Mabila (also spelled Mavila , Mavilla , Maubila , or Mauvilla , as influenced by Spanish or French transliterations) was a small fortress town known to the paramount chief Tuskaloosa in 1540, in a region of present-day central Alabama . The exact location has been debated for centuries, but southwest of present-day Selma, Alabama , is one possibility. In late 2021, archaeologists announced the excavation of Spanish artifacts at several Native American settlement sites in Marengo County that indicate that they have found the historical province of Mabila, although not the town itself. They theorize that the town site is within a few miles of their excavations.
31-720: Mauvilla or similar terms may refer to: variant of Mabila , a Mississippian fortress town the origin of the name for Mobile, Alabama the Bahia de la Mobila , which was named in English Mobile Bay Mobilian , a tribe in Alabama the towboat Mauvilla in the 1993 Big Bayou Canot train wreck the Mavilla Bridge in Puerto Rico Mavilla, Vega Alta, Puerto Rico ,
62-446: A barrio Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Mauvilla . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mauvilla&oldid=1016599604 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
93-594: A pond nearby, tinged with the blood of the killed, and returned to the combat." De Soto had his men set fire to the town, then by Elvas's account, breaking in upon the Indians and beating them down, they fled out of the place, the cavalry and infantry driving them back through the gates, where losing the hope of escape, they fought valiantly; and the Catholics getting among them with cutlasses, they found themselves met on all sides by their strokes, when many, dashing headlong into
124-649: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Mabila In 1540 Chief Tuskaloosa arranged for more than 2,500 native warriors to be concealed at Mabila, prepared to attack a large party of foreign invaders in the Mississippian culture territory: Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his expedition. When Hernando de Soto first met Tuskaloosa at his home village and asked him for supplies, Tuskaloosa advised them to travel to another of his towns, known as Mabila , where supplies would be waiting. A native messenger
155-506: Is now part of the proper name of some historical sites, such as Pueblo of Acoma . The word pueblo is the Spanish word both for "town" or "village" and for "people". It comes from the Latin root word populus meaning "people". Spanish colonials applied the term to their own civic settlements, but to only those Native American settlements having fixed locations and permanent buildings. In
186-759: The Piro/Manso/Tiwa Indian Tribe of the Pueblo of San Juan Guadalupe is currently petitioning the US Department of the Interior for federal recognition. Each Pueblo is autonomous with its own governmental structure. Several organizations serve to unite the interests of difference Pueblos including the Albuquerque-based All Pueblo Council of Governors who collectively negotiates for land and water rights and advocates for Pueblo interests with
217-648: The Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico, specifically in the region between Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos, the word "pueblo" defines a "distinct cultural group in the Southwestern United States" and their villages. The Holmes Museum of Anthropology defines this specific group as a "common culture with individual variances [that] connects them. Less-permanent native settlements (such as those found in California) were often referred to as rancherías , however,
248-540: The cliff dwellings and other habitations of the Ancestral Puebloans , who emerged as a people around the 12th century BCE and began to construct their pueblos about 750–900 CE. Many pueblos participate in syncretism between Indigenous Pueblo religion and Roman Catholicism. The pueblos welcome outsiders to participate in feast days, in which the Pueblo communities hold seasonal ceremonial dances, and certain households volunteer to feed visitors meals. Photography
279-515: The Battle of Mabila. Armed with guns, the Spaniards eventually burned down the village and killed most of the warriors. The walled compound of Mabila, one of many encountered by the Spaniards in their exploration, was enclosed in a thick stuccoed wall, 16.5-ft (5-m) high. It was made from wide tree trunks tied with cross-beams and covered with mud/straw stucco , to appear as a solid wall. The fortress
310-543: The Mississippians suffered even more grievous losses. De Soto had demanded supplies, bearers, and women from the powerful Chief Tuskaloosa , when they met him at his main town. He said they needed to go to another settlement, and took them to Mabila. On October 18, 1540, de Soto and the expedition arrived at Mabila, a heavily fortified village situated on a plain. It had a wooden palisade encircling it, with bastions placed so that archers could shoot their longbows to cover
