CABEZA DE VACA EXPEDITIONS

CABEZA DE VACA EXPEDITIONS. Born in Andalucia (Spain) sometime between 1485 and 1492, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca arrived in the New World as treasurer of the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, which attempted to colonize the territory between Florida and the western Gulf Coast. This territory had been claimed by Ponce de León but remained unsettled by Europeans and mostly unknown to them. After arriving in Tampa Bay in early April 1528, the expedition moved west, facing several Indian attacks. The explorers were scattered, and Cabeza de Vaca sailed along the coast with a small group

from September to November, finally disembarking near Galveston Island. Enslaved by Natives, Cabeza de Vaca remained there during the winter of 1528–1529. In early 1530 he moved down the coast and reached Matagorda Bay, becoming a trader among the Natives. He was accompanied by Alonso del Castillo, Andrés Dorantes, and the Moorish slave Estebanico.

In the summer of 1535 Cabeza de Vaca and his companions traveled inland across modern Texas, finding bison and minerals along the way. Their journey was eased by the fact that the Natives believed they had curing powers. After reaching the Pamoranes Mountains, they moved northwest to the San Lorenzo River, continued up the Oriental Sierra Madre, and finally arrived at the conjuncture of the Grande and Conchos Rivers. By late autumn they changed to a southwest direction, and in early 1536 they went down the Yaqui and Chico Rivers into Mexico, where they received news about other Spaniards in the area. Moving south, they met the Spaniards at the Petatlan River by late April and arrived in Culiacán in May.

Back in Spain, Cabeza de Vaca published an account of his journey entitled Relacion (1542). His explorations contributed to the mapping of the greater Southwest and northern Mexico, and his descriptions of southwestern Indian civilizations motivated the expeditions of Marcos de Niza (1539) and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado (1540–1542).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, Rolena, and Patrick Charles Pautz. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez. 3 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1999.

Hallenbeck, Cleve. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: The Journey and Route of the First European to Cross the Continent of North America, 1534–1536. Glendale, Calif.: Clark, 1940.

Hickerson, Nancy Parrott. The Jumanos: Hunters and Traders of the South Plains. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

Hoffman, Paul E. "Narváez and Cabeza de Vaca in Florida." In The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521–1704. Edited by Charles Hudson and Carmen Chaves Tesser. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994, 50–73.

Reinhartz, Dennis, and Gerald D. Saxon, eds. The Mapping of the Entradas into the Greater Southwest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

Grover AntonioEspinoza

See alsoCoronado Expeditions ; Explorations and Expeditions: Spanish .