swantom] BAKLY HISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIAN.- 159 
The country was a rich Boil, and well inhabited; some towns were very Large, and 
wore picketed about. The people were numerous everywhere; the dwellings stand- 
ing a crossbow-shot or two apart ' 
Id I").")!) a colony consisting of 1,500 persons left Mexico under 
Don Tristan de Luna ;m<l landed in a port on the north coast of 
the Gulf of Mexico. II' this was in the Bay of Ichuse or Ychuse, as 
some say, it was probably Mobile Bay, and yet there are difficul- 
ties, for the environs of Mobile liny appear to have been well popu- 
lated in early times, while the explorers found few inhabitants. 
Falling short of provisions, a detachmenl of four companies of sol- 
diers was sent inland, and 40 Leagues from the port they came upon 
a village called Xanipacna, which tin 1 few Indians they met gave 
them to understand had been formerly a large place, but it had 
been almost destroyed by people like themselves. The impression 
is given thai this event had happened a very short time before, but, 
if there was any truth in the assertion, it could have occurred only 
during De Soto's invasion; and this is probably the event to which 
reference was made, because the distance of this place from the port 
is about the same as that given by the De Soto chroniclers as the 
distance of Mabila from the port where Maldonado was expecting 
them. 2 Another point of resemblance is shown by the name, which 
is pure Choctaw, meaning "Hill top." 3 
In Vandera's enumeration of the provinces visited by Juan Pardo 
in 1566 and 1567 "Trascaluza" is mentioned as "the last of the 
peopled places of Florida" and seven da} r s' journey from "Cossa. " 4 
It was not, however, reached by that explorer. In the letter of May 
1«.», L686, so often quoted, there is a reference to the tribe, bay, and 
river of "Mobila" or "Mouila." When it was written the people 
so called were at war with the Pensacola. 6 A hare notice of the Mobile 
occurs also in a letter of 1688. 6 
After this no more is heard of the Mobile tribes until Iberville estab- 
lished a post in Biloxi Bay which was to grow into the great French 
colony of Louisiana. There were then two principal tribes in the 
region, the Mobile and the Tohome or Thomez, the former on Mobile 
River, about 2 leagues below the junction of the Alabama and the 
Tombigbee, while the main settlement of the latter was about Mcin- 
tosh's Bluff, on the west bank of the latter stream. 7 Penicaut dis- 
tinguishes a third tribe, already referred to, which he calls Naniaba and 
also People of the Forks. 8 This last name was given to them be- 
i Bourne, Narr. d De Soto i, p. 98. 
Biedma in Bourne's De Soto, Q, p. 21. 
• Mr. H. S. 11 aihcri believed that Nanipacna wasal Gees Bend on the Alabama River and was that town 
afterwards Indicated as an old site of the Mobile Indians. i^See pi. 5.) 
• Ruidiaz, La Florida, n, p. 486. 
i mil v San/.. Doe. in i.. p. 197. , 
•Ibid., p. 219. 
» Hamilton, Col. Mobile, p. L06. 
8 Margry, !>.'<.. \ . pp. v^r,. 127. 
