Sons of Anak

Numbers 13:33 says: "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." 

When the Spanish explorers landed on the shores of the New World, they hoped to find immeasurable riches and vast amounts of gold. What they didn’t expect, however, was to meet real-life “Sons of Anak.”

Hernando de Soto (circa 1500–1542) is best known for being the first European to cross the Mississippi River. In fact, de Soto died of a fever in a village on the banks of the Mississippi.

While marching through present-day Alabama, de Soto and his men met a true “Son of Anak." 

According to the account of the Spanish chronicler Garcilasso de la Vega, de Soto tarried in the town of Talisse for a week and a half during which time a powerful chief, Tuscaloosa, sent an ambassador to meet with him. The ambassador was Tuscaloosa’s own son—about 18 years of age—who much taller than any of the Spaniards or Indians who were with de Soto’s force. According to Garcilasso de la Vega’s account recorded in The Florida of the Inca:

In the mean time the son of Tuscaluca visited him. He was a young man, about eighteen years of age, but so tall that he exceeded in height, by nearly half of his body, all the Spaniards and all the Indians in the army.
Tuscaloosa’s son led de Soto to to a village where he met with the chief.

Garcilasso de la Vega said:

Tuscaluca was forty years of age or thereabouts, and two feet higher than those who accompanied him, so that he appeared a giant. His face, his shoulders, and the rest of his body corresponded with his height, and he was large in proportion; a handsome man, of proud and noble men; the best formed and greatest that they had yet seen in Florida.

One of de Soto’s captains, Gonzalo Silvestre, described Tuscaloosa in this way: "The chief was a true son of Anak, standing a head and shoulders height above his men."

Tuscaloosa led de Soto and his men to the village of Mabilla. The chief was so large that the Spaniard’s horses could not support his weight. Tuscaloosa had to ride on a pack horse and his feet nearly dragged the ground.

A fierce battle took place there between Tuscaloosa’s warriors and de Soto’s troops. Over 2,500 Indians were killed and 200 conquistadors died in the fight. De Soto burned Mabilla to the ground after the battle.

There is a tradition of Indian chiefs of enormous physical stature, men like Tuscaloosa and his son, in not only the southeast, but most of North America. Some think they were descended from an ancient clan of giants whose power center was in the Ohio Valley about 3,000 years ago. But that is a topic for another day...

You can read all about this story and many similar tales in my book Giants: Men of Renown published by Adventures Unlimited Press. I hope you will check it out!



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