Colonial Mobile. An historical study, largely from original sources, of the Alabama-Tombigbee basin from the discovery of Mobile bay in 1519 until the demolition of Fort Charlotte in 1821

Front matter

copnuoHT DBPosn:

BIENVILLE (After Margrv)

An Historical Study, largely from Original Sources, of the Alabama- Tombigbee Basin from the Discovery of Mobile Bay in 15 1 9 until the Demolition of Fort Charlotte in 1821

Preface

I HAVE endeavored in this book to paint the exploration, settlement, and early development of the section of our country which is tributary to the Alabama-Tombigbee river basin. The vast region draining to Mobile Bay shows much diversity of soil, elevation, and climate, and is not less rich historically than in natural features. For here Indians, Spaniards, French, and English have lived and ruled before the American republic was born.

And yet it is an unexhausted, in part an almost untrodden, literary field. Spain, France, and England lost the territory so long ago as to have lost likewise interest in its history. It has, too, so long been severed from the Mississippi valley, which was colonized from its shores, that the historians of modern Louisiana have known personally but little of this the original seat of that great empire, and have devoted their attention mainly to the later growth which centred on the lower Mississippi. And, on the other hand, the Americans, who made the basin and port of Mobile their own, approached from the north, where traces of earlier influence were slightest, and have now all but completely obliterated, even about Mobile, the Latin elements. An old-time local chronicler excused the meagreness of his earlier work with the remark that the French and Spanish times were hardly worthy of record, and that their land titles had only served to complicate and retard American enterprise.

Some day the archaeologist will go yet farther back, and throw light on the southern mounds and canals and shell banks vi PREFACE.

which, near Mobile as elsewhere, far antedate the white man, and make European epochs inappropriate, if not indeed too recent, to mark the divisions of American history. But the Mobile basin, from the Tennessee watershed to the Gulf, was the seat of an important history from the early part of the sixteenth century of even our era. Within these three centuries taken for our present theme came the discovery by the Spanish, exploration by the French, and the growth which we shall find under the French, English, Spanish, and Americans alike.

And during much of that time, too, this was not done in a corner. The Mobile basin and port were explored by Pineda, Bazares, De Soto, and other Spaniards, both before and after the greater Mississippi was discovered, and the whole was repeatedly mapped and claimed for Charles V. and his successors.

When the curtain lifts, over a century later, Iberville of France is taking up the plans of murdered La Salle, and from the capitals on Mobile River the Le Moyne brothers direct the settlement of the Mississippi as well as of the Alabama-Tombigbee basin, and oversee the intercourse with the natives and commerce with Europe. Iberville, Bienville, Chateaiigue, Penicaut, Davion, St. Denis, John Law, De Lusser, Grondel, and other famous men become familiar to us about Fort Louis, afterwards Fort Conde, and the outposts up the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers are not less centres of Indian trade than of French influence against the growing English colonies on the Atlantic coast.

This remained true even after Mobile sank from her proud preeminence as capital to be but the head of the eastern department, but at last those English became masters of half of Louisiana. And yet Mobile then, severed from her old country and associations, under Haldimand, Farmer, Durnford, and other Englishmen, largely recovered her touch with that eastern half of the Mississippi valley by communication through Bayou Manchac (or Iberville), until excesses of the soldiers

PREFACE. vii

brought the place into unnecessary discredit on the score of health.

Galvez drove out the English, and for some years Spain seemed about to reestablish her vast American empire. But the rapid development of the United States was to make this period one of transition; and Panton, Espejo, Eslava, Price, Favre, and others are as memorable for the great land grants which were to become valuable under another government as for themselves and their own history.

Still, in one way Wilkinson's capture of Mobile, the Creek War, the defence of Fort Bowyer, the development of the city which led to destruction of its old Latin fort, are even more attractive. For Sam Dale, Jerry Austill, Sam Mims, and George S. Gaines are every way closer to us than Bienville, Farmer, or even Forbes. They open the American period, and are akin to us as well as interesting historically. But, because they do introduce a modern period, they close the colonial epoch of Mobile and its river system. They bring us to a time, within the memory of men now living, when this district lost its individuality by merger into the greater sisterhood of American States.

