elegant mantles and dresses from the skins of beasts and feathers of birds. Of their laws and institutions very little is known ; but so far as they came under the notice of the Spaniards, they seem to have been of a character suitable to the requirements of simple people having few wants, no commerce, no money, and no political ambitions to gratify. Their social organisation was tribal or territorial, but when occasion required they were able to assemble, and maintain in the field, combined forces numbering thousands of valiant warriors, as De Soto found to his cost, and ultimately to his ruin.

Their fortified towns, too, the Spaniards found formidable enough, and by no means easy to take, with all their civilized appliances and European arts and methods. It is true that those people had no knowledge of the use of metals ; no machinery, even in the simplest form ; little or no ac quaintance with the mechanical arts, and no domestic animals. They were still in their "Stone Age," like the Mexicans and Peruvians ; but not necessarily uncivilized, much less savage. There is the strongest possible contrast between them and the true savages of the far west. It was not until De Soto had penetrated ser in that direction that he came upon the real " wild Indian " of popular conception. And it is remarkable that the settled natives of the east and south looked upon the wild men of the west with pity and contempt, and spoke of them as alien people with whom they had no connection and nothing in common.

To confuse the two is as great an error as it would be on the part of an ignorant historian to represent the savage, uncouth Huns of the fourth century as types and specimens of the Europeans of that time. It would be of little use to speculate upon the possible advances which the settled Indians of " Florida " might have made in civilization if their national development had not been interrupted by European intrusion ; but probably they would have at least attained to that respectable degree of civilization reached by the Indians of Mexico and Peru, who were likewise unacquainted with the practical use of metals. It is enough in this place to recognise as facts that they were a fairly civilized people and no savages ; that they were so from the remotest times of which we have any knowledge ; and that those of them who have been fortunate enough to survive European wrong and violence have remained civilized, and in a vastly improved sense.

The half-dozen Indian nations of the east and south (including the Cherokees) who enjoy the benevolent, if tardy, and perhaps precarious, protection of the government of the United States, are not mere civilized savages, but aboriginal peoples whose ancient native civilization has been grafted upon by the higher culture of the white man. And by all accounts the grafting has taken well. Those Indian com munities are found to be satisfactory constituents in the great social and political agglomeration known as the United States. The members of them make good average progress in mental development, scholastic education, and material wealth. They are decent and well-behaved citizens, taking a remarkably keen interest in local and general politics. In trade, agriculture, and commerce they are industrious and enterprising, and are fairly well represented in most occupations, callings, and professions; wherein some of them (as my friend Mr. Walkingstick, the Cherokee barrister-at-law, of Muskogee, I.T.,) have made their mark.

The task of indicating on a modern map the whole devious route taken by De Soto's army, from first to last, is impracticable. A portion of the route only can be traced, and that with some difficulty ; but the rest is impossible. The Indian names of places and objects, as given in the accounts of the expedition, cannot always, nor even often, be identified with modern names ; and even the accounts themselves do not always agree in the names of identical places, peoples, and geographical features, and they more over bristle with discrepancies in regard to relative situa tions, cardinal directions, distances, times, etc. The difficulties in the way of tracing the route of the army, from its landing in Florida until it reached the Mississippi, near the junction with the Arkansas river, are not very great; afterwards the task becomes almost hopeless.

Some reasonable speculation is, indeed, possible as to De Soto's line of march towards the west and back again to the Mississippi, where he died; but as to the second advance westward of the Spaniards under his successor Moscoso, and the return journey once more to the banks of the Mississippi, speculation as to the regions traversed becomes mere guesswork, and all that can be said with tolerable certainty is that Moscoso penetrated westward some hundred and fifty leagues from the great river before he turned back. It is easy to understand why there should be this graduating difficulty in the effort to trace the entire route of the army. Up to the arrival of De Soto at the Mississippi, things were not so bad as to interfere greatly with careful and deliberate progress and observation. After that, the army was almost continuously in sore or desperate straits, and there was little opportunity or inclination for recording carefully the movements of the force.

