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Show XOONXYj DE SOTO'S ROUTE 201 other, known as " Old Coosa," and probably of more ancient origin, was on the west side of Alabama river, near the present site of Montgomery ( see Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend). It was probably the latter which was visited by De Soto, and later on by De Luna, in 1559. Beyond Coca they passed through another Creek town, apparently lower down on the Alabama, the name of which is variously spelled Ytaua ( Elvas, Force translation), Ytava ( Elvas, Hakluyt Society translation), or Itaba ( Ranjel), and which may be connected with I't& wft', Etowah or " Hightower," the name of a former Cherokee settlement near the head of Etowah river in Georgia. The Cherokee regard this as a foreign name, and its occurrence in upper Georgia, as well as in central Alabama, may help to support the tradition that the southern Cherokee border was formerly held by the Creeks. De Soto's route beyond the Cherokee country does not concern us except as it throws light upon his previous progress. In the seventeenth chapter the Elvas narrative summarizes that portion from the landing at Tampa bay to a point in southern Alabama as follows: " From the Port de Spirito Santo to Apalache, which is about an hundred leagues, the governor went from east to west; and from Apalache to Cutifa-chiqui, which are 430 leagues, from the southwest to the northeast; and from Cutifa-chiqui to Xualla, which are about 250 leagues, from the south to the north; and from Xualla to Tascaluca, which are 250 leagues more, an hundred and ninety of them he traveled from east to west, to wit, to the province of Coca; and the other 60, from Coca to Tascaluca, from the north to the south." Chisca ( Elvas and Ranjel), the mountainous northern region in search of which men were sent from Chiaha to look for copper and gold, was somewhere in the Cherokee country of upper Georgia or Alabama. The precise location is not material, as it is now known that native copper, in such condition as to have been easily workable by the Indians, occurs throughout the whole southern Allegheny region from about Anniston, Alabama, into Virginia. Notable finds of native copper have been made on the upper Tallapoosa, in Cleburne county, Alabama; about Ducktown, in Polk county, Tennessee, and in southwestern Virginia, one nugget from Virginia weighing several pounds. From the appearance of ancient soapstone vessels which have been found in the same region there is even a possibility that the Indians had some knowledge of smelting, as the Spanish explorers surmised ( oral information from Mx W. H. Weed, U. S. Geological Survey). We hear again of this " province'' after De Soto had reached the Mississippi, and in one place Garcilaso seems to confound it with another province called Quizqui ( Ranjel) or Quizquiz ( Elvas and Biedma). The name has some resemblance to the Cherokee word tmkwa, " bird." ( 9) DE LUNA AND ROGEL ( p. 27): Jones, in his De Soto's March through Georgia, incorrectly ascribes certain traces of ancient mining operations in the Cherokee country, particularly on Valley river in North Carolina, to the followers of De Luna, " who, in 1560 . . . came with 300 Spanish soldiers into this region, and spent the summer in eager and laborious search for gold." Don Tristan de Luna, with fifteen hundred men, landed somewhere about Mobile bay in 1559 with the design of establishing a permanent* Spanish settlement in the interior, but owing to a succession of unfortunate happenings the attempt was abandoned the next year. In the course of his wanderings he traversed the country of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Upper Creeks, as is shown by the names and other data in the narrative, but returned without entering the mountains or doing any digging ( see Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, pp. 32- 41,1723; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, n, pp. 257- 259). In 1569 the Jesuit Rogel- called Father John Roger by Shea- began mission work among the South Carolina tribes inland from Santa Elena ( about Port Royal). The mission, which at first promised well, was abandoned next year, owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to give up their old habits and beliefs. Shea, in his " Catholic Missions," supposes that these Indians were probably a part of the |