Others have partly studied the Latin past. The works of Monette and Pickett and Meek of Mississippi and Alabama before the Civil War were as valuable as those of Martin and Gayarre of Louisiana, and it is a public loss that the rich learning of W. T. Walthall, W. S. Wyman, and others has not thus far been put in a form accessible to historical students. To them I yield their full meed of praise, and this book on many pages refers to their work and adopts it.

But geographical research shows the full Spanish exploration of Mobile Bay under other names, and the Mobile church records from 1704, perhaps by myself first thoroughly studied, not less than the invaluable publications of Margry in France, make the French period almost a new thing. The papers of General Haldimand, only lately become accessible through Canadian enterprise, and the search made on my behalf by viii PREFACE.

exjjerts in the British colonial offices, throw undreamecl-of light on the English times, and reveal that obscure epoch to us in a surprising manner. The land and court records, too, which survive at Mobile, enable us to restore Spanish Mobile as of yesterday: strange it is that they have so long escaped attention. The American State Papers, too, are valuable. Perhaps only men of my own, the legal profession, can appreciate the value of some of this material ; and they will find valuable the summary of city land titles in the Appendix, even if much of it is not new to them. The American occupation is now first told from department reports, and the recently recovered corporation minutes of the town give us a picture of the change of Latin to Teutonic Mobile never yet in print. I have, at the apparent sacrifice of consistency and style, thought it best, in order to secure greater lifelikeness, to preserve the spelling of proper names as found in the authorities for the time under contribution. Family traditions have been used where probable, the old files of the "Register" examined, particularly the Reminiscences therein of George S. Gaines, and in fact aid has been levied from every source.

Among the illustrations are Biloxi Bay, Dauphine Island, and Mobile in 1711, which have been kindly furnished by the French Minister of the Marine, the map of 1760 unearthed at Washington, and EUicott's stone photographed by myself. Neither these nor the pictures of old autographs and documents have been in print before. The other illustrations are rare, two being from Dr. Winsor's "Mississippi Basin," and of the map of 1824 now reproduced but three copies are known to exist.

It will not be the least reward of my years of labor if I show, what has been all forgotten, the important part played by my loved native place in the early history of the Gulf coast, if I can restore her statue to its rightful pedestal, and perhaps even write my own name in some humble spot upon its base.

The work has not been done in one place. At Waukesha was it first drafted, and the public libraries of Milwaukee and

PREFACE. ix

Chicago were of great assistance. Later, valuable books from Harvard have filled out gaps in my own collection made during many years; but investigations and studies at Mobile, Bladon Springs, Wetumpka, on the bluffs of Mobile River, the eastern shore of the bay, Portersville, Dauphine Island, and other historic sites have aided me even more than books. The most of this volume has been written and revised, several times over, in the Mobile law office where my father so long worked, and especially in the pleasant study of his old home on Government Street, — to his children and friends a sanctuary. The enforced leisure of this fall (memorable for its panic rather than for fever) has enabled me the more carefully to revise the proofs, and even incorporate new material, particularly for the British and American periods.

And now my pleasant task is done. But I would not lay down the pen without recalling some to whom I am indebted for assistance. To the War Department of the United States and to the Minister of the Marine of France I am under s^DCcial obligation for maps and information available nowhere else. The aid and interest of Justin Winsor have been gratifying. His death, but a few days ago, is a loss to historical study in America. Professor W. S. Wyman of Tuskaloosa, Erwin Craighead of the "Mobile Register," Thomas M. Owen of the Post-Office Department in researches at Washington, Gorham D. Williams of Boston, Douglas Brymner of the Canadian Archives, Louis de V. Chaudron of Mobile, with his wellselected books, E. S. Barnes, lately deceased, and Julius Eslava in examination of records, and J. J. Delchamps as to sites and traditions of the lower country, have, with others yet, aided me by suggestions and information ; and Hannis Taylor of Mobile, while United States minister, at least found that there was nothing new accessible in Spain. The lamented Catholic bishop, Jeremiah O'SuUivan, greatly facilitated my examination of church records; and of the many who have contributed reminiscence, William R. Yancey, a survivor of the War of 1812, and who died but this year in Baldwin

X PREFACE.

County, should be specially named. To J. B. Thornton, Esq., of Mobile, and Mr. W. G. Brown of the Harvard Library, I am indebted for help in revision and proof-reading. Most of all, however, I thank that patient hearer and judicious critic, Rachel Burgett Hamilton, my wife.

PETER J. HAMILTON.

