MOONEY] SPANISH MINING Ol'EKATIONS 29 



with his sorfr(>iiiit on his first trij)." 'I'his. as has ])oeii noted, was tiie 

 Xiiala of th(> Dp Soto chronich', th(> tcrritoiT ot" the Sara Indians, in 

 the foothills of the Blue ridije, southeast from the present Asheville, 

 North Caroliiui. ^'an(lera makes it one hundred leaeues from Santa 

 Elena, wjiile Martinez, ali'eady (luoted, makes the distance one hundred 

 and twenty leagues. The ditt'ei-ence is not important, as both state- 

 ments were only estimates. From thei'c they followed "along the 

 mountains" to Tocax (Toxaway i'), Cauehi (Naeooehe(>0. iind Tanas- 

 qui — apparently Cherokee towns, although the forms can not he id(>n- 

 tified — and after restitig three days at th(> last-niimed place went on 

 ''to Solameco, otherwise called Chialui." where the sergeant met them. 

 The combined forces afterward went on. through Cossa (Kusa). Tas- 

 quiqui (Taskigi). and other Creek towns, as far as Tascaluza. in the 

 Alabama country, and retui'ned thence to Santa Elena, having appar- 

 ently met with a friendly reception everywhei'e along the route. 

 From Cotitac]ii(iui to Tascaluza they went over about the same road 

 traversed by De Soto in lo-iO.^ 



We come now to a great gap of nearly a century. Shea has a notit'c 

 of a Spanish mission founded among the t'herokee in 1B43 and still 

 flourishing when visited b}' an English traveler ten years later," but as 

 his information is derived entirely from the fraudulent work of Davies, 

 and as no such mission is mentioned l)v Barcia in any of these years, 

 we may regard the story as spurious (10). The first mission work 

 in the tribe appears to have been that of Priber, almost a hundred 

 years later. Long before the end of the sixteenth century, however, 

 the existence of mines of gold and other metals in the Cherokee country 

 was a matter of common knowledge among the Sparuards at St. Augus- 

 tine and Santa Elena, and more than one expedition had l)een fitted out 

 to explore the interior.'' Numerous traces of ancient mining i)pera- 

 tions, with remains of old shafts and foi-tilicatious, evidently of Euro- 

 pean origin, show that these discoveries were followed up, although 

 the policy of Spain concealed the fact from the outside world. How 

 nnich permanent impression this early Spanish intercourse made 

 on the Cherokee it is impossi})le to estimate, but it nuist have lieen 

 consideral)h' (II). 



TiiK C()i>()NiAi> AND Ki:v()ia;ti<)\akv I'kku)!! — lt;.'i4— 17S4 



It was not until l()."i4 that tiie English first ainw into contact with 

 the Cherokee, called in tlie records of the jjeriod Kechahecrians. a cor- 

 ruption of Kickaliockan. apparently the name by which they were 

 known to tlie Powhatan tribes. In that year tiii> \'irginia colony, 

 which had only recently concluded a long and extei-ininating war with 

 the Powhatan, was thrown into alarm by the news that a great bodj' of 



1 VaiMlura narriilivi-, 15(19. in French, B. F., Hi.st. Colls. of Ln.,nu\v series, pp. iH9-'292; Now York, 1875. 



ssheii, .I.G.,Ciitlu)lie Missions, p. 72; New York, 18r». 



'See Brooks muiuiscripts, in the archives of the Bureau of Amerienn Ethnology. 



