As you can see from previous blog Juan Pardo pretty much followed the same path of de Soto, visting some of the same towns, in particular the Cofitachequi, Ylasi, etc.,and mixing with the Native Women of the same tribes as de Soto and de Ayllon. Over a thousand men just in those three expeditions leaving European and African DNA in Natives from South Carolina to Alabama.
Hiking Through History- National Park Service
Bates Ferry Trail follows a historic road that dates back to when South Carolina was a British colony. Like other roads, it is possible that this path predates European settlement.
In 1540, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto passed through here on his way to Cofitachequi, the seat of power for a regional chiefdom. Later explorers, including Juan Pardo and John Lawson left important accounts of the landscape and the cultures that lived in the area.
The Lady of Cofitachequi offered to allow de Soto and his soldiers to inspect the contents of her temples that contained many pearls and other objects of interest, in the temple of Cofitachequi, De Soto found more than 200 pounds of pearls and an abundance of deerskins. He also found a variety of European items including a knife or dirk, glass beads, rosaries, and Biscayan axes. All members of the expedition agreed that these materials must have originated from Ayllon's 1526 expedition (Elvas 1904: 66-67; Biedma 1904: 14; Ranjel 1904: 101
Pardo visited the Cofitachequi and Henry Woodward was the last to have contact with them in 1672, by 1683 the Cofitachequi had disappeared,. Had they became the Saura/Cheraw, the Catawba? In 1775 Dragging Canoe of the Cherokee said; ""Whole Indian Nations have melted away like snowballs in the sun before the white man's advance. They leave scarcely a name of our people except those wrongly recorded by their destroyers."
Last mention of record of the Cofitachequi in 1681 was John Lawson while exploring the Wateree/Catawba Valley in 1701 and found a 'group of people' called the Congaree living on the land where last seen was the Cofitachequi.
It is noteworthy that on the earliest English maps of the Carolinas, the Pee Dee-Yadkin River is called the "Watere River," as for example, on the Joel Gascoyne map of 1682. HERE
It would appear the Cofitachequi town, at leastone of them, was on the Pee Dee.
On January 7, 1568 Pardo departed Guatari, heading for Aracuchi. The force traveled for five days making the five leagues per day, thus covering twenty-five leagues in all. At Aracuchi Pardo decided to split his party up, sending one group on south to Cofitachequi, while the other group on south to Cofitachequi, while he would take the other group towards the east to Ylasi.
In five days they made twenty leagues thus placing Ylasi somewhere in the vicinity of *Cheraw, South Carolina.
Page 155
Society, Florida Historical (1983) "Florida Historical Quarterly, Volume 62, Number 2," Florida Historical Quarterly: Vol. 62 : No. 2 , Article 1. Page 155
"The [Congarees] are kind and affable to the English ... [Although] their Tribes and Nations border one upon the other, yet you may discern as great an Alterartion in their Features and Dispostitions, as you can in their Speech, which generally proves quite different from each other, though their Nations are not above 10 or 20 miles in Distance." - John Lawson -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOARA
Joara the largest Mississippian-culture settlement within the current boundaries of North Carolina, just north of Morganton was established about AD 1000. In 1540 the party of Hernando De Soto recorded encountering the people at this chiefdom site. De Soto's 1540 expedition also noted the Chalaque people in the area near Joara.
JOARA AND FORT SAN JUAN: COLONIALISM AND HOUSEHOLD PRACTICE AT THE BERRY SITE, NORTH CAROLINA [Tulane University]
*Cheraw is located at the head of navigation of the Great Pee Dee River. Before the arrival of European settlers, the Cheraw Indians maintained a village near the site. Decimated by smallpox in the 1730s, the Cheraws abandoned the region, leaving only their name at the small trading village.
According to these arguments, the people of the Cofitachiqui spoke either a Muskhogean or a Siouan language. If they spoke Muskhogean, they were likely related to the Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama, and they probably migrated westward in the late seventeenth century. If, however, they spoke a Siouan language, then the Catawba and related tribes are probably descendants of the chiefdom.
How come no one tells you that? Not the DNA Study. Not the MHA. Not the countless articles and books they put out.