Mobile, Ala., November 2, 1897.

Part I. Exploration. (1519-1670.) Page

CHAFTEB

I. The Country and the Natives ^

II. The Discovery of Mobile Bay 9

III. De Soto at Maubila 1*

rV. A Century of Obscurity 1°

Part II. The French Capital. (1670, 1699-1722.)

v. From La Salle to Iberville 25

VI. Founding Fort Louis ^^

VIL Bienville • • • • ^

Vin. After Iberville's Death .^ ^^

IX. Life at the Old Fort .^ ^^

X. The Great Change of Base 69

XI. Crozat and Cadillac • .77

XII. In the Time of Law's Company XIII. Next-door Neighbors

Part III. The Department Of Mobile. (1722-1763.)

XrV. Through the Chickasaw War 105

XV. The Provincial Town 11-5

XVI. Some Old FAmLiES . . .^ 120

XVII. From the Cure's Window *^ 126

XVIII. The City Map of 1760 134

XIX. In the Archive Office 1^9

XX. Dauphine Island and the Coast 149

XXI. Fort Toulouse and Fort Tombecb^ 158

XXn. The Seven Years' War 1*71

PART rV. THE BRITISH DOMINATION. (1763-1780.)

XXm. Briton and Indian 1^1

XXIV. Major Robert Farmer 191

XXV. In the Time of Haldimand 1^8 xii CONTENTS.

XXVI. Sickness 204

XXVn. The Tombigbee River in 1771 215

XXVIII. Tke Seventies 228

XXIX. What Baktkam saw 237

XXX. Politics 244

XXXI. Galvez at Mobile 250

Part V. Under The Spaniards. (17s0-1813.)

XXXII. Settling down again 261

XXXIII. Under Folch and Lanzos 273

XXXIV. Judicial Proceedings . . . ... . . . 280

XXXV. The Demarcation Line and the LomsiANA Cession . . 291

XXXVI. Streets and People 304

XXXVII. In the Country 315

XXXVIII. Church of the Immaculate Conception .... 328

XXXIX. The Indian Trade 336

XL. Mississippi Territory 343

XLI. In the Balance 351

XLII. The Capture of Mobile 357

Part VI. Americanization. (1813-1821.)

XLm. The Creek War 367

XLIV. Fort Bowyer 374

XLV. Municipal Growth 386

XLVI. Maps and Titles 400

XL VII. The End of Fort Charlotte 406

Appendix

(A) The Induction of De la Vente. (1704.) .... 417

(B) Description de la Ville et du Fort Louis. (1711.) . . 417

(C) The Ordinance of 1667 419

(D) The Spanish City Grants 420

(E) Marriages since the Auerican Capture .... 431

INDEX 435

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Bienville, after Mabgry (Winsor's " The Mississippi Basin ") Frontispiece

BiLOXY Bay (French Ministry of the Marine) 32

Induction of La Vente (Mobile Church Records) .... 54

Fort Louis, 1711 (French Ministry of the Marine) 70

Mobile Bay and Coast, about 1732 (DanvUle) 86

Mobile in 1760 (French Ministry of the Marine) 134

Cadillac's Dauphine Island Grant (Mobile Archives) . . . 140

Veue de lTsle Dauphine (Ministry of the Marine) .... 152

The River Basin, about 1732 (Danville) 158

The INDL4.N Nations in British Times (Bowen) 182

Mobile about 1765 (Pittman) 192

British ADMmALTY Chart, 1771 (U. S. War Department) . . . 210

The Ellicott Stone (from recent photograph) 295

Spanish Autographs (Mobile Archives) 304

Mobile in 1824 (Goodwin & Haire . . 410

PAET I.

EXPLORATION.

1519-1670.

COLONIAL MOBILE.

Chapter I. The Country And The Natives

A TRAVELER, sailing along the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico in the sixteenth century, would then as now observe but two main features. The green shore is much indented bybays, some the estuaries of large rivers, while to the seaward it is protected from the main by a series of sand islands, forming from Mobile west to an outlet of the Mississippi a protecting chain. These low islands are thinly clad with pine and other growth; and the mainland beyond the Sound, sometimes swampy, and never rising into elevations exceeding a few feet, is itself sandy, but from near the beach inwards thickly covered with pines, oaks, and magnolias, often of splendid proportions, and loaded with majestic hanging-moss.

