southeastern Illinois (opposite St. Louis), Cahokia, the greatest of all Mis-
sissippian sites, flourishing between ca. and .., had resembled
a complex city of walls, enormous mounds, canals, fortifications, and per-
haps , inhabitants. The onset of the so-called Little Ice Age, plus
Cahokia’s exhausting demands on surrounding forests, must have contrib-
uted to this remarkable civilization’s decline and abandonment. Yet three
centuries later—in warmer, more heavily forested locales on either side of
the great river—more diminutive variations on Cahokia thrived still. Their
prodigious crops of corn, beans, and squashes were more than sufficient, it
seems, for the trading of surpluses for the few things the oxbow towns did
not already possess—chert and flint, for instance, for arrowheads and cut-
ting tools. Like the Cahokians, these sixteenth-century river peoples were
farmers, hunters, builders, traders, players of games, heroic canoeists, and
fearsome warriors.
Charging from one Quizquiz town to another, largely frustrated in his
search for provisions and his demands of subchiefs for boats to cross the
Mississippi, de Soto at last encountered the paramount chief, Aquijo. The
Spanish were at labor building their own boats while de Soto strode about
on a bluff, when Aquijo appeared on the river leading a flotilla of
large dugout canoes containing perhaps , warriors, all painted red
with ocher and decorated with many-colored feathers. Archers, some bear-
ing shields of cane woven tightly enough to withstand European cross-
bow bolts, stood at the ready between pairs of paddlers. Aquijo and native
notables rode in the sterns of the largest canoes, shaded and protected by
canopies. Closely massed, the fleet drew close to shore. Aquijo (through
de Soto’s translator) delivered a friendly sounding welcome and sent the
Spanish gifts of fishes and fruit-bread. De Soto, ever treacherous, invited
the great chief ashore, but Aquijo, unresponsive, ordered all his craft away.
Spanish crossbowmen loosed their bolts and killed several paddlers, but
the fleet achieved a safe distance with brave discipline. The Spanish then re-
sumed their boat construction and, several weeks later, succeeded in cross-
ing the river and landing in present-day Arkansas.
Here de Soto became entangled in the deadly rivalry between Casqui and
Pacaha. Following a betrayal and bloody recriminations, de Soto left the
riverine territory with the Casqui chief ’s daughter and one of the Pacaha
chief ’s own wives, his sister, and another Pacaha noblewoman—all peace-
making gifts reflecting sensibilities that impressed the Spaniards as very
European. They went north, following a rumor (yet again) of gold. Find-
ing none, the Spanish returned briefly to Casqui and, reprovisioned, made