THE INDIANS OF FLORIDA.

Indian High Priest. "Old prophecies foretell our fall at hand. When bearded men in floating castles land,
I fear it is of dire portent."—Dryden's Indian Emperor.

De Soto's invasion of Florida is, we think, most memorable for what it has preserved touching the manners and customs of the Indians with whom the Spaniards dealt in such evil sort. In this light only has it historic value. Though incomplete as to details it is our earliest portrait of this singular people, as they existed a full century before New England was settled, and so marks a definite limit of history whence to date that knowledge from.

Yet when we shall have gone so far back in the history of this primitive race as the beginning of the sixteenth century, nothing is found in their manners, customs or traditions, as they have come down to us, which would go to confirm the theory that the ancestors of these people were more civilized than themselves. The little they seem to have known about it belongs to the very infancy of art, not to its growth out of lower conditions. These Indians knew how to make beads of the pearl oyster. So did those of New England know how to make shell wampum. The Florida Indians could weave cloth of the fibre of wild hemp and dye it prettily; they could tan, dress, and decorate deerskins; had found out how to mould rude earthen vessels and bake them in the sun. In some of these things they certainly surpassed their brethren of New England, though their arms and implements are quite like those used farther north. Then inasmuch as all the tools they had to work with were of the rudest sort, being shaped out of stone or bone, so the making of most things cost them a great deal of time and labor, and hence the mechanical arts in use among them were such only as spring from the first and most pressing wants of a people, as is everywhere the case in the history of primitive man.[1]

It must be borne in mind that what we are told about these Florida Indians is written by their enemies. Therefore, when their courage is praised, we feel that they must have deserved it. Perhaps what most astonishes us about the narratives themselves is the cold-blooded way in which they recount the slaughter made of these Indians, who seem hardly to have been considered in the light of human beings.

It would seem as if the ill-repute of the Spaniards must have gone before them, for upon nearing the Florida shore the invaders saw smokes everywhere curling above it, which they soon found were lighted for the purpose of warning the inhabitants to be on their guard.

The first Indians met with were instantly set upon by De Soto's horsemen, who had nearly killed John Ortiz before they discovered him to be a Christian like themselves. Though in doubt what the landing of so many white men could mean, these Indians were loyally bringing Ortiz as a peace-offering to the Spanish camp. It is worth while to remember this, since on the part of the Spaniards the first act was one of violence and intimidation.

Therefore, whenever the Spaniards approached an Indian town, the inhabitants fled from it in terror; and so in order to procure guides to lead them, or porters to carry the baggage, while on the march, De Soto found himself obliged to seize by force such Indians as his own men could lay hands upon. On these he put chains and caused them to bear the burdens of his soldiers. If possible, a chief was kidnapped to be held a hostage for the good conduct of his tribe. No Spaniard was therefore safe outside his encampment.[2]

Again, the Spaniards plundered the villages they entered of whatever they stood in need, just the same as if they were in a conquered country. If they wanted corn they took it; if they found any thing of value they helped themselves, without making any show of paying for it. In consequence, the exasperated Indians everywhere obstructed De Soto's march so far as it lay in their power to do so; and on the other hand, in proportion to the resistance he met with, De Soto treated the natives with greater or less severity. We know these Indians therefore, for men of courage, since in defence of their homes and liberties they could fight with naked breasts against men in armor, and with bows and arrows against fire-arms.[3]

So that by the time De Soto arrived at the Mississippi, he had lost over a hundred men and most of his horses.

What such treatment would be likely to lead to is easily foreseen. Most surely it sowed the seeds of future hostility to the white man broadcast. His cruelty became a tradition. The Indian has a long memory and is by nature revengeful. From having looked upon the whites as gods, gifted with all good and beneficent things, the Indian quickly perceived them to be a cruel people filled with avarice, and bent on destroying him. His worst enemies could do no more. And thus the two races met each other in the New World.

We should not omit to mention here one of the strangest things that fell out in the whole course of the expedition. When the Spaniards came to the town of Quizaquiz, where they made some stay, Indians flocked there from distant villages in order to see for themselves what manner of people had come among them; for they said it had been foretold them by their fathers' fathers that men with white faces should come and subdue them, and now they believed the prophecy had come true.

