| OCR Text |
Show LEADING 64 HISTORY MEXICAN OF NEW FACTS of woolen cloth, bunches of feathers,®* and a few pieces of gold. The Indians were asked where they obtained these things, their reply being that they came from a distant province called Apalache,” which also abounded in many other articles of great value. Narvaez continued some ten or twelve leagues further into the interior, being guided by the Indians. No discoveries were made, however, except some ripe corn, and retracing his steps, Narvaez returned to the fleet. What to do was now a problem for Narvaez. He, therefore, called and the letter to the Audiencia. The letter says ‘And there they found boxes dead man, and the corpses Commissary and some friars large covered that these from with (Historia, etc., iii, p. 583): Castilla, painted were and hides. idolatries, so in each of them It appeared the governor had a to the them burnt. There were also found pieces of shoes and canvas (lienzo), of cloth and some iron, and inquiring of the Indians they told us by signs that they had found it in a vessel that had been lost on this coast and in that bay.’ ‘*The text of Oviedo discriminates between the origin of these objects and that that of the gold, country, but which it says the Indians declared that there was none in at Apalache, very far away. The first edition always has Apalachen or Palachen. Oviedo (p. 615) justly blames the friars for having burnt the bodies: ‘Since the boxes and other indications might have led them to think that they were the bodies of Christians, and so it is stated in the second relation, that they learned from Indians that these dead people had been Christians.’ The Relacion (p. 270) mentions briefly the bodies, and also states that gold was found in the province 52 Bandelier, Mrs. Fanny, Ibid, p. 12; of Apalache.’’ ‘‘Feather head dresses that seemed to be from New Spain.’’ Mr. Adolph F. Bandelier, in his notes to the translation of the Relacion made by his wife, says: ‘‘The shipwreck mentioned may allude to the loss, in 1526, of one of the two vessels in which Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon made his unlucky voyage to Chicora. Herrera, Historia cap. xiii. This General, vessel ete., was lost 1726, at vol. the mouth ii, p. 242, of the Decada, Rio J ordon.’’ iii, lib. Vu, Mr. F. W. Hodge, commenting upon this suggestion by Bandeélier, says: ‘* As this wreck occurred at the mouth of Cape Fear River, on the southern coast of North Carolina, it does not seem likely that they could have been derived from this source. ’ 53 Hodge, F. W., Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, note, p. 21: ‘The Apalachee were one of the Muskhogean tribes that occupied northwestern Florida from the vicinity of Pensacola eastward to Ocilla river, their chief seats being in the vicinity of Tallahassee and St. Marks. In 1655 they numbered Six or eight thousand, but about the beginning of the eighteenth century they were warred against by the Creeks, instigated by the English of Carolina, and in 1703 and 1704 expeditions by English troops, reinforced by Creek warriors, resulted in the capture and enslavement of about fourteen hundred Apalachee and in practically exterminating the remainder. The town of Apalachicola, 00 the Savannah river, was inhabited by Apalachee refugees colonized later by the Carolina government, but these ribe.nig ° ee Bay and the Appalachian were finally merged with the Creeks. derive their names from this Mountains |
