Part 3

As they worked back toward the coast on the far side of the river mouth, winds and sea currents quickened their pace. Despite strenuous efforts the crews could not keep the boats together. The men with Cabeza de Vaca grew so exhausted that they shouted to Narváez to toss them a rope and help pull them along. Narváez refused. “When the sun sank,” the treasurer recalled later, “all who were in my boat were fallen one on another, so near to death that there were few of them in a state of sensibility.” They lay inert throughout the night. At dawn—it was November 6, 1528—Cabeza de Vaca heard the tumult of breakers but could take no measures to meet the threat. A giant wave lifted the boat out of the water and dropped it with a crash on what was either Galveston Island off the coast of Texas or a nearby stub of a peninsula.

Karankawa Indians who had gathered at the spot to dig roots succored them. A little later they joined the crew of another capsized boat that had been commanded by captains Alonso de Castillo and Andrés Dorantes, whose black slave Estéban was with him. The combined group numbered about 80, most of them infirm and next to naked. Numbly, they tried to repair Cabeza de Vaca’s boat so the strongest could sail to Pánuco for help. It sank. Four volunteers then agreed to try to reach Mexico by land. They never returned.

A winter of intense cold, starvation, and fever left only 15 alive, Cabeza de Vaca barely so. In the spring, 13 of the survivors moved off with the greater part of the Indians in search of food, leaving Cabeza de Vaca and a second invalid, Lope de Oviedo, behind with a small band. As soon as Cabeza de Vaca was able to work, the Indians set him to digging roots and carrying firewood. To escape the drudgery he became a trader, traveling far inland with a pack of shells, flints, cane for arrow shafts, sinews and so on for barter. During the wanderings he became the first European known to have seen bison.

His great desire was to walk southwest along the coast until he reached other men of his own kind, and he urged Oviedo to join him. The fellow kept promising he would as soon as he was better. Not wishing to desert a fellow Spaniard, Cabeza de Vaca wasted four years through one postponement after another. At last they started, but then Oviedo caved in with fear and turned back, preferring familiar miseries to the unknown.

Shortly thereafter, in 1532, in the bottomlands of the Colorado River of Texas, where several bands were harvesting walnuts, Cabeza de Vaca stumbled joyously across Castillo, Dorantes, and the vigorous black Estéban. The trio were also ready to strike for Mexico if they could escape from their masters, but they warned against fierce tribes to the southwest. They should try a route farther north.

After two years of interruption and frustrations they made the break. The incredible journey, broken by long stays at various Indian camps, lasted two years. At times they traveled alone. More often they were accompanied by Indians. After they had chanced to pray over an ailing man, who thereupon leaped up and declared himself cured, they became revered as supernatural medicinemen, children of the sun. Their marches, often scouted out for them by Estéban, who also served as interpreter—he learned six languages during those arduous years—became triumphal processions. Sometimes, says Cabeza de Vaca, as many as 4,000 Indians would accompany them from one village to the next, a figure that, as Bernard DeVoto has pointed out, should be taken as a way of saying “quite a few.” Those who escorted them would often loot the first village they reached, whereupon its inhabitants, moving on with the quartet to another village, would recoup their losses by plundering it.

What route did they follow? No one knows. Cabeza de Vaca’s descriptions of Indian customs, rivers, mountains, vegetation, and so on have led some students to suggest that the wanderers may have gone as far north as southern New Mexico and Arizona. Others think they traveled out of west Texas into Chihuahua. But whatever the way, it eventually merged with one of the trade trails that ran between the Pueblo Indian towns of the Southwest and those in the heavily populated, southward trending valleys of Sonora. They reached the Sonora area in the spring of 1536.

What had they seen along the way? Not much, according to a report that the survivors sent to the _audiencia_ in Hispaniola in 1537. Just buffalo robes that had originated in the country of the plains Indians and beautifully woven cotton mantas that their native hosts had obtained by trade with Indians somewhere in the north (probably the Pueblos of the Rio Grande). Bits of coral and turquoise. And miles and miles of desolation, thinly populated by primitive tribes. Writing a memoir of the trip six years later, Cabeza de Vaca improved only slightly on the tales. In Sonora, he related, he was given five emeralds shaped like arrowheads; the donors said the “jewels” had been purchased in the north with parrot feathers and plumes. Sadly, he lost the five artifacts before anyone else saw them. He also told of handling a small bell made of copper and of hearing stories about large cities filled with big houses and surrounded by boundless fields of maize.

Such reports were too vague and understated to create much popular excitement—at first. But as Antonio de Mendoza, New Spain’s first and recently arrived Viceroy, realized, the calm might not last. For a similar story told a few years earlier to the infamous Nuño de Guzmán by an Indian slave named Tejo had stirred up a violent reaction.

