University of Virginia Library

17. XVI.
HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

Sustained and reassured by the return of his lieutenant, Laudonniere,
released from his bonds, proceeded to re-organize his
garrison. He promoted those who had proved faithful when all
threatened to be false, and deprived the doubtful, or the dangerous,
of all their previous trusts. To improve and strengthen his
forts, to build vessels, which were to supply the places of those
which the mutineers had taken, and others of smaller burthen for
the express navigation of the river, were his immediate cares, in
all of which his progress was considerable. During this period
he lived on relations of tolerable amity with his Indian neighbors.
Their little crops had, by this time, been harvested, and they
were not unwilling to exchange their surplus productions for the
objects of European manufacture which they coveted. The supplies
brought by the red-men were “fish, deere, turki-cocks,
leopards, little beares, and other things, according to the place of
their habitation,” for which they were recompensed with “certaine
hatchets, knives, beades of glasse, combs, and lookingglasses.”
The “leopards and little beares” were probably wild
cats and raccoons, or opossums, all of which furnished excellent
feeding to our hungry Frenchmen in September. The wild-cat

is usually a fat beast, differing very considerably from the more
savage tribes to whom we liken him, the wolf and the panther;
while the opossum is probably the fattest of all animals at seasons
when the forest mast is abundant. Of the quality of the meat
we will say nothing. To those with whom the appetite has been
made properly subservient to the taste, and who suffer from no
necessities, his flavor is scarcely such as legitimates his admission
into the kitchen. But the case is far otherwise with those inferior
tribes with whom the appetites are coarse and eager. The negro
is seldom so well satisfied as when he feeds on 'possum. “'Possum,”
is the common remark among this people, “'possum heap
better than pig!” To those who know how high is the estimate
which the negro sets upon the pig family—an estimate which is
the occasion of an epidemic under which a fat pig, straying into
the woods in June and July, is sure to perish—the compliment is
inappreciable.

Thus, feeding well, with his health and self-esteem gradually
recovering, Laudonniere began to resume his explorations, and to
cast his eyes about him with his old desire for precious discoveries
It was about this time that he was visited by a couple of savages
from the dominions of King Maracou. This potentate dwelt
some forty leagues to the south of La Caroline. The Indians,
among other matters, related to Laudonniere that, in the service
of another native monarch named Onathaqua, there was a man
whom they called “Barbu, or the bearded man,” who was not of
the people of the country. Another foreigner, whose name they
knew not, was said to inhabit the house of King Mathiaca, a
forest chieftain, whose tribes occupied a contiguous region. From
the descriptions thus given him, Laudonniere readily conceived
that these strange men were Christians. He accordingly opened

a communication with the tribes by which the intermediate
country was occupied, and under the stimulus of a liberal
recompense, promised them in European goods, the two strangers
were brought in safety to La Caroline. The conjecture of
Laudonniere proved rightly founded. They were white men and
Christians—Spaniards who had suffered shipwreck some fifteen
years before, upon the flats called “The Martyrs,” and
over and against that region of the country, which at this
period was called Calos—from a great native prince of that
name.[1] This savage repaired to the wreck, and carried off into
captivity its crew and passengers. Many of these were women,
who became the wives of their conquerors. The king of Calos,
whom a Spaniard described as the “goodliest and the tallest
Indian of the country, a mighty man, a warrior, and having many
subjects under his obedience,” not only saved the Europeans
from their wreck, but, by diligent and indefatigable perseverance,
rescued most of the treasure that was in the vessel; the wealth
which had been gleaned with unsparing cruelties from the bowels
of the earth in Peru and Mexico. The treasures thus obtained
by King Calos, were represented to be of almost limitless value.
“He had great store of golde and silver, so farre forth that, in a
certaine village, he had a pit full thereof, which was at the least
as high as a man, and as large as a tunne.” According to our
Spaniards, it might be easy, “with an hundred shot,” to obtain all
this spoil; to say nothing of the scattered treasures which might
be gleaned from the common people of the country. That the extent
of their resources might not be under-valued, the captive Christians
farther informed him, that the young women of the country,
when engaged in their primitive dances, assembled to their
festivities in a glorious costume, such as would be an irresistible
charm in any European assembly. They were not only lovely
in themselves, with their dark beauties partially unfolded to the
gaze, and the tawny hues enlivened by the warm lustre of the
sun, shining in crimson flushes through the prevailing hue of the
complexion, but they wore, suspended from their girdles, plates
of gold, large as a saucer, the number and weight of which
would have totally impeded the action as well as agility of any
but a people so exquisitely and vigorously proportioned. The
men wore similar decorations, though not perhaps in such great
profusion. This gold, according to their account, was derived
chiefly from vessels cast away—the coasts of the territory of
King Calos being particularly treacherous, and their secret, lurking
shoals frequently rising up suddenly to rob the king of Spain
of his hardly-won ingots. The residue of his wealth in the precious
metals, King Calos derived from the kings and chiefs of the
interior. Perhaps more of it was obtained in this way than our
Spaniards knew. There can be no doubt but that the mines of
the great Apalachian ranges were explored, however imperfectly,
by the red-men of the country, following, in all probability, some
superior races, who first taught them where to look, and of whom
we have now but the most imperfect vestiges.

