Our Cat/1olic Heritage i11, Texas
on the Mississippi. Here they found that there was little or no corn and this filled them with dismay, for without maize they could not subsist through the winter. Fortunately the Indians of Anilco informed the Spaniards of a province called Aminoya, located above the old mouth of the Ouachita River in Louisiana, 45 which was immediately attacked and subdued. A sufficient supply of maize was found, besides a plentiful During the winter seven brigantines were built with much labor and under circumstances as trying as those experienced by Narvaez. The chains of the slaves, the stirrups, and every available piece of iron that could be spared were melted to make spikes; the Portuguese sailor taught the men how to saw the lumber; the Genoese, the only person who knew how to construct vessels, built the ships with the help of four or five Biscayan carpenters; and the cooper, the only one in the expedition, succeeded in making two half hogsheads . for each· one of the seven vessels in spite of his serious illness, which had made him "very thin and unfit for labor." Provisions were gathered at a great sacrifice. The maize the natives had was all taken without regard for their want so that "compelled by hunger [they] had to beg some ears of corn that had been taken from them. As the country was very fertile, they were accustomed to subsist on maize; and as all they possessed had been seized, and the population was numerous, they could not exist. Those who came to the town were weak, and so lean that they had no flesh on their bones, and many died nearby, of nothing but hunger and weakness." The governor had ordered, however, under heavy penalty that no maize should be given them. It was a matter of stern necessity. At last spring came and the floods. Everything was in readiness for the trip down the river to the gulf and on to New Spain. All the maize was loaded on the ships, twenty-two of the best horses still alive were put on board and the others killed and jerked. The hogs were slaughtered and salted. On July 2, 1543, three hundred and twenty-two Spaniards boarded the seven vessels, taking with them about one hundred Indian slaves and started down the stream. Behind them they left about "five hundred males and females, among whom were many boys and girls who understood and spoke Spanish. The most of them wept, which caused supply of timber well suited for shipbuilding. Moscoso and liis nzen reacli New Spain. 4 5Lewis, "Narrative of the Expedition of De Soto," in Spanish Explorers in tl,e Sout/rern United States, 1528-1543, 248, note 1. J. R. Fordyce, who has made a lifelong study of this subject, says Lewis' location is impossible.
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