At the time Guzmán had been governor of Pánuco on Mexico’s northeast coast and was making a fortune selling slaves to plantations throughout the West Indies. But that wasn’t enough, and his ears pricked up when he listened to Tejo telling about a trip with his father to seven marvelous cities far to the northwest—cities whose streets were lined with the shops of goldsmiths and silversmiths.

The story may well have had an element of truth in it. If a trader kept traveling northwest from Pánuco—and some of Mexico’s early Indian traders were far-ranging—he would eventually reach the impressive pueblo towns of today’s New Mexico. Where the notion of goldsmiths came from is something else, but Guzman believed it because he wanted to.

Instead of taking a direct line to his goal, he put together a strong force, fought his way across the mountains to the west coast, and hewed out, as a base of operations for a thrust along the trade trails leading north, the all-but-independent province of Nueva Galicia. (It embraced the better part of the present-day Mexican states of Nayarit and Sinaloa.) Illness and then his arrest for his slave-dealings put a stop to the northern plans, but the appearance of the Vaca party out of the wilderness might, Mendoza feared, lead the great Cortés to appropriate the idea for himself.

Cortés was ripe for trouble. Because of his insubordination to Diego Velásquez of Cuba, the king had refused to name him Viceroy of New Spain, but then had tried to compensate for the injustice, as Cortés considered it, by naming him the Marquís of the Valley of Oaxaca and giving him the right to explore the South Seas (south of Asia) for new principalities. On their quests some of his ship captains stirred Guzmán’s jealousy by sailing north along the coast of Nueva Galicia. When Guzmán seized one of those ships in the port of Chiametla, the Marquís rushed up with a small army and took it back. He then used that ship to cross what he called the Sea of Cortés (today’s Gulf of California) and claim possession, in the name of the king, of pearl fisheries his mariners had discovered at La Paz in what we call Baja California. The fisheries were not proving lucrative, however, and the least sign that something better existed farther north might tempt him to push on.

It behooved Mendoza, as the king’s representative, to move first, before New Spain’s legitimate northward expansion was halted by one of these semi-autonomous _conquistadores_. Dutifully reporting each of his moves to Charles V—caution was part of his nature—he asked, in turn, Castillo, Dorantes, and Cabeza de Vaca to lead a small exploring party into the north and learn what was really there. Not surprisingly, in view of their experiences, each refused.

In 1537, Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain. Skeptics say he wanted to persuade the king to appoint him _adelantado_ of Florida so that he could move independently into the north from that direction. On reaching Madrid, however, he found that Charles had already given the post to Hernando de Soto.

Years later one of De Soto’s Portuguese officers from the town of Elvas—he identified himself only as a _hidalgo_ (gentleman) of Spain—wrote that De Soto offered to take Cabeza de Vaca along as second in command for the sake of his guidance. Again the wanderer declined. But, said the _hidalgo_, whose accuracy cannot be checked, Vaca did drop hints to his friends and relatives that led them to sell everything they had in order to buy enough equipment to join the expedition. Possibly. But all we really know is that Cabeza de Vaca, the only man to brush against both of the _entradas_ that gave the world its first views of what became the United States, never returned there himself. He was sent to South America instead.

Mendoza of course learned by ship of De Soto’s appointment and of necessity had to assume that one of the new _adelantado_’s goals would be the Seven Cities. So now he had twin worries, Cortés in the west, De Soto in the east. But before considering the steps he took to checkmate them, it is well to look at De Soto’s adventure, for he is the one who, through sheer luck, had the head start.

The Odyssey of Cabeza de Vaca

NARVÁEZ EXPEDITION Santiago, Cuba {west Florida coast}: Narváez Expedition lands April 1526 Apalachee Aute: Expedition builds boats CABEZA DE VACA {Texas coast}: Expedition wrecks; Cabeza de Vaca continues overland Colorado River Pecos River Gila River Rio Sonora Corazones Culiacán: Cabeza de Vaca arrives 1536

Cabeza de Vaca and three companions, sole survivors of the ill-fated Narváez expedition (1527), were the first Europeans to cross the North American continent. They spent 8 years traveling 6,000 miles through the interior of Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico. The journey itself was an incredible feat of human stamina and pluck. Equally remarkable is Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his adventure. _La Relación_, first published In 1542, revised Spanish conceptions about the size and nature of the continent north of Mexico. The book is also the first detailed description of native Americans. In his wanderings Cabeza de Vaca came to admire Indians, whom he came to see as fellow humans who could be won over only by kindness. His book—which can be considered the beginning of American literature—is a record of both a physical and a spiritual journey.

