Alabama researchers closing in on site of Spanish explorer's pivotal battle with Chief Tascalusa

Updated: Nov. 14, 2021, 8:54 a.m. | Published: Nov. 14, 2021, 7:00 a.m.

By Amy Yurkanin | ayurkanin@al.com

For a century, researchers have searched for the spot where Hernando de Soto’s Spanish explorers clashed with Chief Tascalusa’s warriors in a devastating battle that changed the course of Southern history.

Spanish survivors wrote about the Battle of Mabila in documents that survived the doomed expedition. But historians and archaeologists never found the exact location of the confrontation that killed hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of Native Americans.

Now archaeologist Ashley Dumas, a professor at University of West Alabama, has announced discoveries of Spanish and Native American artifacts at several sites in Marengo County, which sits between Montgomery and the Mississippi border. The newly-identified settlements are now believed to be the province of Mabila.

While the exact site of the battle still hasn’t been located, Dumas said the findings suggest it probably happened within a few miles of the territory identified by her team.
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The Battle of Mabila played a key role shaping Southern culture, Dumas said. De Soto led hundreds of men on an expedition throughout the region in search of treasure and land for colonization. At Mabila, they lost their treasure and supplies and encountered fierce resistance from Native warriors that turned them north into more inhospitable terrain. The few who survived the journey eventually made their way into Mexico with nothing to show for their efforts.

“It was a dramatic event and it marked a major turning point in European settlement of the southeast,” Dumas said. “The Battle of Mabila is the reason why we’re not speaking Spanish in the southeast today.”
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more: https://www.al.com/news/2021/11/alabama-researchers-closing-in-on-site-of-spanish-explorers-pivotal-battle-with-chief-tascalusa.html