Even More Loose Ends

My last few posts have been as disconnected as usual so I'll try to desribe to you the thoughts that were going through my mind that led to such chaos.

After telling how important our heritage was to my mother in "Our Indian Heritage" and "Aristocrats," I wanted to follow up with some details, so I put down most of what I know about my great - great - great - great - great grand uncle, John Paul Jones, the first in a long line of colorful characters in the Paul family.

Just after writing about John Paul Jones I got my copy of the Chickasaw Times which contained my mother's obituary, so I just printed it as the next post. That got me thinking about my mother's last days and how much suffering she went through. She had told me about saying a prayer for her older sister Kaliteyo when she died, the same childhood prayer that they had said together as children before going to sleep. It was also the only thing I could think of to say for Jim when she died.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

It's hard to explain how I felt when my mother died. When I said that prayer for her I had spent the better part of two months sharing her fear, her apprehension, and finally her suffering. During that time, memories or our lives together had been going through my mind, so much to understand, so many questions left unanswered. When it was all over, that overwhelming confusion and tension that I had felt were gone, and in their place was just a gaping hole. I felt so helpless and afraid, like a child. At the time I said that prayer for Jim, it was just as much for me as for her. Finally I understood how she had felt when she had said the prayer for her sister Kaliteyo.

That was about as much writing about Jim's death as I could stand, so I returned to our family's story. The first story that came to mind was the one about Smith Paul running away from home as a small boy, and being taken in by the Chickasaw Indians. I love that story. We don't know many details, but there's so much food for the imagination: The boldness of an eleven year old boy in striking out on his own; the hardships of those relatively primitive times; the incredible distances they traveled on horseback or in a wagon, when 15 or 20 miles was a day's journey; the hospitality of the Chickasaws; the experience of growing up with people of an entirely different culture; how the bonds of friendship and loyalty grew that caused Smith Paul to stay with the Chickasaws and to share their fate.

After telling the beginning of the story of Smith Paul, I just had to write something else about the Chickasaws. I wish I had another life to spend learning more about native American history. While most of what we know is through the writing of white men, the story you can piece together of the native Americans in general, and of the Chickasaws in particular, is fascinating.

In my opinion the Chickasaws' encounter with Hernando De Soto is one of the most incredible stories in history. The Chickasaws, instead of being awed by the advanced technology of the Europeans, were able to see them for the selfish, arrogant bullies they were, and the Chickasaws were able to prevail by using their own native intelligence and ingenuity.

Hernando De Soto

I've been reading about Chickasaw history ever since high school, and in recent years I've been able to get into more detail and put some of my fragments of knowledge into a context. This is something my mother and I enjoyed sharing with each other. She would show me a paper being discussed by the Chickasaw Historical Society, and I'd tell her about stories I had found in my reading.

In general, reading Indian history is a depressing exercise. You read one story after another about the Indians being deceived, robbed, divided against one another, and cruelly slaughtered because of the white man's greed. The story of the Chickasaws, although in the end as tragic as that of the other tribes, has some bright spots, and one of those is the story of their encounter with Hernando De Soto, the Spanish 'Conquistador.'

After successfully subjugating the powerful Incas in Peru as a captain under Francisco Pizarro, De Soto returned to Spain a wealthy hero. He was rewarded by being made governor of Cuba, and from there he was expected to extend Spain's influence across the 'new world' by colonizing North America. Hopefully he would also find some gold along the way.

De Soto landed in Florida in 1539 with nine ships carrying over 600 men, and tons of armor and supplies, including 240 horses and 200 pigs. He quickly developed a system of communicating with the natives by using the survivor of a prior Spanish expedition as an interpreter. De Soto's Spanish interpreter managed to communicate with most of the tribes they encountered by finding members of his adopted tribe among them.

De Soto moved north up the eastern seaboard during 1539 and 1540, leaving a trail of devastation and plunder in his wake. He played on the Indians' superstition by spreading the rumor that he was an incarnation of the sun god. Finally one tribe decided to stand up to De Soto's army, attacking him with several thousand warriors at the town of Mabila in what is now southern Alabama. De Soto slaughtered the warriors, burned the town, and then headed north and west toward the Chickasaws' domain, in what is now northern Mississippi.

When De Soto came to the Tombigbee River, near modern Tupelo, he was impressed with the Chickasaws' extensive fields of maize, and he decided to spend the winter there. After slight resistance at the river De Soto was received hospitably by the Chickasaws, and he chose to treat them more diplomatically than was his habit. His men even accompanied the Chickasaws in a raid on a neighboring tribe.

When spring came though, De Soto reverted to form and demanded that the Chickasaws supply 200 litter bearers, hacking the hands off an unfortunate brave to show that he meant business. The Chickasaws not only said no to the mighty Spaniards, they decided to evict them. The Chickasaw warriors routed De Soto's men in a surprise night attack, sending the Spaniards running for their lives wearing only their underwear. The Chickasaw women also participated in the attack by carrying coals in earthen pots to set the Spaniards' camp afire. De Soto lost a dozen men killed and many wounded, and 60 horses were either killed or captured. The only thing that saved the Spanish from total annihilation was the confusion caused by their stampeding horses, which caused the Chickasaws to fear a mounted counterattack. The Chickasaws lost only one man.

De Soto's men fled to a nearby village where they repaired and replaced their weapons and other equipment as best they could. The Spaniards were able to fight off a second attack by the Chickasaws at their new encampment, and when they had recovered enough to flee north toward the Mississippi River, the Chickasaws pursued them and inflicted more casualties. De Soto crossed the Mississippi and continued his expedition for another two years, but he never messed with the Chickasaws again.

I have always thought this was a remarkable story. The Chickasaws, never numbering more than a few hundred warriors and armed only with primative weapons, managed to defeat a well armed Spanish army which had previously decimated an Indian force of thousands.

The Chickasaws were and are something special, well deserving of their motto: Unconquered and Unconquerable."