MooNKY) DE SOTO S ROITTE T.l.'5 



hascil upon lli^< j;i'iu'ral kiiuwleilj^i- of the gfotrraphy of the region. In IS.'il I'ii'kftl 

 tried to loeate the route, eliiefly, he assertti, from Indian tradition as rehited hy 

 niixed-bloods!. How nnu'li dependence can be placed upon Indian tradition as thus 

 interpreted tliree centuries after the event it is unnecessary to say. Both these 

 writers liave brought De Soto down the (^oosa river, in wliieli they liave l>een 

 followed without investigation liy Irving, Shea and others, but none of these was 

 aware of the existence of a Suwali trilx' or correctly acquainteil with the In<lian 

 nomenclature of the upper country, or of the Creek country a.s so well .sununarizcd 

 by (xatschet in his Creek Migration Legend. They are also mistaken in assuming 

 that oidy De Soto passed through the country, whereas we now know that ,se\eral 

 Spanish explorers and numerous French adventurers traversed the same territoi'y, 

 the latest expeditions of course being freshest in Indian memory. Jones in his 

 "De Soto's March Through Georgia" simply dresses up the earlier statements in 

 more literary style, sometimes cluvnging surmises to positive assertions, without 

 mentioning his authorities. JMaps of the suj)po.sed route, all bringing De Soto down 

 the Coo.-ia instead of the Chattahoochee, have been pul)lished in Irving's Con(iuest of 

 Florida, the Ilakluyt Society's eilition of the Gentleman of Elva's account, and in 

 Buckingham Smith's translation of the .same narrative, as well as in several other 

 works. For the eastern portion, with which we have to deal, all of these are ])ra(;- 

 tically duplicates of one another. On several old Spani.sh and French maps the 

 names mentionefl in tlie narrative seem to have been set down merely to fill sjuvce, 

 without much reference to the text of the chronicle. For a list and notices of prin- 

 cipal writers who have touched upon this subject see the appendix to Shea's chajiter 

 on "Ancient Florida" in Win.sor's Narrative and Critical History of America, n; Bos- 

 ton, 188(i. W'c sliall sjieak only of that jiart of thi' route which lay near the Cheri>kee 

 mountains. 



The first location whicii concerns us in the narrative is Cofitachiqui, th(^ town 

 from whicli De Soto set out for the Cherokee country. Tlie name apjiears variously 

 as Cofitachequi (Ranjel), Cofitachique (Biedma), Cofachiqui (Garcilaso), Cutifa- 

 Chiqui (by transposition, Elvas), Cofeta^que (Vandera), Catafachique (Williams) . 

 and Cosatachiqui (misprint, Brooks MSS), and the Spaniards first heard of the 

 region as Yupaha from a tribe farther to the south. The correct form appears to be 

 that first given, whicli Gatsehet, from later information than that (juoted in his 

 Creek Migration Legend, makes a Ilitchitee word about equivalent to " Dogwood 

 town," iromcofi, "dogwood," rnfitii, "dogwood thicket," andc/i/A-/, "house," orcol- 

 Icctively "town." McCulloch puts the town upon the headwaters of tin; ()i-nmlgee; 

 Williams locates it on the Chattahoochee; Gallatin on the Oconee or the Savannah; 

 Meek and Monette, following him, probably in the fork of the Savannah and the 

 Broad; Pickett, with .Tones and others following him, at Silver bluff on tlie east 

 (north) bank of the Savannah, in Barnwell county. South Carolina, about L'.'i miles by 

 water below the present Augusta. It will thus be seen that at the very outset of our 

 in(|uiry the commentators differ by a <listance equal to more than half the width of 

 the state of Georgia. It will suffice here to say, without going into the argument, that 

 the author is inclined to believe that the Indian town was on or near Silvi'r bluff, 

 which was noted for its extensive ancient remains as far back as Bartram's time 

 .(Travels, 313), and where the noted George tialphin established a trading post in 

 1736. The original site has since been almost entirely worn away by the river. 

 According to the Indians of Cofitachiqui, the town, which w'as on the farther (north) 

 bank of the stream, was two day's journey from the sea, probably by canoe, and the 

 sailors with the expedition believed the river to be the same one that entered at St. 

 Helena, wliich wa-s a very close guess. The Spaniards were shown here Kuropean 

 articles which they were told had been obtained from white men who had entered the 

 river's mouth many years before. These they conjectured to have been the men 

 W'ith Ayllon, who had landed on that coast in \WiO and again in 1524. The town was 

 probably the ancient capital of the Uchee Indians, who, before their absorption by 



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