Alonso del Castillo Maldonado

As I was saying, at the time Francisco Vasquez was appointed governor, he was traveling through New Spain as an official inspector, and in this way he gained the friendship of many worthy men who afterward went on his expedition with him.

It happened that just at this time three Spaniards, named Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, and Castillo Maldonado, and a negro who had been lost on the expedition which Pánfilo de Narváez led into Florida, reached Mexico.

They came out through Culiacán, having crossed the country from sea to sea, as anyone who wishes may find out for himself by an account which this same Cabeza de Vaca wrote and dedicated to Prince Don Philip, who is now King of Spain and our sovereign.

They gave the good Don Antonio de Mendoza an extended account of some powerful villages, four and five stories high, of which they had heard a great deal in the countries they had crossed, and other things very different from what turned out to be the truth.

As I was saying, at the time Francisco Vasquez was appointed governor, he was traveling through New Spain as an official inspector, and in this way he gained the friendship of many worthy men who afterward went on his expedition with him.

It happened that just at this time three Spaniards, named Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, and Castillo Maldonado, and a negro who had been lost on the expedition which Pánfilo de Narváez led into Florida, reached Mexico.

They came out through Culiacán, having crossed the country from sea to sea, as anyone who wishes may find out for himself by an account which this same Cabeza de Vaca wrote and dedicated to Prince Don Philip, who is now King of Spain and our sovereign.

They gave the good Don Antonio de Mendoza an extended account of some powerful villages, four and five stories high, of which they had heard a great deal in the countries they had crossed, and other things very different from what turned out to be the truth.

As I was saying, at the time Francisco Vasquez was appointed governor, he was traveling through New Spain as an official inspector, and in this way he gained the friendship of many worthy men who afterward went on his expedition with him.

It happened that just at this time three Spaniards, named Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, and Castillo Maldonado, and a negro who had been lost on the expedition which Pánfilo de Narváez led into Florida, reached Mexico.

They came out through Culiacán, having crossed the country from sea to sea, as anyone who wishes may find out for himself by an account which this same Cabeza de Vaca wrote and dedicated to Prince Don Philip, who is now King of Spain and our sovereign.

They gave the good Don Antonio de Mendoza an extended account of some powerful villages, four and five stories high, of which they had heard a great deal in the countries they had crossed, and other things very different from what turned out to be the truth.

This volume offers the original narrative of the first white man to cross North America.

The remarkable journey of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and the Moor Estebanico from Florida to Northwestern Mexico, Sonora, and Sinaloa, near the Pacific coast, antedates the expeditions of Coronado and de Soto, whose histories have already been published in The Trailmakers.

Nevertheless, it is proper to publish his narrative later.

Compared with either of them, the journey of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions is an episode, important but an incident brought about by a disastrous failure.

This high functionary, as sagacious as he was cautious, regarded the real merits of Cabeza de Vaca, who is the representative figure in the whole episode, with reserve.

On February eleventh, old style, fifteen thirty-seven, he wrote to the Empress recommending Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes.

The letter mentions Dorantes, but it was Castillo who went to Spain with Cabeza de Vaca.

Recommending Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes to the benevolence of the monarch in consideration of what they have done in it, this country, and suffered, and their disposition to continue there and here wherever they may be sent.

As I was saying, at the time Francisco Vasquez was appointed governor, he was traveling through New Spain as an official inspector, and in this way he gained the friendship of many worthy men who afterward went on his expedition with him.

It happened that just at this time three Spaniards, named Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, and Castillo Maldonado, and a Negro who had been lost on the expedition which Pánfilo de Narváez led into Florida, reached Mexico.

They came out through Culiacán, having crossed the country from sea to sea, as anyone who wishes may find out for himself by an account which this same Cabeza de Vaca wrote and dedicated to Prince Don Philip, who is now King of Spain and our sovereign.

They gave the good Don Antonio de Mendoza an extended account of some powerful villages, four and five stories high, of which they had heard a great deal in the countries they had crossed, and other things very different from what turned out to be the truth.