No doubt as long as De Soto lived the march would be, and appears in fact to have been, conducted with some observance of method and discipline, and with some degree of purpose and foresight; and consequently there is not an absolute lack of information as to its movements. But after De Soto's death discipline relaxed, the force became dis organised, privations and sufferings increased, and the incapable Moscoso was merely the chief of a mob of desperate, ragged, and hungry vagabonds, wandering purposelessly in the western wilderness. Under such circumstances it is not surprising that nothing like a regular itinerary was kept of their movements. The accompanying map shows, according to the best authorities, the line of march of De Soto's army from the Bay of Espiritu Santo (now called Tampa Bay), in the peninsula of Florida, to the Mississippi near its junction with the Arkansas river.

That is the comparatively cer tain portion of his route, and is indicated by a thick, continuous red line on the map. The continuous dotted line is intended to indicate the probable march and counter march of De Soto westward from the Mississippi. The dotted lines more to the south in the same region are to be taken as mere vague suggestions of the course pursued by Moscoso, from the Mississippi westward and back again, after the death of De Soto. It is to be noted, in respect to those westward expedi tions, that the Spaniards always started from, and returned to, the section of the Mississippi near the junction of that river with the Arkansas. It was here that De Soto struck and crossed the great river, and it was here also that the Spaniards finally embarked in the seven frail vessels they had constructed, and sailed away down the river for Mexico, abandoning completely the great enterprise in which so many lives, and so much treasure, had been expended.

It was in this region that the Indian town of De Guzman and L'Estrange was situated, from which the Spaniards obtained such valuable assistance in their preparations for descending the Mississippi en route to Mexico. It lay, apparently, to the north of the scene of these preparations, and probably to the west of the Mississippi, at no great distance from that river, with which it was connected by a water-way, partly natural, and partly artificial. So much may be inferred from casual geographical references in the narrative of L'Estrange. Everything seems to point to the site of this town being the same as that of the ruins of the old Indian town known as Capaha, some eight miles south of the present American town of Helena, and above and to the west of the junction of the Mississippi and Arkansas.

Capaha, too, was connected with the Mississippi by a channel which, in part at least, seems to have been artificial. The ruins indicate the existence at the spot of an old Indian town, of no great size, but of some importance. They are described as consisting of artificial mounds, embankments, debris of brickwork, and other structural remains, interspersed with broken pottery, and fragments of various utensils. These suffice to establish the fact that the place must long have been occupied by a native race well advanced in the arts of civilization. The ruins of Capaha would apparently be somewhat nearer the Mississippi than the town L'Estrange writes about ; but the frequent and considerable changes to which the course of the river is subject, might account for a discrepancy which seems to be the only one which seriously militates against the theory that L'Estrange's town and Capaha were one and the same.

Any difference in the names is not material, for Indian towns commonly changed their names with their successive chiefs or rulers ; and allowance has also to be made for variations brought about by lapse of time, and the white man's rendering of Indian names. And, after all, there is no great dissimilarity between "Capaha" and " Cargutah."

Chapter I

My parentage, relatives, and early life — My Sheffield uncle — Death of my father and mother — I abide with the Stanleys of Hooton — My education and training — To the Wars in Ireland — Heresy in England — Persecutions and Forfeitures — Return from Ireland — Death of my grandfather — Departure from Hooton with Henry Stanley — Voyage to Bilbao. MY father, Roger Strange, or L'Estrange as sometimes called, was a yeoman of Yorkshire, holding in fee, by ancient descent, a small but sufficient estate in land, not far from the town of Sheffield. My mother was daughter of Sir Geoffrey Stanley, of the ancient and noble family of Stanleys of Hooton Manor in Cheshire, which is not many miles distant, in a south-westerly direction, from a town called Manchester, where they make fustians and other cloth.