341-668: The Southwest, such as Acoma , were located in defensible positions, for example, on high steep mesas . Anthropologists and official documents often refer to ancient residents of the area as pueblo cultures. For example, the National Park Service states, "The Late Puebloan cultures built the large, integrated villages found by the Spaniards when they began to move into the area." The people of some pueblos, such as Taos Pueblo , still inhabit centuries-old adobe pueblo buildings. Contemporary residents often maintain other homes outside
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#1733094013139372-820: The Southwest, those designated by the King of Spain as pueblo at the time Spain ceded territory to the United States, after the American Revolutionary War, are legally recognized as Pueblo by the Bureau of Indian Affairs . Some of the pueblos also came under the jurisdiction of the United States, in its view, by its treaty with Mexico , which had briefly gained rule over territory in the Southwest ceded by Spain after Mexican independence. There are 21 federally recognized Pueblos that are home to Pueblo peoples . Their official federal names are as follows: One unrecognized tribe ,
403-610: The United States, are called pueblos (lowercased). Spanish explorers of northern New Spain used the term pueblo to refer to permanent Indigenous towns they found in the region, mainly in New Mexico and parts of Arizona , in the former province of Nuevo México . This term continued to be used to describe the communities housed in apartment structures built of stone, adobe , and other local material. The structures were usually multi-storied buildings surrounding an open plaza, with rooms accessible only through ladders raised and lowered by
434-692: The White man, the battle of Mabila was the first of the bloodiest battles ever fought on the North American continent. Pueblo Pueblo refers to the settlements and to the Native American tribes of the Pueblo peoples in the Southwestern United States , currently in New Mexico , Arizona , and Texas . The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settlements in
465-412: The approaches. Upon arriving at Mabila, the Spaniards knew something was amiss. The population of the town was almost exclusively male- young warriors and men of status. There were several women, but no children. The Spaniards also noticed the palisade had been recently strengthened, and that all trees, bushes, and weeds, had been cleared from outside the settlement for the length of a crossbow shot. Outside
496-474: The battle, respectively. The exact count of Indian dead is not known, but Spanish accounts at the time estimated that between 2,500 and 3,000 Indians had been killed by the raging fires within the city's walls. Spanish killed in action were either 22, 18, 25, 20, or 82 based upon the contemporary chroniclers of the time Ranjel-Oviedo, Elvas, Cañete , Biedma, and Garcilaso, respectively; with another 48 or more Spaniards dying from their wounds within days following
527-560: The battle. According to Garcilaso, "Most of the dead were women" who had followed their husbands, sweethearts, and others, to witness their glorious victory over the Castilians. As for the Indian leader Tascalusa, neither he nor his body was ever found, and if he did perish in the burning city, his body would have been "burned beyond recognition." In the "five centuries" of warfare between the Red man and
558-480: The enclosure, to 'the height of an estado' (5.55 feet), was full of loopholes for shooting arrows at those on the outside. The pueblo had only two gates, one on the east and the other on the west. In the middle of the pueblo, was a spacious plaza around which were the largest and most important houses. The Spaniards suffered their greatest losses of the De Soto Expedition during the battle at Mabila, but
589-485: The flaming houses, were smothered, and, heaped one upon another, burned to death. They who perished there were in all two thousand five hundred, a few more or less: of the Catholics there fell two hundred... Of the living, one hundred and fifty (150) Catholics had received seven hundred wounds... Elvas noted later that four hundred hogs, and twelve horses died in the conflagration. But other contempary authors Ranjel- Oviedo and Garcilaso say seven and forty-five horses died in
620-468: The historic pueblos. Adobe and light construction methods resembling adobe now dominate architecture at the many pueblos of the area, in nearby towns or cities, and in much of the American Southwest . In addition to contemporary pueblos, numerous ruins of archeological interest are located throughout the Southwest. Some are of relatively recent origin. Others are of prehistoric origin, such as
