Quigualtam
[1] The journals of the Spanish expedition of Hernando de Soto record their encounter with a powerful chiefdom located on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River several days journey below the polity of Guachoya (in present-day Chicot County, Arkansas).
De Soto interrogated the chief about the societies living downstream, hoping to find a rich "province" to conquer, where he could set up the colony he had delayed founding in his search for more portable valuables.
By this time de Soto had begun employing a ruse with the native populations; seeking to convince them that he was an immortal deity, "son of the sun".
After learning of Quigualtum, de Soto sent a message demanding his obeisance and to bring him examples of the most valuable thing in his land; presumably the gold or other riches valued by Europeans.
[3] Quigualtum sent back a message that astonished and infuriated de Soto: "As to what you say of your being the son of the Sun, if you will cause him to dry up the great river, I will believe you: as to the rest, it is not my custom to visit any one, but rather all, of whom I have ever heard, have come to visit me, to serve and obey me, and pay me tribute, either voluntarily or by force: if you desire to see me, come where I am; if for peace, I will receive you with special good will; if for war, I will await you in my town; but neither for you, nor for any man, will I set back one foot"Angered by the chief's arrogant response but by then too weak to get up from his bed, de Soto could not mount an armed response.
In order to keep the ruse up and forestall possible attacks, his men informed the local peoples that de Soto had ascended into the sky but would return.
His remaining men, now commanded by his aide de camp Moscoso, decided to attempt an overland journey to Mexico in order to avoid sailing downriver.
They made it as far as Texas, meeting Late Caddoan Mississippian peoples along the way, before running into territory too dry for maize farming and too thinly populated to sustain themselves by stealing food from the locals.
The songs also lambasted the Spaniards as cowards and thieves who would soon perish; that on land their corpses had been food for dogs and birds and that on the river they would feed the fish.
The gunpowder for their arquebuses had run out long before and the guns melted down to make nails for the boats; the limited number of crossbows had mostly stopped working as well.
Historian Charles M. Hudson has suggested that Quigualtam was centered on the area surrounding the Holly Bluff or Winterville sites in the lower Yazoo Basin.
The Glass site is on the flood plain between the Mississippi River and the Natchez Bluffs, approximately 9.5 kilometres (5.9 mi) south of modern Vicksburg.
They contracted these from members of the de Soto expedition, among whom the diseases were endemic, and indirectly from other Native Americans who had contact with European traders on the Gulf coast.
The Spaniards' technique of using local rivalries to their advantage had upset the delicate political balance between native groups, who had existed in a state of low-level endemic warfare between polities for generations.