My earlier years were partly passed in my father's house, and partly iu that of a bachelor brother of his, Uncle Richard, who was a founder and worker of metals, at Sheffield, where he made knives, scissors, and cutting implements of all kinds, as well as many other useful things. Now Uncle Richard was much attached to me from my earliest youth, and desired greatly that I should come into his trade at Sheffield, and keep it as my own business after he had passed away. Therein I was nothing '5 loth, nor was my father unwilling; but my good mother and the Stanleys were cold to a proposal which they said would turn me from a gentleman into a mere mechanic. So, though much was spoken about it, nothing ever came of Uncle Richard's plan ; though all the same I spent a good deal of time with him, and by his help gained some knowledge of the many curious arts of his business, and also of those appertaining to other trades earned on by artificers engaged in making metal implements and utensils, pottery, bricks, grindstones, charcoal, lime, and other things.

For Sheffield is a town where there are five rapidly flowing streams, which are made use of to turn a multitude of wheels for all kinds of purposes. Besides which, great quantities of metallic ores, stones, and clays of various sorts, and wood, are found very near the town, or not far off. What I learned while with my Uncle Richard in Sheffield was afterwards very useful to me, as shall appear further on in this history. I was nigh seventeen years of age when my father died somewhat suddenly, and then my brother Hugh succeeded as heir to the paternal estate, he being at the time married and the father of a family. Thereupon my grandfather, Sir Geoffrey, sent to my mother to say that she should come back to Hooton to live again with him, and should bring me with her, and he would take charge of my education and future advancement.

My mother very willingly did as her father desired ; but she did not live long after our arrival at Hooton, for from the death of my father she pined continually away, and never came round. I was now fully adopted as one of the family at Hooton, and always well treated. My education (which had not, theretofore, been neglected) was completed in the company of my two cousins, William and Henry, sons of my uncle, Sir William Stanley, who himself was only son of Sir Geoffrey, and lived always at Hooton. There was little difference in the ages of we three cousins ; but I was the oldest, and Henry the youngest We had excellent teachers to instruct us in all branches of an education fit for gentlest"' iIn Latin and mathema'ics, we had for tutor Father Whateley, an old priest who had long been at the Manor as chaplain and confessor.

In Spanish, French and Italian, our instructor was Father Nicholas Gomez, a Spanish monk, of good family, who, in his earlier and secular days. had served under Cortes in Mexico ; but with such ill fortune, as to be one of the few who came back unenriched from the conquest of that empire, and one of the many who returned broken in spirits and constitution. He was wont to tell us how his health never recovered from the sufferings he had endured in the terrible " Night of Sorrow " (" Noche triste "), when the Mexicans sallied forth from their city, and overwhelmed the Spaniards on a great causeway running through a lake. He, wounded and exhausted, had to lie concealed in the water, amongst the reeds, for sixteen hours, before he could safely get away. He told us also of many incidents which gave us the impression that he had lost at play whatever booty he had obtained in Mexico, for, according to his representa tions, the Spaniards were inveterate gamblers and card players.

After his sufferings and losses, and also because of his great disgust with the cruel way in which the Indians were treated, he abandoned the army, and became a Dominican. Then he joined with one Las Casas in trying to secure the Indians against the cruelties of the Spaniards, but doing little good in that matter, he had returned to Spain with Las Casas. How he came to be established at Hooton I know not ; but I think he had some connection and correspondence with the Spanish Court. For the rest, my grandfather's hospitable house was a resort for priests and monks from far and near. As the Stanleys of Hooton had always been soldiers, we three boys of the family were carefully instructed in all branches of the military art. In this, our chief teacher was Captain Roland Wyke, a valiant veteran, who had served under the Spinolas, on the Spanish side, in the Italian wars of the Emperor Charles V. We had instructions also in military mathematics and fortification, and in marine manœuvres ; our nearness to the river Mersey and the sea affording the best opportunities and great facilities for the latter.