Chief Tuskaloosa
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Tuskalusa aka Tuskaloosa was a chief of a Mississippian group, the ancestors of the many southern Native American tribes (Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee), in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. He is famous for leading a battle against the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto. The modern-day city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is named for this Native American chief.
Hernando de Soto was appointed Governor of Cuba by Carlos I of Spain and was directed to conquer what is now the Southern United States. De Soto landed near Tampa, Florida with 600-1,000 men and 200 horses and began a circuitous and often violent exploration of modern-day Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. One technique of the conquistadors was to take a local chief hostage to guarantee their safe passage.
Rumors of vast stores of gold led de Soto into Alabama and to Tuskaloosa and the Choctaws. Tales of the expedition's brutality apparently heightened Tuskaloosa's suspicions, and he planned an ambush at the walled city, which the Spanish dubbed Maubila or Mauvila. It is speculated that de Soto planned to take Tuskaloosa as a hostage. Instead, a fierce battle broke out when a Spanish swordsman slashed the back of a Choctaw man, and the waiting Choctaw force of between 2,000 and 6,000 ambushed de Soto's men on the central plaza. The Spaniards fought their way out only to attack the city over and over again. In this battle that lasted nine hours, eighty-two Spaniards were slain, or died in a few days after the engagement. Maubila was burned down, and the entire Choctaw fighting force was killed either in battle, in the subsequent fires, or by suicide.
Among these lost or killed were Diego De Soto, the nephew of the Governor; Don Carlos Enriquez, who had married his niece; and Men-Rodriquez, a cavalier of Portugal, who had served with distinction in Africa and upon the Portuguese frontiers. Forty-five horses were slain -- an irreparable loss. All the camp material and baggage were consumed in the house where the Indians stored it, except that of Captain Andres de Vasconellos, which arrived late in the evening. All the clothes, medicines, instruments, books, much of the armor, all the pearls, the relics and robes of the priests, their flour and wine, used in the holy sacrament, with a thousand other things which a wilderness could not supply, perished in the flames. The Mobilians were nearly all destroyed. Garcellasso asserts that over eleven thousand were slain. He claims that 2,500 were killed within the walls alone.
[edit] Other sites and personages encountered by the De Soto Expedition
- Cofitachequi
- Anhaica
- Coosa
- Pacaha
- Casqui
- Moundville Archaeological Site
- Etowah Indian Mounds
- Hernando de Soto
- Mississippian culture
- platform mound
- Southeastern Ceremonial Complex
