Clarksville History Bytes
DeSoto Visits Clarksville!
...Sunday the eight of May (1541 A.D.), when they arrived at the first town of Quizqui (Clarksville); and they took them unexpectedly (under a nearly Full Moon) and captured many people (women and children) and cloths (probably during a dawn raid)..." DeSoto had stayed too long in Chicasa; April showers probably kept him there, which would account for the army's complaint about bad roads and swamps beyond. The trail north from Alabamu Barricade led through narrow valleys and creek bed forests; horseback warfare's worst scenario.
DeSoto crossed the Cumberland River just east of today's Highway 48 Bridge below Clarksville; the only place on that river's run with no high bluffs on either side. That fording place, on the Indian trail which DeSoto followed from Lawrenceburg, would become a ferry crossing before the Civil War. Union soldiers would cross there, too, but headed down the trail. DeSoto found a village at Clarksville: "He reached the town of Quizquiz without being perceived. He seized all the people of the town (women and children) before they got out of their houses (the men were in the fields at the time)... Inasmuch as his men were ill and weary for lack of corn, and the horses were also weak, DeSoto determined to (try to get along when the Indian men returned on news of his invasion)... So he ordered the (Chief's) mother and all the others released, and sent them with words of kindness... many Indians came with their bows and arrows with intention of attacking the Christians. The governor ordered all the horsemen to be armed and mounted (Indians had never seen such weapons of war)... When the Indians saw that we were on guard (with overwhelming strength) they stopped a crossbow flight from the spot where the governor was, near a stream (they stopped near the Cumberland River's ravine just west of today's Clarksville; well back from the horsemen)... and said they came to see what people we were and that they had learned from their ancestors that a white race would inevitably subdue them... and after offering skins and blankets... together with the others who were waiting on the shore, returned (to their canoes: DeSoto had performed dramatic shows of force elsewhere to intimidate the natives). Inasmuch as there was little corn in the town where the governor was, he moved to another..."
"One league from this town was found another (New Providence) with much corn, and then, after another league, another, likewise with much corn (in the flats of today's Fort Campbell Army Airport at the Tennessee-Kentucky State Line)."