Was Cabeza De Vaca A Success Or A Failure

The book “A Land So Strange” by Andrés Reséndez basically illustrates 8 years of long odyssey from what is now Tampa, Florida to Mexico City on Cabeza de Vaca’s perspective. Cabaza de Vaca along with his companions named Andres Dorante, Alonso del Castillo, and Estebanico, are survivors of failed expedition to New World from Spain during 16th century. Unlike other members from the expedition, these four members found a way to live with native Indian tribes to survive. They were slaves of Indians and treated cruelly all the time. However, after long period of time of being slaves, they decided to make escape to Spanish territory. During their fugitive period, they had chance to help injured Indians. Their knowledge of certain medicine,

A Voyage Long And Strange: On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America

“One of the great themes of historical literature over the past five centuries has been the assessment of the European discovery of the Americas as one of the two greatest events in human history.” (2). A similar, better-known pronouncement was penned by Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Hernan Cortes’s private secretary

Being one of four survivors out of a crew of 250 on the expedition Cabeza de Vaca was a part of, was not a walk in the park. Cabeza was on a ship setting sail for the New World, in 1527, when his ship was blown off course and landed him in Galveston Island, Texas. The Native Americans living in Galveston eventually became his slave owners for two years before he escaped. He encountered many obstacles including starvation, thirst, unfamiliarity, slavery, etc. He endured all of these over a course of seven years, before he made it out alive. The question that remains is, how did Cabeza de Vaca survive all of this? Cabeza survived, because he was very resourceful, he had the advantage of being able to

Cabeza De Vacaśsurvival was a mystery among others or was it ? In the spring of 1527 five spanish ships set sail for the New world one of them was holding a man named Cabeza De Vaca.After waiting for winter to stop Panfilo De Narvaez (The leader of the expedition) hopelessly confused made accidental landfall near modern day tampa bay,Florida After 2 difficult months,Narvaez and his men arrived at Apalache Bay and only new he had to travel west to get to mexico and told the men to melt guns down into tools to build 5 rafts that could hold fifty men and one of the five rafts was led by Cabeza. Some wondered how Cabeza survived when he came back from his horrible trip and I have three of many to tell you abou. Cabezaś survival was attributed by having faith in god, the ability to be trusted by indians,and being able to heal the indians.

When a Spanish treasurer, Cabeza de Vaca set of to find the New World he faced many challenges and failures along the way. The leader of the expedition was Panfilo de Narvaez, who had dreams to build settlements along the coast on the Gulf of Mexico, Cabeza de Vaca is a 37- year-old military veteran who served as the expedition's treasurer. Cabeza de Vaca: How Did He Survive? Cabeza de Vaca survived because of his success as a healer, his wilderness skills, and his respect for the Indians.

Cabeza de Vaca was known for his discovery of America. He documented his trek in America, as a lost traveler, exposed to unfamiliar territory, multiple hardships, and the native Indian tribes. His journal entry over his reencounters with the Christians is only a small record over his adventures on the whole Narvaez Expedition of 1528. The document was published in Spain, 1542, at a time when dispute over the mistreatment of natives in America in their colonization became a subject to resolve. His journal entry discusses his brief experience in an Indian tribe, the news he receives of nearby Spanish men penetrating the tribal communities, and the realization that the “Christians” were not a character he thought they were. Cabeza de Vaca sympathized the indigenous tribes and believed that they should not face the cruelty the Spanish settlers set in order to

The full measure of Columbus's failure as a colonizer was not yet apparent when he returned to Castile in 1496. Yet by the end of six or seven years of his governorship, with his own, the monarchs', and the settlers' objectives all still unachieved, and Hispaniola suffering an apparently interminable series of rebellions not only by the Indians but by the colonists too, Columbus was to be superseded and disgraced, and shipped home to Spain in chains.1 Overall, Fernandez-Armesto depicted Columbus as an annoyingly eccentric person incapable of succeeding. Although, he discovered the Americas, he failed to be a leader to his crew and the natives. Instead, he was on the lookout for ways of manipulating the motives for profit.

