The Battle Of

Mabila

This is the story of our country

before it became the United States

It takes place in the South in the year 1540.

That’s 476 years ago.

Here’s another map that has the states of the South

A great Native civilization lived in the South before the

time of Columbus.

We call those people “The Mississippians.”

Most people think Native Americans lived in teepees and hunted buffalo. The Mississippians lived in towns with walls around them for defense...

..and built earthen pyramids one hundred feet high.

Their houses were made of adobe...

...and were often painted with murals of their myths.

They raised fields of corn, beans, and pumpkin.

In some places the land was so rich that they had two harvests a year.

In 1539, a man named Hernand

o de

Soto arrived in the

land of the Mississippian

s.

De Soto was from a noble family in Spain. They owned land, but they were poor and the land was parched by drought.

In those days, unless you were rich you wouldn’t have much of a future.

If you were a girl you could get married and take care of a house, or become a servant, or become a nun and work for the church.

Now there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but they were the only things you could do.

Queen Isabel was the queen of Spain at the time of Columbus. She was a general and ran the whole country, but she was the queen.

If your family owned anything, it would all go to the oldest son. That doesn’t sound fair, but back then that’s how things worked.

If you were a boy and were lucky, you might learn a trade like a blacksmith or miller, but probably you’d get sent off to war.

Or you might be a priest and run a church.

So you can see why a lot of young men would want to get away.

Hernando de Soto was the second oldest son, so he knew he wouldn’t inherit anything from his father. He left his family for Panamá when he was only fourteen. Today he would have been in 8th grade.

In 1492, Columbus came to the Americas and found gold.

As soon as people heard about it, they all wanted to come.

The Spaniards who came to the Americas were called

“conquistadors” because they conquered

the people who were living there.

First they conquered the Aztecs, who were in Mexico and had one of the greatest

cities in the world.

Then they conquered the Inca, who had a huge empire with gold and silver mines

in Peru.

There was another great empire: The Maya. They ruled in Guatemala, El Salvador, and the south of Mexico. They resisted the conquistadors for over one hundred years. You might know someone descended from the Maya!

The conquistadors won because they had better weapons. They had swords of steel that could cut through the shields of their enemies.

There were no horses in America before Columbus. Horsemen could move more quickly and kill the Aztec soldiers with a lance. Arrows and spears couldn’t penetrate their armor.

Soon everyone came to think they were invincible. And in a way, they were.

In 1537, explorers brought word of another empire in the land of the

Mississippians.

The Spaniards called this region

“La Florida” No one from Spain or England, or any other

European country, had ever seen the Mississippian nations.

De Soto had become rich by conquering the Inca and taking their gold. But he didn’t want to only be rich, he also wanted to be famous.

He brought one of the biggest armies ever to arrive in the Americas, over six

hundred men.

There were two Spanish women on the expedition. One was the wife of a soldier who was said to fight as well as any man. The other was a seamstress.

De Soto led his soldiers through the land of Timucua on the Florida

peninsula.

They crossed swamps filled with alligators and poisoned snakes…

…and deserts of sand dunes and grass.

It was hot and rained all the time, and they were in armor from head to toe.

Whenever they came to a village they would fight the Indians and win. After that they took slaves and all the stored food of the village.

This is theirwinter camp.>>

In winter they camped at a place that is now the capital of Florida. (Tallahasse)

A captured Indian told them there was a kingdom to the east, so as soon as it was over they marched to the Atlantic ocean.

The kingdom was called Cofitachequi, and it was in the state we call South Carolina. The Spaniards called it “The Pearl Kingdom.”

This is theirwinter camp.>>

This is Cofitachequi.>>

The temples were decorated with ropes of river pearls and could be seen gleaming in the sun for miles.

It was ruled by a beautiful woman who wore a white dress made of deerskin

and pearls, and was carried in a palanquin by six strong men.

But pearls were not gold, so De Soto decided to leave. Before he went, he took all the stored food of the kingdom so that he could feed his army on the march.

Because he was afraid the Indians might attack, he kidnapped the queen for protection. As soon as the army left Cofitachequi, he let her go home.

From there, the army marched over the Appalachian mountains, heading south to meet some supply ships.

On their way, they came across Coosa, one of the most powerful kingdoms at that time.

Coosa>>

Coosa had many pyramids made of earth where they set their temples, and houses of the leaders of the towns. They had beautiful art and cultivated great fields of corn.

The leader of Coosa was called the Great Sun. He came out to meet De Soto wearing a crown of feathers, and even invited De Soto to his house.

Coosa had many things made of copper, but it didn’t have gold.

De Soto wasn’t impressed, and he was in a hurry to get to the supply ships.

So he kidnapped the Great Sun, took slaves, and most of the food of Coosa.

