On March 4, 1541, the Chickasaw people near Starkville and Columbus led a decisive victory over Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, which drove 700 European men from the region and forced them to move further west.
The defeat would mark the beginning of the end for de Soto, who died about a year later at the hands of fever near the Mississippi River.
Archaeologists and historians representing multiple Southeast universities and museums gathered at the Rosenzweig Arts Center on Saturday to tell roughly 80 local historians, leaders and residents the story of de Soto and his failure to pacify, populate and profit from the land and people of the “New World.”
Tony Boudreaux from Mississippi State University; Charles Cobb from the Florida Museum of Natural History and the University of Florida; Ashley Dumas from the University of West Alabama; James Knight from the University of Alabama; Brad Lieb, director of Chickasaw Archaeology for the Chickasaw Nation; and Jessica Crawford from the Archeological Conservatory spoke at the “Footprints of de Soto” event, a seminar detailing efforts to locate the suspected battle sites of Mabila and Chickasa — important battles that drove de Soto out of the Golden Triangle region and the research on where native people lived in the area at the time.
According to their findings, these archaeologists now have a better idea of where native tribes were living at the time and how they interacted with de Soto before the victory over his group of 700 conquistadors.
Lieb said in the seven years his team and others, like Dumas’ work with the University of Western Alabama, have successfully narrowed down two key areas where 16th-century European metals, commonly found with Spanish expeditions, have been found where farm homesteads of native peoples and whole villages were located at the time, showing evidence of trade and looting.
Those two locations lie on more than 300 acres of pastures northwest of Starkville, dubbed “Stark Farm,” and eight miles of Black Prairie near Demopolis, Alabama. With the help of remote sensors, metal detectors and carbon dating, the research groups have discovered more than 15 remains of native housing on the farm, as well as pieces of pottery and Spanish iron fragments that were reshaped and repurposed by native groups.
“Our hypotheses include models involving engagement between residents of the Stark Farm village with de Soto’s men over that winter (1540),” Lieb said. “There could have been under-the-table trade of small metal objects between Chickasaws and Spanish soldiers. There could have also been mining of the battle site, which we’ve noted with the affirmed ruin of the Spanish encampment.”
The research teams found evidence of these tribes by looking for posts of houses and cultural symbols like t-shaped hearths, which were communal spaces of significance to the Chickasaw, then studying metal fragments, Cobb said.
“Another important thing to sort of keep in mind from the Stark Farm, the radiocarbon dates, and the artifacts indicate that Stark Farm was occupied before de Soto, came during de Soto, and it continued to be occupied after de Soto,” Cobb said. “So it’s really this kind of great cross-section of life before, during and after.”
Finding the exact battle site
While the battle site itself has yet to be conclusively identified, Lieb believes gaining a better understanding of where the Chickasaw lived in the 16th century will lead to further discoveries, such as the actual battle site. The research at Stark Farm and the discovery of other sites will assist in the search for others like the battle of Chicasa, Boudreaux said. Combined, there are more than 200 sites in the Golden Triangle being explored or exhibiting signs of trade, homesteads or encampments.
“These are all the sites that are kind of in that window,” he said. “Before and during de Soto, there’s a pretty dense cluster of sites, and Stark Farm on its face just looks like one of hundreds of other archaeological sites in the area. But we would have it (Stark Farm) on the radar as something special because these guys had found what looked like 16th-century metal. So it allowed us to kind of focus on areas where we knew things might be located so that we can kind of be more efficient with our excavations.”
The other side of this collaboration’s research was using discoveries made at Stark Farm in 2015 through 2017 and using other written accounts to find the location where de Soto made the decision to head west at Mabila instead of south to the Gulf Coast, where he was initially meant to establish a Spanish colony. Dumas began her efforts in 2019 to find the actual location of the town and battle.
The battle of Mabila was originally theorized to take place near Mobile, Alabama, but after combing through written accounts and other accounts from his expedition, Dumas and her team calculated the length of de Soto’s time in Alabama and how long his party marched from the town of possibly 1,000 people before getting to the Tombigbee River.
To reach Tombigbee by winter, his army of 700 men, 300 pigs and enslaved natives had to march 12 miles a day for 30 days, placing the battle somewhere near an 8-mile stretch south of Hale County, Alabama, and near modern-day Demopolis, Dumas said.
Next, her team looked for evidence of a battle, such as iron fragments from swords, burned clay bricks left behind from the battle and abandoned homes.
“We’re looking for 16th-century Spanish artifacts at Mabila, particularly items of warfare like crossbow bolts and perhaps halbert and sword parts,” she said. “Obviously, the 16th-century Indian pottery of the right age and the right decorative style. This is really the nitty-gritty of what archaeologists get into. And then finally, radiocarbon dating certainly can be extremely helpful in tying all of these clues.”
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 42 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
