Chief Tuscaloosa
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Tuscaloosa (d. ca. 1540), also called Tuskaloosa, was a chief of the Choctaw tribe in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. He is famous for leading a battle against conquistador Hernando de Soto. The modern-day city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is named for this Choctaw chief.
The conquistador Hernando de Soto was appointed governor of Cuba by Charles I of Spain and was directed to conquer what is now the Southern United States. De Soto landed near Tampa with 600-1000 men and 200 horses and began a circuitous and often violent exploration of modern-day Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. One technique of the conquistadors was to take a local chief as a hostage to guarantee their safe passage.
Rumors of vast stores of gold led de Soto into Alabama and to Tuscaloosa and the Choctaws. Tales of the expedition's brutality apparently heightened Tuscaloosa's suspicions, and he planned an ambush at the walled city the Spanish dubbed Mabila or Mauvila. It is speculated that de Soto planned to take Tuscaloosa as a hostage. Instead, a fierce battle broke out when a Spanish swordsman slashed the back of a Choctaw man, and the waiting Choctaw force of between 2000 and 6000 ambushed de Soto's men on the central plaza. The Spaniards fought their way out only to attack the city over and over again. In this battle that lasted nine hours, eighty-two Spaniards were slain, or died in a few days after the engagement. Mabila was burned down, and the entire Choctaw fighting force was killed either in battle, in the subsequent fires, or by suicide.
Among these lost or killed were Diego De Soto the nephew of the Governor; Don Carlos Enriquez, who had married his niece; and Men-Rodriquez, a cavalier of Portugal, who had served with distinction in Africa and upon the Portuguese frontiers. Forty-five horses were slain -- an irreparable loss. All the camp equipage and baggage were consumed in the house where the Indians stored it, except that of Captain Andres de Vasconellos, which arrived late in the evening. All the clothes, medicines, instruments, books, much of the armor, all the pearls, the relics and robes of the priests, their flour and wine, used in the holy sacrament, with a thousand other things which a wilderness could not supply, perished in the flames. The Mobilians were nearly all destroyed. Garcellasso asserts that above eleven thousand were slain. The Portuguese Gentleman sets down the number at two thousand five hundred killed within the walls alone. Assuming a point between the two estimates, it is safe to say that at least six thousand were killed in the town and upon the plains, or were afterwards found dead in the woods.
Some authors disagree as to the fate of Tuscaloosa -- one contending that he was consumed in the flames, and another that he decamped upon the arrival of Moscoso, at the solicitation of his people, attended by a small guard, and laden with rich Spanish spoils.
It is more probable that the Black Warrior remained in his capital, desiring not to survive the downfall of his people.
Although the name may be connected to the Mobile River, it was probably inland from the modern-day city of Mobile.