“Since the survivors were held by different tribes or groups they were often separated. The next year at the time of the gathering of the tribes to eat prickly pears the four (Castillo, Dorantes, Estebanico, and Cabeza de Vaca) made their escape. (sjsu.edu). “During their escape, other tribes that they met along the way aided them and helped them. They escaped at the time when the tribes were going to pick pears, so food was not a problem at this time.” (sjsu.edu). “The Spaniards decided to build rafts and leave Florida by the sea.” (tshaonline.org). “Each raft was loaded with fewer than fifty men, and rose only six inches above the water. They had to sail their rafts as closely to the shore as possible in case something were to happen. They left on September 22, 1528, and all was going well until they crossed what is now the Mississippi River. Thrown off course by the strong winds, the five rafts eventually landed off the coast of Texas. (tshaonline.org). “By the spring of 1529, only thirteen Spaniards and an African slave were still alive, along with Cabeza de Vaca. Some of the men thought that he was dead because he had been gone for so long. Twelve of the fourteen men had headed towards the coast of Mexico.” (tshaonline.org). “They finally landed at a place that they named the Island of Misfortune, somewhere around what is now Galveston, Texas. Cabeza de Vaca and his men lived out on the island with the Karankawa Indians from 1529 to 1534, and were eventually separated due to a state of semi-slavery.”(americanjourneys.org). After Cabeza de Vaca and his men were separated from the Indians, he used his self-teaching skills and taught himself how to become a healer, or a doctor. “He explored all along the coast of East Texas, hoping to find a way into Mexico and explore some Spanish colonies. In 1534, the other survivors, Alfonso de Castillo, Andres Dorantes, and Estevan or Estebanico and

Can you imagine setting sail with about 600 men on a conquest hoping to successfully complete a task. Instead your castaway and you are one of four survivor’s out of 600 men; We can all attempt to imagine, but this was reality for Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. In the early 1500’s Alvar Nuñez was amongst the first Europeans to step foot in what is known as North America today. The narrative and film Cabeza de Vaca Relacion and Cabeza de Vaca the film, recounts the trials and tribulations of the eight year journey. The film adaptation of Chronicle of the Narváez Expedition compares to the text in many ways. The film is merely a mirror to the narrative and although the film is not as long as the book it gives its audience visual validation of the hardships Alvar Nunez and his men endured, The way in which Alvarez was inhumanly treated by the Indians and how Alvar Nunez became popular and respected in the Indian community.

On June 17, 1527, Cabeza de Vaca set sail on the order to conquer and govern the lands from the Rio Grande to the cape of Florida. However, during his journey he encountered much devastation such as the wrecking of his ship which resulted in his separation from the majority of his Christian companions. Praying to God after every ordeal, Cabeza routinely sought after his Christian religion to guide him through his unexpected journey. While traveling through the interior of America, he also encountered many native tribes which inhabited the land. While most of the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century spread their religion through warlike ways and rearranged societies

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, Andres Dorantes, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, and Estevan were the sole survivors of a four hundred men expedition. The group of them went about the friendly Indian tribes preforming miracles of healing, with the power of Christianity. At one time five sick persons were brought into the camp, and the Indians insisted that Castillo should cure them. At sunset he pronounced a blessing over the sick, and all the Christians united in a prayer to God, asking him to restore the sick to health, and on the following morning there was not a sick person among them. De Vaca and his companions reached the Pacific coast where the Indians, showed signs of civilization, living in houses covered with straw, wearing cotton clothes and dressed skins, with belts and ornaments of stone, and cultivating their fields, but had been driven therefrom by the brutal Spanish soldiery and had taken refuge in the mountains, de Vaca and his comrades, being regarded as emissaries from the Almighty, exercised such power over these untutored savages that, at their bidding, the Indians returned to their deserted habitations, and began again to cultivate their fields, the assurance being given them by de Vaca and his companions that henceforth they would

-1A COMPARISON OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS ENCOUNTERED BY COULUMBUS ON THE ISLANDS OF THE CARIBBEAN WITH THE ENCOUNTERED BY CORTES IN THE MESO-AMERICA.

The Black Legend and White Legend: Relationship Between the Spanish and Indians in the New World

Written in the mid 1500's, when Spain's perception of the monarch was divine and strongly linked to the Catholic Church one can draw the conclusion that each party (both the crown and De Las Casas) had a political interest in this situation. De Las Casas repetitively speaks of the horrific treatment of the Natives by the Spanish settlers and then cleverly draws a connection to the divinity and purity of the crown by stating that such terrible events could only have occurred because the monarch was unaware of what was going on. Due to the connection between politics and the Catholic Church, De Las Casas' writings were taken into serious consideration by the King who was having his own concerns regarding the Americas.