Forty-eight years after Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, Hernando de Soto, a famed Spanish conquistador, would lead an expedition down the Alabama River and arrive at the town of Mabila. De Soto was about to partake in what would be the bloodiest battle on American soil before the US Civil War. This battle would be fought between the resident Mississippian Native Americans and de Soto’s Spaniards.
By the year 1540, de Soto and his army of six hundred men had made their way into present day Alabama, encountering numerous small Native American villages that were provinces of the fabled Chief Tascalusa. Almost immediately after meeting Tascalusa, de Soto would engage in his usual motus operandi. This consisted of taking a chief hostage to secure his army safe passage through the area. This same strategy would be utilized to imprison Tascalusa. However, this act enraged Tascalusa’s people. Due to the almost unstoppable power which the armed conquistadors wielded, Tascalusa negotiated with de Soto and promised to supply him and his army at the town of Mabila.
As stated in an article by John Sledge, Mabila was “a small and very strongly palisaded town,” consisting of eighty buildings with two gates and a few spaced towers. After the Spanish’s arrival at the town, Tascalusa attempted to distract de Soto and his men by ordering twenty women to dance for them. While they were dancing, Tascalusa excused himself and denied de Soto’s orders to come back. At the same time, Native Americans began streaming out of huts and over walls while casting down a folly of arrows. Due to the close proximity of engagement which made horseback fighting impractical, de Soto ordered his men outside of the town. Arrows were flying non-stop, hitting men and horses alike, and the rest of de Soto’s army arrived to see the Mabilians taunting them.
In his article titled “Searching for Mabila,” K. Kris Hirst states that “the Spanish fled the palisade, mounted their horses and encircled the town, and for the next two days and nights, a fierce battle was played out.” The Mabilians would be drawn outside their protected walls under the guise of a fake Spaniard retreat. Subsequently, upon the realization of the false retreat and now being under attack, many of the Mabilians began fleeing in all directions. The rest of the Mabilians remained inside the town’s walls. De Soto would give his men a dire directive to “attack from all sides and burn the town,” as stated by Sledge. The entire town would be burnt beyond recognition, resulting in the deaths of over twenty-five hundred Native Americans. In addition, “[twenty] Spanish were killed and over 250 wounded,” as stated by Hirst, with Chief Tascalusa presumably being consumed by the flames.
In the aftermath of the battle, de Soto and his army scavenged the town of Mabila for another month before marching his army north. It is then that the realization of what the new world in North America had to offer likely came about. As Sledge explains, “Mabila did not destroy him, but it dashed his hope. These newly discovered chiefdoms did not contain riches like Mexico or Peru, only corn and mounds and a defiant people determined to die free.” For many years, the exact site of the battle was unknown. As of today, however, many believe Dr. Ashley Dumas and her team of University of West Alabama students have found the fabled site of Mabila. After documenting precise locations of pottery shards, metal remnants, and other sixteenth century artifacts utilizing GPS technology, the GPS coordinates helped Dumas and her team pinpoint 141 definite farmsteads that help support the site as being one of Chief Tascalusa’s provinces.
The results of this battle, as stated by historian John Sledge in his article titled “The Battle of Mabila,” are not fully conclusive. More research and scholarship is needed, yet hopefully ongoing, in order to understand the legacy and importance of the first battle between New World Conquistadors and Native Americans in our area today.
Additional resources
- Hirst, K. Kris. “Searching for Mabila.” ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/mabila-battle-de-soto-chief-tascalusa-171575.
- Sledge, John. “The Battle of Mabila.” MobileBay, Oct. 22, 2021,https://mobilebaymag.com/the-battle-of-mabila/
About the author
Logan Padgett is a junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is majoring in history.
