redneck_billcollector
Purveyor Of Fine Spirits
As long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated with De Soto's exploration of the southeast. This is easy to understand due to the fact I spent my youth (what some would call my formative years) along the banks, swamps and piney woods of the Ochlockonee River and the lower Flint River, the two rivers De Soto followed to reach, what scholars refer to as the interior of the southeast when writing about his travels. From what I can gather, the Capachequi "Kingdom" or Chiefdom was the first native community that he encountered in what is now Georgia.
Being born in Albany GA, and spending most of my adult life in Albany, this particular Chiefdom has added interest for me. The location of the Capachequi Chiefdom is associated with the Chickasawhatchee Swamp which is a roughly 335 square mile swamp southwest and west of Albany in Dougherty, Baker, Calhoun and Terrell counties. There are a couple of mound sites, to include the Mound site on Magnolia Plantation that are associated with the Capachequi Chiefdom, though there is little, if any archeological research definitively linking these sites with the Chiefdom that I can find.
The Capachequi were apparently a very warlike society and there is a passage or two in the various journals produced during De Soto's travels that bear this out. Around March 6 or 7, 1540, after leaving their winter camp near present day Tallahassee and encountering no native communities in the longleaf pine/wiregrass savannas he traveled through after leaving the Ochlockonee River , DeSoto's party found itself in what is now present-day Mitchell Co. on the east bank of the roughly (at the time) 250 foot wide, deep and rapidly flowing Flint River (that is generally when the Flint is annually at its highest flow) near present day Newton (in Baker Co). Apparently not knowing about some potentially easier places to cross the Flint River further north and a shortage of food and hearing about the fertile fields across the river, they built a crude boat and experienced a very tumultuous river crossing which they did not complete until March 10.
The next day, on March 11, they came upon the southern side of the Chickasawhatchee Swamp and their first town of the Capachequi Chiefdom, whose inhabitants fled into the swamp at the appearance of DeSoto's men. On March 12 a party of five Spaniards went to try to scrounge a wooden mortar to grind some corn they took from the abandoned town and encountered five warriors from the town (possibly from a second town they could see across a swampy section that they could not cross due to high water). A fight ensued with one Spaniard being killed and three wounded, with apparently no natives known to be harmed. From what I can tell, this is one of the first military "defeats" suffered by DeSoto's men on his journey.
One interesting fact is that the journals mention that these natives constructed raised wooden foot trails through many swampy areas similar to what we have today for trails in some of our parks and nature areas. That is about the extent of what I can find out about the Chiefdom of Capachequi that is not speculation since there is very little scholarly work on this group of people. If anyone knows of more materials, please point me in the right direction and post it here.
Being born in Albany GA, and spending most of my adult life in Albany, this particular Chiefdom has added interest for me. The location of the Capachequi Chiefdom is associated with the Chickasawhatchee Swamp which is a roughly 335 square mile swamp southwest and west of Albany in Dougherty, Baker, Calhoun and Terrell counties. There are a couple of mound sites, to include the Mound site on Magnolia Plantation that are associated with the Capachequi Chiefdom, though there is little, if any archeological research definitively linking these sites with the Chiefdom that I can find.
The Capachequi were apparently a very warlike society and there is a passage or two in the various journals produced during De Soto's travels that bear this out. Around March 6 or 7, 1540, after leaving their winter camp near present day Tallahassee and encountering no native communities in the longleaf pine/wiregrass savannas he traveled through after leaving the Ochlockonee River , DeSoto's party found itself in what is now present-day Mitchell Co. on the east bank of the roughly (at the time) 250 foot wide, deep and rapidly flowing Flint River (that is generally when the Flint is annually at its highest flow) near present day Newton (in Baker Co). Apparently not knowing about some potentially easier places to cross the Flint River further north and a shortage of food and hearing about the fertile fields across the river, they built a crude boat and experienced a very tumultuous river crossing which they did not complete until March 10.
The next day, on March 11, they came upon the southern side of the Chickasawhatchee Swamp and their first town of the Capachequi Chiefdom, whose inhabitants fled into the swamp at the appearance of DeSoto's men. On March 12 a party of five Spaniards went to try to scrounge a wooden mortar to grind some corn they took from the abandoned town and encountered five warriors from the town (possibly from a second town they could see across a swampy section that they could not cross due to high water). A fight ensued with one Spaniard being killed and three wounded, with apparently no natives known to be harmed. From what I can tell, this is one of the first military "defeats" suffered by DeSoto's men on his journey.
One interesting fact is that the journals mention that these natives constructed raised wooden foot trails through many swampy areas similar to what we have today for trails in some of our parks and nature areas. That is about the extent of what I can find out about the Chiefdom of Capachequi that is not speculation since there is very little scholarly work on this group of people. If anyone knows of more materials, please point me in the right direction and post it here.
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Heck there's even disagreement over the landing site. Port Charlotte northward to Tampa. I like the Manatee River site landing idea, grew up across the river. Only site that seems to have the most agreement is the N FL winter camp where so many artifacts were found just east of Tallahassee, at that construction site.
