Did Indians battle Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto during trip through Wilcox County in 1540?

Hernando DeSoto

The other day I became part of a conversation about whether or not Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto was defeated by Indians during a battle that occurred when he passed through what would later become Wilcox County.

Sources say that DeSoto passed through Wilcox County in October 1540. DeSoto entered the county as part of an expedition to find gold in the unexplored areas of what we now call Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Georgia. According to the book, “Dead Towns of Alabama,” by W. Stuart Harris, DeSoto and his army passed through the Indian village of Humati on Oct. 7, 1540. Humati is said to have been located on the west bank of the Alabama River, just north of present-day Camden.

DeSoto’s journey continued on the following day – Oct. 8, 1540 – when he and his men arrived in the “ancient town” of Uxapita, according to Harris. This old Indian village was located at the mouth of Pursley Creek, where it runs into the Alabama River, about eight miles southwest of Camden.

Ten days later, on Oct. 18, DeSoto and his group of about 200 soldiers arrived at the Indian village of Maubila, where they fought a battle with around 2,500 Indians. Vastly outnumbered, 22 of DeSoto’s men were killed before the Spaniards fled the town, barely escaping with their lives.

The exact location of Maubila has been hotly debated for decades with many Alabama scholars claiming it was possibly in Clarke, Monroe, Dallas, Hale and Tuscaloosa counties. It is known that DeSoto was in Wilcox County just 10 days before the Battle of Maubila, and when you take into account how difficult it would have been for a large group of Spanish soldiers to travel through the undeveloped wilderness, you have to ask the question: Was Maubila located in Wilcox County?

During my conversation the other day with some local history enthusiasts, some of them proposed that this battle may have occurred at “Liddell’s Pasture,” which is now known as the Liddell Archeological Site. This 50-acre site on the Alabama River is located east of Camden, near the Millers Ferry Power House. Sources say that landowners donated this site to Auburn University in the 1960s, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on Nov. 17, 1978.

What’s particularly fascinating about this site is that it was occupied by Indians as far back as 9,000 BC – an amazing 9,000 years before Jesus walked the Earth. To put that into perspective, there were Indians living at the Liddell Site about 6,500 years before the pyramids were built in Egypt and about 6,000 years before Stonehenge was built in England. No doubt those ancient Indians left a lot behind from their occupation of this prehistoric site, including artifacts, relics and human remains.

In the end, I’ve never seen anything to indicate that Maubila was actually located at the Liddell Site or that DeSoto fought the Indians there. However, lack of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean that it didn’t happen. If anyone in the reading audience has any additional information about this subject, let me know because it would be important to pin down more facts about DeSoto’s travels through Wilcox County.