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First Encounters
Alvar Núńez Cabeza de Vaca

Cabeza de Vaca was an early Spanish explorer who came to the New World as a member of the ill-fated Narváez expedition.  Cabeza de Vaca and 3 others from the expedition were the only survivors.  Cabeza de Vaca’s account of the expedition and his years of wandering in the Southwest influenced other Spanish expeditions to explore the region, and has become one of the primary documents from early Texas history.  When Cabeza de Vaca came with the Narváez expedition in 1527/28 he had already gained experience with the Spanish Military in Italy where he campaigned with the Army of Charles V.  Cabeza de Vaca was one of 300 men stranded on the Florida coast when they became separated from their support ships.  This was the start of Cabeza de Vaca’s years-long struggle to survive and find his way to Mexico and Spanish civilization.  After months of encounters with hostile natives and food shortages, the expedition decided to build crude vessels and try for Mexico by sea.  In November 1528, the barges encountered a severe storm which drove two barges and some eighty survivors onto the Texas Gulf Coast near present day Galveston.  Shortly after landing, he became separated from the other survivors, most of who started down the coast.  Most of these men would succumb to the hostile environment.  Cabeza de Vaca traveled among the various tribes along the Texas Coast first as a trader, taking mesquite beans and sea shells into the interior and returning with red ochre and animal skins.  He also became revered as a medicine man, using a ritual of breathing on injuries, praying over and blessing the afflicted person.  Cabeza de Vaca met up with three other survivors,  Andres Dorantes de Carranza, his Moor slave Estevanico, and Alonso Castillo Maldonado at a location they referred to as “the river of nuts”-probably the present day Guadalupe River.  They were captured and made slaves by the Mariame Indians, but escaped in 1534 and started down the path to Panuco, ending up near the Pacific Coast of Mexico in 1536.  The route they took from Galveston to Mexico has been debated for over a century, and no one can say for certain the exact route they took.  A cooperative account was written by the surviving Spaniards, and Cabeza de Vaca wrote his Relación documenting his seven year journey in the Texas Gulf Coast area and Northern Mexico which included information about numerous tribal bands of natives including the Karankawas, Atakapans, Caddoes, Jumanos, Mariames, Coahuiltecans, and Zunis as well as the landscape, flora and fauna of the region.  His tales of Native civilizations encouraged other explorers such as Coronado and de Soto.  He was appointed Governor of Paraguay in the 1540s and returned to Spain where he died in the 1550s.  His Relación is still considered one of the most important documents of the Texas Gulf Coast.

Image:Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
Credit:  www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv/about/slideshow.html

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