Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, 3-volume set: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez

by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Patrick C. Pautz, Patrick Charles Pautz

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s account of the doomed Narváez expedition to the vast unexplored lands beyond the northern frontier of New Spain has long been heralded as the quintessential tale of the European confronting the wilderness of North America and its native inhabitants for the first time. After living captive among native peoples of the present-day Texas coast for almost six years, Cabeza de Vaca traveled overland through present-day western Texas and northern Mexico until being reunited with his countrymen near the Pacific coast. His account offers an isolated glimpse of areas of Gulf coastal Texas and northeastern Mexico that would not be visited again by Europeans for over 150 years and is the earliest authentic eyewitness description of the North American bison. Volume 3 considers the literary and historical contexts of Cabeza de Vaca’s relación. The literary inquiry examines the work’s creation, publication history, and literary and cultural legacy from the sixteenth century to the present. The historical analysis presents new studies of Spanish exploration in the Gulf of Mexico (1508–28), Spanish speculation on and exploration of the South Sea (1502–39), and Nuño de Guzmán’s conquest of Nueva Galicia (1530–31).

Genres: History

1317 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 1999

About the author

Spanish colonial administrator Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca explored parts of present-day Florida, Texas, and Mexico and aroused interest in the region with his vivid stories of opportunities.

In the New World, he and three other persons survived the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez of 1527. During eight years of traveling across the southwest, he traded and encountered and in faith healed various Native American tribes before he reconnected with forces in 1536. After returning in 1537, he wrote an account, first published in 1542 as La Relación ("The Relation", or in more modern terms "The Account"), retitled Naufragios ("Shipwrecks") in later editions. People ably consider and note Cabeza de Vaca as a proto-anthropologist for his detailed accounts of the many tribes of Native Americans.

[Wikipedia]

Reviews

[Kevin Conway · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the paleo-era known as the early 1960s, elementary schools still filled history lessons for weeks on end with rivetting stories of the great explorers; more than a dozen names were burned into memory by virtue of their epic exploits, but not a peep was made about Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, so I was amazed to read the in-depth coverage he now warrants in modern schools. This I know from my daughter's school text, and of course Cabeza de Vaca has a story more appropriate to the times we inhabit now; he is the only great 16th Century explorer, and also the most outspoken, who made a serious and prolonged effort to save Native Americans from exploitation, ranging from North and South America, the Caribbean, and back in the royal court in Madrid. He got king's support quickly, but the ocean was too vast and the greed of men kept his efforts essentially to naught.
This journal predates all that; it is a truly incredible account of a huge expedition to conquer Florida, but which ended in death for 99.3% of the souls involved. The disaster is covered step by step in wrenching detail. CdV was one of only four, a black slave and three aristocrats, who endured years of vividly described travails trekking accross the Gulf of Mexico past Louisiana to shipwreck in Texas, walk from village to village across the Southwestern United States (all still part of New Spain or even yet unclaimed then of course), where he eventually used his Christian beliefs to pray for and heal the locals. Nearly executed, then starved, and almost beaten to death in his intial encounters, eventually he healed a tribal chief's daughter from a grave illness, at which juncture these last four men became honored guests of any tribe they encountered thenceforth. Years later, after reaching the Sea of Cortez and heading south, the story ends with his plea for the natives' natural rights and dignity, and giving homage to the king and glory to God for his deliverence. Literally action-packed, well composed and in the voice of a man of his time. If it falls short of Homeric, it is redeemed by virtue of it being a true story!