Now, word spread among the Indian nations about how all the great kingdoms were falling to the strange invading army. One general, calledTushka Lusa, sent spies to get information.

Tushka Lusa’s name means “Black Warrior.”

He was the leader of the Alibamu nation, and commanded an elite band of fighters, kind of like Seal Team 6.

He was a strong, powerful man, over 6 feet tall, and wore a black turban and a long cape of black feathers.

He sat on a throne and had a bodyguard, who followed him everywhere holding a black sunshade over his head.

When his spies told him about the armor and horses, it was clear to Tushka Lusa that his enemy could not be defeated.

But Tushka Lusa was a military genius. He came up with a plan.

First he sent messengers to De Soto. They led him to a town on the border where Tushka Lusa waited on this throne.

Coosa>>

When De Soto demanded food and gold, Tushka Lusa told him that they were at a town called Mabila.

Mabila>>

<<Tushka Lusa’s capital

Tushka Lusa was taken prisoner, but he did not put up a fight, even though he was twice as strong as his guards.

Spanish soldiers had to carry tents, bedrolls, clothes, medicine and food. This made it hard for them to fight, so they would transfer their backpacks onto the Indian slaves.

De Soto ordered Tushka Lusa to provide 400 men to carry the provisions of the army, and Tushka Lusa agreed.

It took a week to get to Mabila. The road they took crossed a wide plain of yellow cornfields.

Along it were little villages filled with food: barbequed venison and turkey, delicious pumpkin stews, fresh cornbread, and fruit.

It seemed like the villagers had run away, leaving everything behind. The temptation was too great for the hungry Spanish foot soldiers. One by one they disappeared into the villages…

…until all that was left of the army were some horsemen at the front with De Soto, and Tushka Lusa and his bodyguard, who were surrounded by watchful Spanish soldiers.

Strangely, even though the Alibamu men were no longer guarded, they kept marching up the road to Mabila, silently carrying the provisions on their backs.

Mabila was a fortress with a high wall reinforced with red clay. It could be seen from several miles away.

All the corn around it had been cleared and nearby villages torn down. Scouts told De Soto that they had seen many Indians entering the gates with bundles they thought were arrows.

All of this made the officers nervous. But not Hernando de Soto—in fact, he made fun of them for being afraid of the Indians. So, he and his officers, and Tushka Lusa, went through the gates of Mabila.

In the meantime, the Alibamu men brought all the provisions into Mabila, and hid them inside the houses...

..and got their weapons.

That’s when Tushka Lusa ordered the

attack.

Only their armor saved the conquistadors inside the town. Thousands of Alibamu soldiers, both men and women, were waiting inside the walls of Mabila.

De Soto managed to escape but other soldiers were killed.

He gathered his army out of the fields and mounted a counterattack.

Drums beat through-out the town.

Alibamu archers waved flags and shouted insults from atop the great red wall.

Arrows rained from the sky onto the shields of the conquistadors, who chipped at the wall with their swords.

Finally they broke through. The streets of Mabila were too narrow for the horses and more archers attacked from the roofs. They fought all day long, hand to hand at times.

It became so dangerous that De Soto decided to set fire to the town.

The flames leaped from roof to roof. It drove many Indians outside to the clearing where they were captured or killed.

2000 Alibamu soldiers died at Mabila and 25 Spaniards.

No one knew what

happened to Tushka Lusa because he was never seen

again.

Tushka Lusa was right: the conquistadors could not be defeated in war. So he chose another goal.

Instead of trying to kill the soldiers, he separated De Soto from his army and captured all the provisions…

…which were destroyed in the fires of Mabila. Soldiers no longer had tents, blankets, or gunpowder. Their only clothes were the ones they had on.

The men were furious with De Soto for allowing their supplies to be destroyed. Many decided to mutiny. They decided when the supply ships arrived, they would go home to Spain.

It looked like the end of De Soto’s expedition through La Florida.

But the expedition didn’t end, and went on for three more years. Soto lied to the soldiers, saying an army of Indians lay in wait on the way to the ships. Then he moved them far from the sea.

Even so, after the battle of Mabila the

conquistadors were never as powerful.

Hernando de Soto never found the empire he was looking for.

He died on the expedition and his men buried him in the Mississippi river.

Without a leader, they decided to leave La Florida for Mexico.

Missisippian nations like Coosa and Cofitachequi

collapsed…

…until all that was left of their pyramids were great mounds of earth. For this reason, the Mississippians are sometimes called “The Moundbuilders.”

But most of the other Indian nations survived…

…thanks to Tushka Lusa and his plan to drive the conquistadors from his land.

The city of Tuscaloosa was named for the great Indian general. It is on the Black Warrior River in the state of Alabama, which takes its name from the Indian nation he once ruled. The port of Mobile is named for the Battle of Mabila.

Questions??????