54 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
AN AMAZING JOURNEY
In 1527 Pánfilo de Narváez set off from Cuba to explore Florida.
Believing Florida to be a separate landmass from Mesoamerica,
Narváez and his men explored the Gulf Coast by sea until meeting
with disaster. First, they lost many men to Indian attacks and dis-
ease, then they ran out of food and were forced to eat their hors-
es. Next, after stitching boats together with horsehide to sail back
to Cuba, they were caught in a hurricane off present-day Galveston,
Texas. After being captured by Indians, survivor Álvar Núñez
Cabeza de Vaca escaped into the desert where he wandered for
five years before he was imprisoned again. With three other sur-
vivors of the Narváez crew—including an enslaved African named
Estéban—the four escaped into the desert together. Each time
they met Native Americans, Estéban did the talking, shaking a rat-
tle given to him by Plains Indians, offering to heal the sick, and
gaining a larger and larger entourage with each stop. At last the
men met an Indian wearing a Spanish-made buckle. They had
reached the province of Nueva Galicia in northwest Mexico, eight
years after leaving Cuba.
The four men were led into the provincial capital of Compostela
by 600 local Indians. There the local governor had the Indians
arrested and quizzed Cabeza de Vaca about riches to be found in
the north. Cabeza de Vaca told reports of seven fabulously rich
cities not far from where they had been (these became known asthe Seven Cities of Cíbola). This report reached Antonio de
Mendoza, the viceroy in Mexico City, who decided to commission
his own expedition. Mendoza picked Estéban for the journey and
chose Father Marcos de Niza, a priest, to lead the group, since a
slave could not be given that role. Returning to Compostela from
Mexico City, the Niza party was greeted by the new governor of
Nueva Galicia, Francisco de Coronado. From there the party con-
tinued north, with Estéban dressed in ankle bells, feathers, and
body paint, assuming the role of a traveling shaman. By the time
they reached the Mayo River in present-day Senora, Father de Niza
was exhausted. He ordered Estéban to go on without him and to
send back crosses if he found anything important, with the size of
the cross a sign of the importance of the discovery. For a time,
crosses arrived, each larger than the last, along with stories of
Estéban being showered in jewels and gold. Then the crosses
stopped; Estéban had disappeared. According to the Zuni people
who live in the region, Estéban was killed by their ancestors in
about 1539. Whatever Estéban’s fate, when de Niza returned to
Compostela, he told Coronado that the slave had been killed at
the gates of one of the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola. Coronado
rushed to Mexico City to receive permission to launch a full-scale
search—one that would end in failure and frustration when the only
cities he found were a few adobe pueblos.Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who is seen in the foreground, wandered for seven years in the American Southwest with his
fellow survivors of the ill-fated Narváez expedition until they encountered a group of Spanish soldiers. One member of the
group, the African slave Estéban Dorantes, seen here to the left of Cabeza de Vaca, later returned to the region to continue
searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola. (National Park Service)