651-449: The inhabitants, thus protecting them from break-ins and unwanted guests. Larger pueblos were occupied by hundreds to thousands of Puebloan people. Several federally recognized tribes have traditionally resided in pueblos of such design. Later Pueblo Deco and modern Pueblo Revival architecture , which mixes elements of traditional Pueblo and Hispano design, has continued to be a popular architectural style in New Mexico . The term
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#1733094013139682-438: The need for defense, the simple desire for human society in the vast solitude of (rocky plains, or the desert), dictated that it should be so. Nowadays the pueblo might have a population running into thousands. Doubtless, they were much smaller in the early middle ages , but we should probably not be far wrong if we think of them as having had populations of some hundreds. Of the federally recognized Native American communities in
713-491: The oldest area of Los Angeles was known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señorala Reina de los Ángeles del Rio de Porciúncula or El Pueblo de Los Angeles for short. On the central Spanish Meseta the unit of settlement was and is the pueblo ; which is to say, the large nucleated village surrounded by its own fields, with no outlying farms, separated from its neighbors by some considerable distance, sometimes as much as ten miles [16 km] or so. The demands of agrarian routine and
744-466: The outside and inside and attached with split canes and strong cords. On top they were daubed with a great deal of mud packed down with long straw, which mixture filled all the cracks and open spaces between the logs and their fastenings in such a manner that it really looked like a wall finished with a mason's trowel. At intervals of fifty paces around this enclosure, were towers capable of holding seven or eight men who could fight in them. The lower part of
775-483: The palisade, they saw an older warrior in a field, who was seen exhorting younger warriors, and leading them in mock skirmishes and military exercises. When the Spaniards reached the town of Mabila, ruled by one of Tuskaloosa's vassals, the Chief asked de Soto to allow him to remain there. When de Soto refused, Tuskaloosa warned him to leave the town, then withdrew to another room, and refused to talk further. A lesser chief
806-411: The public about all Pueblos through art, dance, and educational experiences. The center has a museum that presents Pueblo history and artifacts, and an interactive Pueblo House museum. An archive holds a collection of photographs, books, and tape recordings of oral histories. It also has a café and a restaurant, Indian Pueblo Kitchen, serving Indigenous cuisine . Pre-Columbian towns and villages in
837-716: The state and federal government. The interests of Eight Northern Pueblos are served by the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council based in Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo). Cochiti, Jemez, Sandia, Santa Ana, and Zia are served by the Five Sandoval Indian Pueblos, a nonprofit organization based in Rio Rancho. The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center , founded in 1976 in Albuquerque, educates
868-401: The well-fortified town. The Indians closed the gates and "beating their drums, they raised flags, with great shouting." De Soto determined to attack the town, and in the battle that followed, Elvas records: "The Indians fought with so great spirit that they, many times, drove our people back out of the town. The struggle lasted so long that many Catholics, weary and very thirsty, went to drink at
899-417: Was asked to intercede, but he would not. One of the Spaniards, according to Elvas , "seized him by the cloak of marten-skins that he had on, drew it off over his head, and left it in his hands; whereupon, the Indians all beginning to rise, he gave him a stroke with a cutlass, that laid open his back, when they, with loud yells, came out of the houses, discharging their bows." The Spaniards barely escaped from
930-435: Was defended by Muskogee warriors, who shot arrows or threw stones. Based on the earlier sources, Garcilaso de la Vega described the town of Mabila as: ...on a very fine plain and had an enclosure three estados (about 16.5 feet or 5-m) high, which was made of logs as thick as oxen. They were driven into the ground so close together that they touched one another. Other beams, longer and not so thick, were placed crosswise on
961-399: Was sent ahead to Mabila. When Tuskaloosa arrived with the first group of Spaniards, he asked the Spanish people to leave the settlement and territory. A fight broke out between a soldier and a native, and many warriors emerged from hiding in houses and began shooting arrows at the Spaniards. The Spaniards fled, leaving their possessions inside the fortress. The conflict that resulted is called