Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca

Cabeza de Vaca y sus hombres entraron en contacto con unos indios de la Florida que les hicieron creer que habia oro muy cerca. Caminaron durante dos semanas en direccion al noroeste hasta encontrar el primer poblado indigena. Sus impresiones serian despues reveladas en sus obras. Tras una tentativa de volver, Alvar Nunez y su grupo continuaron rumbo a los Apalaches, sufrieron el cansancio y los ataques indigenas y encontraron mucho oro. El grupo se dirigio entonces de regreso a la costa y en el trayecto fueron atacados varias veces. Alvar Nunez nunca mas vio a su capitan Panfilo de Narvaez, quien se nego a lanzarle una cuerda para rescatar su barco. La barca de Narvaez fue arrojada mar adentro por un viento muy fuerte y desaparecio. Cabeza de Vaca consiguio llegar a una isla donde encontraron indios muy amistosos. Alli pudo aprender mucho sobre las costumbres indigenas y sus curas mediante poderes magicos.

This highly readable translation fires the imagination and illuminates the enduring appeal of Cabeza de Vaca’s experience for a modern audience. This edition of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Relación offers readers Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz's celebrated translation of Cabeza de Vaca’s account of the 1527 Pánfilo de Narváez expedition to North America. The dramatic narrative tells the story of some of the first Europeans and the first-known African to encounter the North American wilderness and its Native inhabitants. It is a fascinating tale of survival against the highest odds, and it highlights Native Americans and their interactions with the newcomers in a manner seldom seen in writings of the period. In this English-language edition, reproduced from their award-winning three-volume set, Adorno and Pautz supplement the engrossing account with a general introduction that orients the reader to Cabeza de Vaca’s world. They also provide explanatory notes, which resolve many of the narrative’s most perplexing questions.

This edition of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's "Relacion" offers readers Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz's celebrated translation of Cabeza de Vaca's account of the 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez expedition to North America. The dramatic narrative tells the story of some of the first Europeans and the first-known African to encounter the North American wilderness and its Native inhabitants. It is a fascinating tale of survival against the highest odds, and it highlights Native Americans and their interactions with the newcomers in a manner seldom seen in writings of the period. In this English-language edition, reproduced from their award-winning three-volume set, Adorno and Pautz supplement the engrossing account with a general introduction that orients the reader to Cabeza de Vaca's world. They also provide explanatory notes, which resolve many of the narrative's most perplexing questions. This highly readable translation fires the imagination and illuminates the enduring appeal of Cabeza de Vaca's experience for a modern audience. Rolena Adorno is the Reuben Post Halleck Professor of Spanish at Yale University and the author of several books, including "Guaman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru". Patrick Charles Pautz holds an M. A. in Spanish from Princeton University and is an independent scholar. Adorno and Pautz coauthored "Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez" (Nebraska 1999), winner of the American Historical Association's 2001 J. Franklin Jameson Award, the Western Historical Association's 2000 Dwight L. Smith Award, and the New England Council of Latin American Studies 2000 Best Book Award.

"This true story is the first major narrative detailing the exploration of North America by Spanish conquistadors (1528-1536). The author, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking Spanish nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition sent to claim for Spain a vast area of today's southern United States. In simple, straightforward prose, Cabeza de Vaca chronicles the nine-year odyssey endured by the men after a shipwreck forced them to make a westward journey on foot from present-day Florida through Louisiana and Texas into California." In thirty-eight brief chapters, he describes the scores of natural and human obstacles they encountered as they made their way across the unmapped land. Cabeza de Vaca's account offers a trove of ethnographic information, including descriptions and interpretations of native cultures, making it a powerful precursor to modern anthropology.

This enthralling story of survival is the first major narrative of the exploration of North America by Europeans (1528-36). The author of "Castaways (Naufragios)", Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was a fortune-seeking nobleman and the treasurer of an expedition to claim for Spain a vast area that includes today's Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. A shipwreck forced him and a handful of men to make the long westward journey on foot to meet up with Hernan Cortes. In order to survive, Cabeza de Vaca joined native people along the way, learning their languages and practices and serving them as a slave and later as a physician. When after eight years he finally reached the West, he was not recognized by his compatriots. In his writing Cabeza de Vaca displays great interest in the cultures of the native people he encountered on his odyssey. As he forged intimate bonds with some of them, sharing their brutal living conditions and curing their sick, he found himself on a voyage of self-discovery that was to make his reunion with his fellow Spaniards less joyful than expected. Cabeza de Vaca's gripping narrative is a trove of ethnographic information, with descriptions and interpretations of native cultures that make it a powerful precursor to modern anthropology. Frances M. Lopez-Morillas' translation beautifully captures the sixteenth-century original. Based as it is on Enrique Pupo-Walker's definitive critical edition, it promises to become the authoritative English translation.