On the Naming of Appalachia

Page 4· Wednesday, May 8, 2019 . .... MUI.""", Christiansburg, VA Page 4 • Wednesday, May 8, 2019 • RatIfonI .... "...1 On the naming of Appalachia So begins a IS-page palachian Center there. Apalachen, where was ernTennessee in May. Gulf of California. Jim article titled "On the In 1982 he moved to much gold." It is sometimes said Walls gives credit for Naming of Appalachia" Sonoma State University, Two months later that it was de Soto who naming the Appalachian Glanville written by David Walls located about 50 miles the Narvaez expedi gave the Appalachian mountain range to the LocalHistorian and published by the Ap north of San Francisco, tion reached Apalachen mountains their name; French artist Jacques Ie palachian State University from where he is now re (probably a village near however there is no Moyne de Morgues. Le •••••� . Press in 1977. tired. present-day Lake Micco documentary evidence Moyne traveled in 1564 circumstances At the time, Walls Walls' article can be sukee about 20 miles east to prove this conjecture. with a French Hugue surrounding the naming wrote the essay he was a readily found online and of Tallahassee) where the Surviving de Soto docu not expedition that con of Appalachia are as hazy professor at the Univer represents as good an as Spaniards found no gold ments label the moun structed the short-lived as a mid-summer's day in sity of Kentucky and the sessment of how Appala or other treasureand were tains as the provinces of Fort Caroline at the the Blue Ridge." administrator of the Ap- chia got its name as we attacked by the Native Chalaque and Qualla. mouth of the St. John's are ever likely to get. Americans.The Spaniards The name Apalchen River in present-day Jack It is said that Appa abandoned their search appears on a map for sonville, Florida. lachia is the fourth old for wealth and retwned the first time in Diego Le Moyne drafted a est surviving European to the coast, where the Gutierrez' Amsterdam map detailing the Florida place-name in the US expedition party slowly published 1562 map of peninsula and Carolina with only Florida, the fell apart. Nonetheless, South America, Central coast in 1565, although Dry Tortuga Islands, and the myth of the riches of America, and the east it was not published until Cape Canaveral taking Apalachen lived on. coast of North America. 1591 by Theodore de Bry. precedence. A decade later, the Walls speculates that this Along its top edge the The name Appalachia 1539 expedition of Her map may have been draft map bears the Latin in and its variants apparent nando de Soto wintered ed a decade or more ear scription "Montes Apal ly derive from three dif at Apalachen, which they lier and that the account atchi, in quibus aurum ferent possible sowces: 1. called Anhaica. Sub of Cabeza de Vaca was the argentum & aes inveni 1he name of a village or sequently, the Spanish source of the name Apal tur" or "The Apalachian geographic region. 2. 1he adapted the tribal Na chen. Mountains in which name of an Indian tribe. tive American name to Gutierrez's map shows gold, silver and copper 3. The name of a moun Apalachee and applied it the Amazon River sys are found." tain range. to the coastal region of tem, Peru and its capi In sum, while the pre The disastrous expedi the Florida panhandle tal Cuzeo, and names cise origins of the words tion of the Spaniard Pan and the Indian tribe that hundreds of other places Appalachia and Appala filo de Narvaez, landed lived there. including the Bay of chian remain somewhat in the vicinity of Tampa De Soto had been one Santa Maria (the futwe obscwe, we can be cer Bay in April 1528. Al of the first Spaniards to Chesapeake Bay). The tain that they derive from var NUnez Cabeza de enter the incredibly rich map's many sketches de American Indian, Span Vaca, who was only one city of Cuzco in Peru, so pict parrots, monkeys, ish, and French sources. of four swvivors of the he knew from personal and Brazilian cannibals, We can also be certain Jim Glanville is a retired chem expedition who got back experience that rich cit along with mythical that they do not derive to Spain, later wrote that ies on the American con creatures such as mer from any English roots. ist living in Blacksburg. He has when asked within a few tinent were high in the maids, sea monsters, and Spaniards were explor been publishing and lecturing for days of landing, by means mountains. Hearing that Patagonian giants. In ad ing North America long of sign language, where there were mountains to dition to printing Apal before any Englishman more than a decade about the his the small amounts of thenorth of Apalachen, in chan for the first time, landed there. tory of southwest Virginia. He can gold the Spaniards saw Marchof 1540 he led his this was also the first map Virginia was Florida came from, the Indians expedition north through to print the place name before it was Virginia and be reached at jglanvil@blacksburg. replied thatfar away there modern-day Georgia and "California," located at Appalachia was Spanish net. was "a province called reached modern-day east- the cape at the end of the before it was English. .

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