Of all the inlets from the Gulf none would attract more attention, if indeed as much, as that then as now called Mobile Bay. Its mouth is deep and narrow, easily defended, formed by a long point on the east side and an island on the other, while its sides extend in graceful curves from headland to headland far into the interior. To the right as you enter is a cove, a wider sweep of water, and the deep anchorage of the lower harbor invites the commerce of the world. The bay averages perhaps ten miles wide by thirty long, and from each side receives dark but pure streams, even rivers, which have their origin in pine-shaded springs of the inland hills. The eastern shore offers steep bluffs, sometimes bare and red, but often covered with oaks and pines. At the head of the bay come in between marsh islands what would seem to be a half dozen large rivers, but on exploration these resolve themselves into two main streams, the Tensaw on the east aud the ISIobilo on the west, and thoir oonnootions, — themselves, indeed, all one river forty miles above. The intervening- delta is interseeted by bayous, and may be considered one large island, as it was mapped by the British, or a series of islands in one bay or estuary, as by the French. The southern third of the delta is so subject to overflow as to be of little value, but much of the rest, especially on ]\Iobile River, is covered only by very high water. IMui'h of the western bank is also subject to overflow, but bluft's twent}'- one miles, twenty-seven miles, and at other frequent intervals above the mouth, offer a safe residence. About fifty miles from the bay, this one river ^lobile is found to be the union of two that flow in, the one from the northeast aud the other from the nortliwest, the Alabama and Tombigbee of our day, both subject to the tide over a hundred miles up from the bay. With their large tributaries, these wide, tawny rivers drain the greater part of our Alabama, besides nnich of the present Georgia and Mississippi. Fringed with willows and reflecting the Cottonwood, oak, and beech of the higher banks, which hide the upland forests of pines and oaks, they are navigable for hunilreds of miles above the bay, and play a great part in the country's history, even before the white man developed the rich lands adjacent. The low land extends up the rivers for many miles beyond the fork, but bluft's are freqiunit along the upper half of the streams, while the Coosa and Tallapoosa run, often in falls and rapids, through romantic mountain scenery, before uniting to form the Alabama and ]Mobile.

The Bay, often brackish in its northern half, once abounded all over in oysters, as it still does in the lower parts, and also in clams and crabs, while trout, mackerel, sheephead, aud other sea-flsh raced its waters. Sharks and porpoises prowled almost u]> to the fresh-water tributaries, in which sported the sluggish alligator among trout, bream, catfish, perch, aud their like, and on land the deer, bear, wolf, and small game roved the coast at will, while sea-fowl and land birds lived about the shore.

In this river basin and bay, indeed, consists the historical importance of what is now Alabama and much of Georgia and ^lissisvsippi. The great Apalachian range, that continental ridge thrown up parallel with the Atlantic Ocean in remote geologic times, extends under dift'erent names from New Eng-

THE COUNTRY AND THE NATIVES. 5

land southwestwardly to near the Gulf. It determined the location of the Atlantic colonies Ly limiting them on the west, even where, as in New York, a river partially pierced the momitains. To the west was the great Mississii)pi basin, almost unapproachalde over the mountains, except by the passes to the headwaters of the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumljerland rivers. It was readily accessible from the east only by the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes on the north, or by turning the flank of the Apalachian range far to the south in these foothills where the waters flowing to Mobile take their origin.

This Alabama basin, therefore, had a double importance, — for its own sake, on account of its soil, products, and races, and then again as being a gateway from the east to the greater valley of the Mississippi. Other streams, it is true, seek the Gulf to the east and west ; but they are not so large and do not drain so great a territory as the Alaljama and Tombigbee, which unite to form the Mobile. Hence the importance, geographically speaking, of a city near that river and harbor, particularly before the modern invention of railroads could pierce mountains, and capital could divert trade into channels which have no necessary relation to natural advantages.

On the waters tributary to Mobile Bay were in the sixteenth century many inhabitants of the industrious Molnlian race, whose empire extended from the GuK up through the rich lands which we now call the Cotton Belt, with capital at Maubila. This was probably in the present Clarke County, on the Alabama River.

