OCTOBER 10:

1992 Ottawa Ontario - Ottawa releases legal text of Charlottetown Accord; some changes to Senate and native rights; not yet signed or legally binding.

1885 Battleford Saskatchewan - Start of trial of five Indians in involvement in massacre at Frog Lake, found guilty and sentenced to hang.

1682 Quebec Quebec - Meeting at Quebec to discuss how to deal with the Iroquois problem.

1615 Syracuse, New York - Samuel de Champlain c1570-1635 and his party of 500 Huron warriors move to attack Onondaga and Seneca strongholds.

1613 Trinity Bay, Newfoundland - John Guy dc1629 explores Trinity Bay with 18 men, to establish contact with Beothuk Indians.

1540: Today, de Soto enters a village called Athahachi. Here he will meet the village chief, Tascaluca. Tascaluca will be taken as a hostage by de Soto to ensure the cooperation of the Chief's followers.
 
 

BACKGROUND:
 

From http://www.siu.edu/~anthro/muller/Ranjel.htm

Sunday, October 10, the Governor entered the village of Tascaluça, which is called Athahachi, a recent village. And the chief was on a kind of balcony on a mound at one side of the square, his head covered by a kind of coif like the almaizal, so that his headdress was like a Moor's which gave him an aspect of authority; be also wore a pelote or mantle of feathers down to his feet, very imposing; he was seated on some high cushions, and many of the principal men among his Indians were with him. He was as tall as that Tony [Antonico] of the Emperor, our lord's guard, and well proportioned, a fine and \121\ comely figure of a man. He had a son, a young man as tall as himself but more slender. Before this chief there stood always an Indian of graceful mien holding a parasol on a handle something like a round and very large fly fan, with a cross similar to that of the Knights of the Order of St. John of Rhodes, in the middle of a black field, and the cross was white. And although the Governor entered the plaza and alighted from his horse and went up to him, he did not rise, but remained passive in perfect composure and as if he had been a king [como si fuera un rey, y con mucha gravedad]. The Governor remained seated with him a short time, and after a little he arose and said that they should come to eat, and he took him with him and the Indians came to dance; and they danced very well in the fashion of rustics in Spain, so that it was pleasant to see them. At night be desired to go, and the commander told him that he must sleep there. He understood it and showed that he scoffed at such an intention for him, being the lord, to receive so suddenly restraints upon his liberty, and dissembling, he immediately despatched his principal men each by himself, and he slept there notwithstanding his reluctance. The next day the Governor asked him for carriers and a hundred Indian women; and the chief gave him four hundred carriers and the rest \122\ of them and the women he said he would give a, Mabila, the province of one of his principal vassals. And the Governor acquiesced in having the rest of that unjust request of his fulfilled in Mabila; and he ordered him to be given a horse and some buskins and a scarlet cloak [borceguíes y un manteo de grana] for him to ride off happy. And now that the chief had given him four hundred carriers. or rather slaves, and was to give him in Mabila a hundred women, and what they were most in need of, see how happy he could be made with those buskins and the cloak and with riding on a horse when he felt as if he were mounted on a tiger or a most savage lion, since this people held horses in the greatest terror!