Journey into Darkness

When Hernando de Soto returned to Spain from two decades of adventure in the New World, he must have seemed to those who encountered him, or even heard of him, the embodiment of what a _conquistador_ should be. He carried his tall, hard, handsome body with the unmistakable air of triumph that comes from having won by his own efforts wealth, fame, and a noble bride—all before he was 35 years old. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but it may have coincided with the last year of the 15th century. His birthplace was in the austere province of Extremadura. His father was a Méndez, his mother a de Soto; his elder brother Juan followed the Spanish custom of using both names: Juan Méndez de Soto. Hernando, the second son, chose to be different. According to his biographer, Miguel Albornoz, he was his mother’s favorite. He therefore dropped Méndez from his name and became known to history only as De Soto—an appellation he carried far.

Another native of Extremadura and a neighbor of the De Soto family was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the fabled conqueror of Darién (Panama) and discoverer of the Pacific Ocean. Determined to emulate Balboa, who was still alive somewhere in the New World, young Hernando de Soto made his way, aged 14 or so, to Seville. There he found employment as a page in the household of the notorious schemer, 75-year-old Pedro Arias Dávila, better known as Pedrárias. When Pedrárias sailed to Central America in 1514 as a colonial administrator, De Soto went along.

He witnessed the quarrel that sprang up between his patron and Balboa, a quarrel that ended in 1519 when Balboa was convicted of treason through the intrigues of Pedrárias and beheaded. Grieving, De Soto retrieved the headless corpse and with the help of an Indian girl gave it a Christian burial. Yet he remained loyal to Pedrárias and followed him to Nicaragua, where he developed the ice-hard maturity that marked his later career. He mastered the arts of dealing in Indian slaves, looting temples, and ransacking Indian graves for valuable mortuary offerings. By such means he prospered so well that when Pizarro, also a native of Extremadura, needed help on his expedition to Peru, De Soto was able to respond with two ships and 200 men.

In the final assault on the Incas, De Soto was generally the one chosen to lead reconnoitering or vanguard parties over the difficult trails of the Andes. After the first great victory was achieved, he saw a sight that ever afterwards burned in his memory. The conquered emperor, Atahualpa (actually one of two brothers contending for the throne), offered, as his ransom, to pile a room 17 feet wide, 22 feet long, and 9 high with golden ornaments, vases, goblets, statuettes. In addition he said, he would fill a somewhat smaller adjoining chamber twice over with silver. In spite of that tremendous gesture, he was then tricked into ordering the death of his brother, for which he himself was executed. The treachery drew angry protests from De Soto.

The next conquest was of mountain-perched Cuzco, less rewarding than anticipated because it had been stripped of treasure during the filling of the rooms. Though De Soto was named lieutenant-governor, the quarrels that broke out between the generals led him to give up the position and return to Spain with his share of the booty. Various estimates of its size have been given, but since there is no satisfactory way of comparing purchasing power then and now, the figures are elusive. Still, it must have been the equivalent of several million of today’s dollars.

He made a point of cutting a fine figure in Spain. Everywhere he went he was accompanied by a dazzling entourage composed mostly of officers who had ridden with him in Panama and Peru. He became a favorite of the King, to whom he loaned money; and he married a daughter of his old patron, Pedrárias. A plush life. But as the lazy days drifted by, De Soto grew restless. He needed activity and he wanted gold. Roomfuls of gold. And fame.

Yielding to his importunities, Charles V made him governor of Cuba and _adelantado_ of Florida, which then stretched from the Atlantic as far north as the Carolinas and on around the Gulf of Mexico to the Río de las Palmas. The usual stipulations about the division of treasure were spelled out in the license. The King was to have one-fifth of all spoils of battle, one-fifth of any revenue derived from mining precious metals, and one-tenth of all loot taken from graves, sepulchres, Indian temples. Once the region had been explored, De Soto was to become the governor of whatever 200 leagues of coastal area he picked out. There he was to found colonies and build three fortified harbors. He was to pacify the Indians and provide the necessary number of priests and friars to convert them. He was to bear the entire costs of the expedition. When it was over, he would receive, in addition to his share of any booty and a grant of land 12 leagues square (about 50,000 acres), a salary of 2,000 ducats a year, roughly $60,000 today.

The expedition, its quota of men more than filled with volunteers who supplied their own armor and arms, landed in Cuba in June 1538 and spent nearly a year there while De Soto attended to administrative duties and organized the _entrada_. He used far more care than Narváez had. While scouts searched for a good harbor on Florida’s west coast, the commissary department rustled up many loads of hard ship biscuit, 5,000 bushels of maize, quantities of bacon, and a herd of rangy hogs. They also brought with them long, clanking strands of iron chains and collars, portents of things to come.

The chronicles of the expedition give different figures about the numbers involved, but this is a reasonable approximation: close to 700 men, perhaps a hundred camp followers, including a few women, many slaves, eight ecclesiastical persons, and 240 or so horses. Having learned from Cabeza de Vaca about some of Narváez’s mistakes, De Soto included among the soldiers several artisans capable of working with their hands. People, horses, hogs, and big dogs that could be used for attacking Indians, and a confusion of supplies and equipment were loaded aboard five low-waisted, high-pooped, square-rigged ships ranging from 500 to 800 tons burden. Overflow was accommodated, uncomfortably, in two caravels and two small pinnaces.

