The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 36, July 1932 - April, 1933 Page: 84

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

his version of the story, calls this fort Fort Alibamo.6 The chron-
iclers also state that De Soto and his men came to an island village
Coste (also Costehe and Acoste), which was, perhaps, an upper
village of the Coshattis on the Tennessee River.7
After the passing of De Soto, these Indians are again lost to
view until the appearance of the French in the Gulf region. The
Alabamas and Coshattis, having moved eastward during the interval
of a century and more, were then living near the junction of the
Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, the two main tributaries of the Ala-
bama. Here, together with the neighboring Indians, Creeks, Choc-
taws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Mobilians, and others, the Alabamas
were trading with the Spanish at Pensacola, and across the Alle-
ghenies with the English of Carolina, exchanging their peltries for
lemburg cloth and blankets of white wool.8 Iberville, governor of
Louisiana, quick to see the value of this Indian trade in holding
the province for France, in 1702, established Fort Louis, the first
site of the present city of Mobile, where, with its easy water com-
munication inland by way of the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers,
could be debouched a vast Indian trade, once the friendship of the
Indians was gained. French presents and French promises had
their effect, and soon Mobilians, Choctaws, and many other tribes
were the friends and allies of the French. Not so the Alabamas.
In 1702, in 1704, and in 1708, they were at war with the French.9
In the last year the whole Creek Confederacy was aroused, probably
by the English, for the War of the Spanish Succession was then in
progress, and Creeks, Cherokees, Catawbas, and Alabamas descended
the river against the French at Mobile. But for some unknown
reason the contemplated attack was not made, and the Indians,
'Garcilaso de la Vega, La Florida del Inca Historia del Adelantado,
Hernando de Soto, Gobernador y Capitan General, del Reino de la Florida.
Y de Otros Heroicos Caballeros Espartoles, e Indios, Madrid, 1723, 173.
'Swanton, J. R., Early History of the Creek Indians and their Neighbors;
Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 73, 201-2.
sRowland and Sanders, eds., Mississippi Provincial Archives, 1729-40,
Jackson, 1927, 260-3.
9Rowland, Dunbar, ed., Mississippi Provincial Archives, 1768-6, Nash-
ville, 1911, 81-2; Rowland and Sanders, eds., Mississippi Provincial
Archives, 1729-40, I, 193; Martin, F. X., The History of Louisiana from
the Earliest Period, New Orleans, 1882, 104-18; Hamilton, Peter J.,
Colonial Mobile, Boston, 1897, 38-9, 43-4, 49-51, 59-61; Colonial Records
of North Carolina, Raleigh, 1886-90, II, 422.