Mabila

A MISSISSIPPIAN town located in central present-day Alabama, Mabila served as the location in which the paramount chief Tascaluza ambushed Hernando de Soto’s expedition in 1540.

During Soto’s march through Alabama in 1540, he continually forced Natives to serve as porters and slaves of his entrada. Additionally, his army devoured food reserves of the towns through which it passed, thus guaranteeing a time of starvation for those unfortunate enough to encounter this expedition. Responding to the high-handed manner in which Soto’s army moved through the territory and after he had been taken hostage by Soto, the paramount chief Tascaluza laid plans to ambush the Spaniards at the town of Mabila.

On the secret orders of Tascaluza, the Natives took time in the weeks before Soto’s arrival at Mabila to strengthen the palisades that surrounded the town and to clear the area immediately surrounding the town of all underbrush. Warriors from surrounding towns and chiefdoms gathered and hid in the village awaiting the arrival of the Spanish. Being wary of his host and captive, Tascaluza, Soto had the town reconnoitered so he knew in advance about the ambush. After the army arrived at Mabila on the morning of October 18, 1540, the battle began when one of Soto’s soldiers entered a building to capture Tascaluza and discovered it filled to the rafters with armed warriors. In the end the Mabilians and their allies could not resist the mounted soldiers on the open ground outside of town, and as a result they retreated to the safety of the walls of the town. Eventually the Spanish broke through the palisades and began to burn the town while they slaughtered the warriors. The Mabilians and their allies had the Spanish outnumbered by as many as 20 or 25 to one, but the cramped interior of the town and metal armor and weapons gave the Spanish the tactical advantage. The battle lasted nine hours. Soto’s army suffered 22 killed and 148 wounded. The Mabilians and their allies suffered as many as 3,000 dead and perhaps as many as 1,000 wounded. The fight with the Mabilians was the worst confrontation encountered by the Soto entrada after their battles with the Apalachee in Florida a year earlier and before their future encounter with the Natchez. This battle severely hindered the expedition. From this point forward there would be a steady drain on its manpower. The Natives of central present-day Alabama were devastated by this incident, and it was still evident to Tristan de Luna when his expedition moved into the region 20 years later.

Further reading: Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, Jr., and Edward C. Moore, eds., The de Soto Chronicles: The Expedition of Hernando de Soto to North America in 1539-1543, 2 vols. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1993); Charles Hudson, “The Hernando de Soto Expedition, 1539-1543,” in The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521-1704, eds. Charles Hudson and Carmen Chaves Tesser (Athens:

University of Georgia Press, 1994), 74-103;-, Knights

Of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s Ancient Chiefdoms (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997).

—Dixie Ray Haggard