The fleet spent a week in late May 1539, reaching the southernmost part of what is generally believed to have been Tampa Bay.[2] While the ships were groping over the shoals so that unloading could begin, patrols of both horsemen and footmen, happy to be free of the cramped quarters, dashed off through the undergrowth to learn what lay ahead. They soon discovered that the countryside, though sweet-smelling with flowers, was a maze of bogs, meandering streams, and thick stands of mangroves and oaks. Another tax on travel were small groups of tall, naked Indians, probably Timucuans. The Indians eluded the horsemen by dodging nimbly through swamps and behind trees, now and then letting an arrow flash out from one of their bows. Fortunately one of the few captives the patrols seized was Juan Ortiz, a former member of the ill-fated Narváez expedition.

Ortiz had returned to Cuba with the explorer’s ships after they had failed to make contact with the land party and then had been hired by Narváez’s distraught wife to search for her husband in a pinnace she provided. On visiting Narváez’s initial landing place at Tampa Bay, Ortiz had been captured and had lived ever since with a group that controlled part of the region around the bay. He knew the Timucuans’ language and could speak through interpreters to other Indian groups. But in all that time he had never been far afield and could report only rumors about distant places. Gold? There was none near at hand, but far to the north was a powerful kingdom abounding in maize. Its inhabitants might know of minerals.

A scouting party dispatched to investigate returned with a tantalizing message that would be repeated over and over during the long trek: the gold was somewhere else, this time at a place called Cale, where the warriors wore golden helmets. De Soto nodded complacently. In a region as vast as Florida, he told the Gentleman of Elvas, there were bound to be riches.

Mindful still of the colony he was supposed to found, he left Pedro Calderón near Tampa Bay with three small ships, their sailors, and a hundred soldiers. They had two years’ supply of food and seed for planting. If he found a better place to settle, he would let them know. Meanwhile the other caravel and the five big ships were to return to Havana for fresh supplies and new recruits.

Moving inland farther than Narváez had and marching in divisions, the army moved north. Tough going. Rains were heavy that year. Bogs oozed; lakes and streams rose. The wayfarers waded some streams and bridged others. The men herded the pigs through the mud—the sows had farrowed and there were about 300 now—grooming horses, setting up wet camps and then, tired out, pulverizing, in curved log mortars, the grain they had taken from Indian fields and storage cribs so they could boil it into gruel. Discontent boiled up. There’d better be gold somewhere in this hellhole.

There was none at Cale, but a little farther on.... They straggled through the vicinity of today’s Gainesville and, inclining a little west of north, reached a village called Aguacaliquen. There an advance party captured several women, one of whom was the daughter of the cacique, or chief. The father was told he could not get her back until he had guided the Spaniards into the territory of the next tribe to the west. This he did while several of his villagers followed, playing on bone flutes as a sign of peace and begging that father and daughter be released.

When pleas produced nothing—De Soto feared being left in the wilderness with no guides—the Indians decided to ambush the Spaniards at “a very pleasant village” called Napituca, near today’s Live Oak, Florida. De Soto’s interpreter, Juan Ortiz, discovered the plot and gave warning. Spirits leaped. After two months of being harassed by Indian guerrillas, the Spaniards could at last vent their frustration on a massed army—about 400 Indians, as it turned out. Giving thanks to God, the cavalry charged, lances thrusting, swords slashing. Bellow of arquebuses, zings of crossbow darts, yells of “Santiago!” from pike-wielding foot soldiers. Scores of Indians died; hundreds were captured, including a remnant that fled into two nearby lakes and, by hiding in the cold, night-shrouded waters, evaded capture until morning—a brave stand that won both admiration and kind treatment from the Spanish force.

Not all the captives were handled that generously. Their services were needed. During marches males were linked by chains and iron collars and forced to serve as porters for the army. Women, historian Garcilaso de la Vega wrote after talking to participants in the adventure, served as “domestics,” grinding the rations of maize, cooking the meals, and so on. Rodrigo Ranjel, De Soto’s private secretary, was more specific: the soldiers desired women for “foul use and lewdness.” Whenever the conquerors seized a new village, its cacique was impressed as a hostage and guide and released only after his subjects had served as bearers over the next stretch of the journey. Rebels against the enslavement received punishments designed to warn other recalcitrants. Some had a hand or nose cut off, a few were tied to stakes and burned or shot to death with arrows fired by Indian auxiliaries. Now and then one was torn to pieces by the Spaniard’s war dogs. They accepted the ordeals with a stoicism that won the grudging approval of the expedition’s chroniclers.