Among the articles of traffic, which the people of Calos sold to
the interior tribes, was a domestic root, constituting a favorite
bread-stuff which was particularly grateful to the palates of their
people. This is described as forming a fine flour, than which it
it is impossible to find better, and as supplying the wants of an
immense tract of country. It was undoubtedly the breadstuff

known as coonti in modern periods. This, and a species of date,
taken from a sort of palm tree—the persimmon probably—were
commodities in which they dealt to great extent. Of the root
from which they made their favorite breadstuff, it is written, that
the proprietors were very slow to part with, unless well paid for
it. The people of King Calos are probably to be traced through
a thousand fluctuations of place, character and fortune, to the
Seminoles of recent periods—a like people, living in the same
region, and rejoicing in the same fruits and freedom.

Of this King Calos, the narrative of our Spaniards goes farther,
passing finally into the province of the miraculous. He is described
as a prince held in special reverence by his subjects;—not simply
for his valor as a soldier, or his wisdom as a ruler, but his
wondrous powers as a magician. He seems to have combined the
civil and the religious powers of the nation—to have been priest
and prophet as well as Governor. The government of his country,
like that of simple nations generally, was theocratic and patriarchal.
His people were taught to believe that it was through
his spells and incantations, that the earth brought forth her
fruits. He resorted to various arts to perpetuate this faith, and
various cruelties to subdue and punish that spirit of inquiry which
might test too closely the propriety of his spiritual claims.
Twice a year he retired from the sight of all his subjects, two or
three of his friends alone excepted, and was supposed, at this season,
to be busy with his mighty sorceries. Woe to the unlucky
wretch who, whether purposely or by accident, intruded upon his
mysteries. The dwelling to which he had resort was tabooed on
every hand; and death, with the most fearful penalties, stood
warningly at all the avenues by which it was approached. Each
year a prisoner was sacrificed to the savage god he served; and

this prisoner, so long as Barbu had been a captive, had been a
Spaniard always—the supply being sufficient, from the frequency
of wrecks upon the coast, by which an adequate number of captives
was always to be had. The dominions of Calos are described as
lying along a river, beyond the cape of Florida, forty or fifty leagues
towards the southwest; while those of Onathaqua were nearer to
La Caroline, on the northern side of the cape, “in a place which
we call in the chart, Cannaverel, which is in 28 degreees.”

When the two Spaniards were brought before Laudonniere they
were entirely naked. Their hair hung below their loins, as did
that of the savages; and so completely had they become accustomed
to the habits of the red-men, that the resumption of the
costume of civilization was not only strange but irksome. But
Laudonniere was not disposed to permit their acquired habits to
supersede those of their origin. He caused the hair of his newlyfound
Christians to be shorn, as heedless of the loss of strength
which might follow as ever was Dalilah while docking the long
locks of her giant lover. It was with great reluctance that the
wild men submitted to this shearing. When the hair was finally
taken off they insisted upon preserving it, and rolling it in linen
put it away carefully, to be shown in Europe as a proof of their
wild and cruel experience. In removing the shock from one of
them, a little treasure of gold was found hidden in its masses, to
the value of five-and-twenty crowns, by which the Spaniard
conclusively proved that one portion of his Spanish education had
never deserted him. What a commentary upon the wisdom of
civilization, that, in such a state, with such bonds, after such
losses, of freedom, position, and the society of all the well-beloved
and equal, his heart should still yearn for the keeping of a treasure
which must, at every moment, have only served to mock

the possessor with the dearer treasures of home, country, friends,
religion, of which his fortunes had made utter forfeit. But let us
pass to the narrative of Barbu, himself—one of the recovered
Spaniards—which we owe, in some degree to history, but mostly
to tradition.