A Journey Through Texas • Boulders Taller Than the
Great Tower of Seville
Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
(1490?–1557?)
In 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez and 400 Spanish
soldiers landed near Tampa Bay and set out to
explore Florida’s west coast. Alvar Núñez
Cabeza de Vaca (äl« bär nØn« yes kä bà« sä dà bä«
kä) was second in command. Beset by hostile
natives, illness, and the prospect of starvation,
Narváez and his men then set sail for Mexico in
five flimsy boats, but he and most of the men
drowned. Cabeza de Vaca and a party of about
sixty survived and reached the Texas shore near
present-day Galveston.
Shipwrecked without supplies, only fifteen of
the group lived through the winter. In the end,
Cabeza de Vaca and three others survived. They
were captured by natives and spent the next
several years in captivity. During that time,
Cabeza de Vaca gained a reputation as a medicine
man and trader. The four Spaniards finally
escaped and wandered for eighteen months
across the Texas plains. In 1536, the survivors
finally reached Mexico City.
Invitation to Others Cabeza de Vaca’s
adventures and his reports on the richness
of Texas sparked exploration of the
region. In “A Journey Through Texas,”
he speaks of Estevanico, the first African
to set foot in Texas.
In 1541, Cabeza de Vaca also led
a 1,000-mile expedition through the
south of present day Brazil to Asunción,
the capital of Río de la Plata. He was
appointed governor of the Río de la Plata
region (now Paraguay), but he was ousted
two years later as a result of revolt.
Through his journals, Cabeza de Vaca
encouraged others, including Francisco
Vásquez de Coronado, to explore
America.
García López de Cárdenas
(c. 1540)
García López de Cárdenas (gär sè« ä lò« pes dà
kär« dà näs) is best remembered as the first
European to visit the Grand Canyon. As a leader
of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s expedition
to New Mexico (1540–1542), Cárdenas was
dispatched from Cibola (Zuni) in western New
Mexico to see a river that the Moqui Native
Americans of northeastern Arizona had
described to one of Coronado’s captains. The
river was the Colorado. López de Cárdenas
departed on August 25, 1540, reaching the
Grand Canyon after a westward journey of
about twenty days. He became the first explorer
to view the canyon and its river, which from
the vantage of the canyon’s rim appeared to
be a stream merely six feet wide! Unable to
descend to the river, they took back to Europe
descriptions that attempted to record the
magnitude of the sight. López de Cárdenas
reported that boulders in the Grand Canyon
were taller than the 300-foot high Great Tower
of Seville, one of the world’s tallest cathedrals.
Motivation
Invite students to imagine finding
themselves in a strange land among
people whose language and customs
were unknown to them. What if they
had no way of sending for help and
no way of knowing exactly how to
get back home? How would it feel to
spend several years in this land with
no apparent hope of returning
home? On whom could they depend
for help? Emphasize that Cabeza de
Vaca and his followers spent eight
years—many of them in enforced
captivity—in just such a situation.
Background
More About the Author
Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca came
to North America as treasurer of the
Narváez expedition, the goal of
which was to colonize lands north
of Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked
on an island in the Gulf of
Mexico with two other Spaniards
and a slave. In a unique role reversal,
the four became servants to the
Cahoques Indians for about eight
years. During this time, Cabeza de
Vaca grew to understand the Native
Americans as no other Spaniard had
done before him.
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