This extensive race was a weU-forraed one, the men brave, the women often beautiful. Agricidture flourished, and peas, beans, squash, pumj^kins, and corn grew profusely.^ If the plates and descriptions of Jacob le Moyne, of 1567 freproduced by Pickett), apply to our own natives as well as to those of eastern Florida, the Indians had attained considerable civilization. They lived in wooden houses at the foot of artificial mounds, on which were the dwellings of the chiefs. In the delta above Stockton there is still a large mound, fifty feet high, necessarily made of earth brought in canoes from the mainland, and near Blakeley has been found a burned clay head of much artistic merit.

Arrowheads, pipes, stones for grinding, and other Indian relics occur lower than Mobile, but there have been discovered few evidences of permanent settlements on the Gulf itself, unless we except the shell banks near Portersville and elsewhere, containing human remains and utensils. Near the seashore in Indian times, therefore, the mockingbird's charm was unheeded, and the glories of sunrise and sunset lighted up the surface of the lower bay in vain; for Indian canoes were unsuited to rough water, and the savages have never been famous sailors. Hunting and fishing are more easily pursued in the interior than by the sea, and so the natives have ever readily yielded the coast, and fought only for the forests and the rivers. To the early white explorers, on the other hand, the sea was to be of the first importance. From harbors like Dauphine Island, they could carry on commerce with the natives and still keep in touch with their European homes. In the interior of Alabama, ditches about Indian wooden forts are not infrequent, and also the small mounds in which at certain intervals they collected the bones of the dead gathered from their temples. In all ages and among all races, graves, reverently guarded by the living, have been the most imperishable memorials of the past. Of these mounds few have survived lower than the latitude of Mobile, although they are frequent in modern Greene County, Alabama, and elsewhere in the interior of that State and Mississippi. Perhaps there are more east of what we now call the Tensaw River than on the western shore of the Mobile delta. It may be that the mounds and shell banks about Stockton and the neighboring waters mark the villages which Spanish explorers were to notice, although we know that in later times Mobile Eiver and its upper tributaries were the main seat of Indian life.

The rough country between the Tennessee and the main - streams of the Warrior, Coosa, and Tallapoosa, which now supplies the great mineral wealth of Alabama, was but sparsely inhabited by the aborigines, and was indeed to remain of secondary importance until the last third of our own century, while the beautiful valley of the Tennessee was not important in colonial times, and will not figure much in our story. Its western portion was within the range of the warlike Chickasaws, but most of this region was the seat of the Cherokees, who extended

THE COUNTRY AND THE NATIVES. 7

into Tennessee and Georgia as well as Alabama; while east, over the Carolina mountains from them, were the brave Catawbas. Creeks and Choctaws will concern us more, for they lived on or near the rivers that empty into Mobile Bay.

Patient linguistic research, applied to our aboriginal tongues, has produced as interesting and unexpected results as in the older field of the Indo-European races. While language is not infallible, for conquered or even conquering nations may adopt that of their opponents, it is in general an accurate test, and often reveals kinship and alienage not otherwise suspected.

Scholars like Grote in Greek and Gatschet in Indian investigation find it necessary to respell and reeoin names according to their true sounds; but suffice it for us to reproduce their results in more familiar terms. For Cha'hta let us still have Choctaw, for Maskoki, Muscogee.

It seems that the Muscogee race, extending from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, from the Apalachian range to the Gidf, living in what we may call the Alabama Basin, broke anciently into an eastern and western branch, and each of these then separated into tribes. Of the eastern branch the Creeks were the most pi'ominent, of the western the Choctaws, from whom in their turn the warlike Chickasaws seceded, and intermediate between the two branches came the Alibamons on their river. In the eastern grouj) we find the Creeks and Semiuoles, the Creeks being on the upper sources of the Alabama River and on the Chattahoochee, and in the western, close akin to the Choctaws, were the Biloxi, Ouma or Huma, Pascagoula, and other familiar tribes. ^ Despite the kinship, the Choctaws, themselves in Upper and Lower divisions, were almost always at war with the Creeks. Their disputed boundary was between our Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, near the Choctaw Corner of later days.

