Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca came to
the New World as a conquistador, but
left transformed by his travels among
the Native people of North America. While
many European explorers of the 1500s
marched across new lands as armor-clad con-
querors, Cabeza de Vaca and three compan-
ions crossed the continent hungry and
threadbare, simply trying to stay alive.
“Through all that country we went naked,” he
wrote later, “and not being accustomed to it,
like snakes we shed our skin twice a year.” By
living to tell of his experiences in his memoir,
La Relación,he provided his contemporaries
with a new view of the geography and cultures
he encountered, as well as an account that
remains one of the great adventure stories of
the history of the Americas.

THE NARVÁEZ EXPEDITION

Cabeza de Vaca was treasurer of Pánfilo de
Narváez’s expedition, which was authorized
byCharles V to conquer and govern lands

“from the Rio de las Palmas to the Island of

Florida.” Maps of the Gulf of Mexico were

still too primitive to portray the actual geo-

graphical boundaries of this region, but it

encompassed the coastline and interior of

the land Alonso Alvarez de Pineda had

named Amichel, stretching from northeast-

ern Mexico to Florida, across the present-day

states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and

Alabama.

Unfortunately for his men, Narváez’s

shortsightedness and cruelty toward Indians

transformed his venture into a worse failure

than his attempt to arrest Hernán Cortés in

1520. The expedition was nearly destroyed
      before it started. Storms mauled Narváez’s
      ships on three occasions before they success-
      fully crossed the Gulf of Mexico from Cuba to
      reach the coast of Florida on April 12, 1528.
      Already desperate from losses of food,
      troops, and horses during the stormy pas-
      sage, the Spaniards searched for provisions
      immediately after landing near Tampa Bay.
      They soon captured four Timucua Indians,

81

Cabeza de Vaca’s

Epic Journey

7

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