In appearance, the Indian villages and towns we're everywhere much the same. The houses were little round cabins, built of wooden palings, sometimes thatched with palm leaves, sometimes with canes or reeds laid on the roof in the manner of tiles. The better to resist the fierce Gulf winds, they were built low on the ground. In the colder climates, the walls would be smeared over with clay. The only difference to be perceived between the cabins of the common sort and the dwellings of the chief men was that they were larger and more roomy residences, with sometimes a gallery built out over the front, under which the family could sit in the heat of the day.

Every little knot of cabins would have one or more corn-cribs close beside it. This was a loft or granary set up in the air on poles, exactly in the manner now practised by the whites, and for the like purpose of storing up maize or Indian corn which was universally cultivated. Only for the supplies of maize everywhere found, both the Spaniards and their horses would soon have starved, as corn[4] became their only article of food, and ofttimes they had to go hungry for want of it.

Men and women wore mantles woven either of the bark of trees or of a wild sort of hemp which the Indians knew how to dress properly for the purpose. They also understood the art of tanning and dyeing such skins as were obtained in the chase, which they also made up into garments. Two of these mantles made a woman's usual dress. One was worn about them, hanging from the waist down, like a petticoat or gown, the other would be thrown over the left shoulder with the right arm bared, after the manner of the Egyptians. The warriors wore only this last mantle, which allowed them free use of the right arm in drawing forth an arrow from the quiver, or in bending the bow. When dressed up in his head-gear of feathers, and wearing his ornamented mantle flung across his shoulder, bow in hand, and carrying his well-filled quiver at his back, the Indian warrior made no unpicturesque figure, even beside the heavily-armed white man, for he was of a well-proportioned and muscular build, with good features, an eye like the eagle's, and a bearing which told of the manhood throbbing beneath his dusky skin.

The Indians of Florida worshipped both a god of good and evil. They also made sacrifice to both spirits alike. In some places they worshipped and sacrificed to the sun as the great life-giving principle; in others they had a curious custom when any great lord died, of sacrificing living persons to appease or comfort his spirit with the offering of these other spirits who were to serve him and bear him company in the happy hunting-grounds.

Some tribes kept their dead unburied for a certain time in a rude sort of pantheon, or temple, dedicated to their gods.[5] Over this a strict watch was kept to guard against the intrusion of evil spirits who were supposed to lie in wait, in the form of some prowling beast of prey. This custom sprung from a belief that the spirits of the dead revisited their mortal bodies at times.

Besides maize, pumpkins, beans, and melons, whatever natural fruits the country produced the Indian lived on. He hunted and fished. The summer was his season of plenty, the winter one of want, sometimes of distress, but in the semi-tropical region, bordering upon the Gulf, his wants were fewer and more easily supplied, and hence, as a rule, life was freer from hardship than in more northern climes.

The stronger nations made war upon the weaker, but treaties were duly respected. The vanquished were compelled to pay tribute to the conquerors or join themselves with some stronger tribe than their own. The languages differed so much with different nations, that De Soto found he must have a new interpreter for every new nation he visited; nevertheless the Indians quickly learned to speak the Spanish tongue. In public the people behaved with great propriety, showed respect for their rulers, and often confounded De Soto, who pretended to supernatural powers, by the shrewdness of their replies. For instance, when the Spaniard gave out that he was the child of the sun, a Natchez chief promptly bid him dry up the river, and he would believe him. In some places the Indians greeted the Spaniards with songs and music. Their instruments were reeds hung with tinkling balls of gold or silver. When the chieftain, or cacique, went abroad in state, men walked by his side carrying screens elegantly made of the bright plumage of birds. These were borne at the end of a long staff.

The Spaniards found the fertile parts of the country everywhere crowded with towns, and very populous. But they did not find the gold[6] they coveted so much. They called the Indians a people ignorant of all the blessings of civilization, but to their honor be it also said, they were free from the vices by which it is accompanied and degraded.