Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/79

 HISTORY OP SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 19 or burial place in which had been deposited the remains of the ancestors of the cliief, the great men of the tribe and the tro])hies won by them in war. The Casquins broke open this sacred place, stripped arms and trophies from the walls, heaped insult and abuse on the dead bodies contained within it, trampled upon the bones and scattered them upon the ground. They replaced the heads of .slain enemies, some of them C'asciuins, with these of freshly slain Capahas. There was no in- sult or indignity which the minds of savages could devise which was not put upon all that the Capahas held sacred. Now these outrages were committed, we are told, before the arrival of De Soto and his men. They were in the rear and came to the village only in time to save it from utter destruction as the maddened Casquins were proceeding to fire the houses. De Soto re- sented these actions, for he was impressed with the evidences of the power of the Capa- has and learning of the presence of the chief on the island to which he had fled, he sent envoys there to disavow the actions of his savage allies, and to beg for a friendly alli- ance with him. These envoys were not re- ceived by the Capaha chief, and De Soto learned that he was making every eit'ort to gather warriors that he miglit take vengeance for the outrages inflicted upon his village. Accordingly De Soto prepared to attack the Capahas on their island. He caused to be gathered all the available canoes and, filling these with his own men and the warriors of the Casquins, he made an attack on the island. He found that the Capahas had for- tified themselves strongly, and it was only with great difficulty that he was able to effect a landing at all. The Casquins were unwill- ing to fight and, after a brief engagement, retreated to their canoes leaving the brunt of the battle to fall upon the Spaniards. It was only after a desperate struggle that De Soto and his men were able to retreat from the island and make their way back to the village. In fact, it seems they would not have been able to embark in their canoes at all had not the Capaha chief ordered his men not to press their attack upon the Spaniards and allowed them to depart. De Soto was very )iuieh displeased because of the cowardly desertion of the Casquins and when on the following day envoys arrived from the Capahas, asking for peace and sig- nifying the desire of their cacique to visit liira. he determined to accept the otfered friendsliip and agree to an amnesty despite the objections of the Casquins. The cacique of the Cascpiins feeling the displeasure of De Soto and fearing to lose the lielp of such powerful allies as the Spaniards had proved themselves to be, attempted to appease the Adelantado (as De Soto is called by the chroniclers) by gifts of skins and even of his daughter as handmaid. In spite of these evidences of friendship, De Soto was distrustful of the cacique and contrasted his conduct most unfavorably with that of the Capaha, and he caused the cacique to send most of his warriors home. On the day appointed the Capaha chief, ac- companied by a hundred of his warriors, dressed in liandsome skins and beautiful plumes came to pay his court to De Soto. He proved to be a young man of noble and splen- did hearing with handsome face and physique. He was vastly moved by the indignities which had been otfered to his dead, and his first care was to gather the scattered bones, and return them reverently to their resting place. He then sought De Soto who came forth to meet him accompanied by the Casquin. He brought presents for the Adelantado,