In customs they show a unity in their very diversity. All used the colors red and white, as indicative the one of war, the other of peace ; they all had some kind of family distinction by totems ; all used the ilex cassine for a black drink prior to war ; all worshiped the sun in some form ; and all deified the Master of Life. Flattening the heads of children and gathering the bones of the dead for reinterment were more characteristic ^ Gatschet's Creek Migration Legend, p. 52.

of tlie Choctaw branch, public squares and the green corn dance (puskitci) of the Creeks; but in both the descent of children followed the mother, both had the chunkey game, and, like all Indians, they scalped the fallen foe.^

The Mobilian language was understood by all, but no certain explanation of the word Mobile is given, unless Gatschet's suggestion be right, that it is from the Choctaw word which means "paddling." The site of Mobile was Choctaw, as, strange to say, was that of the tribes on the Chickasawhay, near which dwelled Choctaws incredibly said to be, with those of Yoani, the only ones who could swim. The Choctaws were tillers rather than hunters, and, while the northern division were warlike, the southern were dirty, indolent, and sometimes cowardly. The mythical origin of the Choctaws was from Nani Way a, a mound fifty feet high near the head of Pearl Kiver, which lasted down to our own days.^ The Alibamons had a somewhat similar legend about springing from the ground between the Cahaba and Alabama rivers; and indeed the Creeks also believed that they originated in caves on the Red River, and that they wandered eastwardly in ceaseless conflict with the Alibamons, whom they were to absorb.

1 Gatschet's Creek Migration Legend, pp. 51, 91, 102, 153.

Chapter II. The Discovery Of Mobile Bay

The union of Castile and Aragon, the fortunate marriages of the royal house, and the discovery of America combined to make Spain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the foremost country of the civilized world.

The sreat age of Charles V. was as momentous in America as in Europe. It saw the Old World rent in twain by the wars of the Reformation. It beheld the greater part of both continents of the New World made provinces of Sjiain. The West Indies, the first fruits of Columbus's discoveries, barred off the inquisitive English, who from Cabot's time were thus driven further northward, and this made the Gulf of Mexico a Spanish lake. From it, according to the protection notions of that day, all other nations should be excluded.

Columbus himself always supposed that he had reached the Asiatic islands, and he never touched our North American continent, although he explored the shores of Brazil. The oxhide map of his follower Coza, in 1500, and that of Cantino, two years later, show Cuba and the West Indies in some detail ; but even the Ruysch map of 1508, while exhibiting the islands and South America as Mundus Novus, has no northern continent between Europe and Asia.^

Hayti and then Cuba were at first the great objects of Spanish interest, but as their explorations progressed they found the mainland of North America, and it gradually develops on the rare old maps which time has spared. In 1513, Ponce de Leon, in a vain search for the fountain of youth, led the way from Cuba to the Spanish colonization of the Florida he named, and six years later, Cortez from the same island conquered the rich Aztec kingdom, Mexico, the seat, it may be, of the Mound-

' Maps in Scaife's America. For the Admiral's map, thought to be one of Columbus, see 2 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, p. 112.

builders once in the Mississippi valley. This fired others to seek, on the shores of our Gulf, dominions which would enrich themselves and at the same time spread further the sway of His Catholic Majesty. The Mexican gulf and its islands became Spanish, well explored by their navigators, but unfortunately little is even yet known of their voyages. Their reports and papers may some day be unearthed from peninsular convents and libraries to enrich history, but for the present we have only meagre outlines and few maps. From them we learn at least, however, that Mexico (including also our Texas and the Northwest) was called New Spain, and that all east to the Atlantic was also claimed for Spain under the name of Florida.

Indeed, a Spanish governor of Jamaica named Garay sent out, in 1519, an exploring expedition to find a passage west of Florida, — still supposed to be an island. The commander, Pineda, coasted along the northern shore of the Gulf from east to west. He explored westwardly until he came to Mexico, and there can be no doubt that he visited Mobile Bay. He could not well have missed it, and next year Garay sent home a map embracing his discoveries, and this shows it plainly. Pineda or Garay probably can claim to have given to Mobile Bay and River the name of the Holy Spirit, although the Admiral's map of 1513 may be thought to show it also as Rio de la Palma. This is supposed to have been based on a map of Columbus.^

On this expedition, Piiieda reports that he discovered a river of great volume, and on it a considerable town. He remained there forty days trading with the natives and careening his vessels. He also ascended the river, and found its banks so thickly inhabited that in six leagues he counted forty Indian hamlets. The Mississippi has claimed this exploration, but it cannot be. The lower Mississippi was always marshy and uninhabitable, and the conditions all point to a site on Mobile Bay or the tributary rivers. From 1520, the time of Garay's report of his discoveries, the Bay and River of Spirito Sancto (or Espiritu Santo) is on most maps. Indeed, the indentations