Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

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had come from Spain with his new title and with great favors and estates and as Nuno de Guzman had been a great rival of his at the time he was president and had done much damage to his property and to that of his friends he feared that Don Fernando Cortes would want to pay him back in the same way or worse so he decided to establish the town of Culiacan there and to go back with the other men without doing anything more after his return from this expedition he founded Jalisco where the city of Compostela is situated and Tonalá which is called Guadalajara and now this is the new kingdom of Galicia the guide they had who was called Tejo died about this time and thus the name of these seven cities and the search for them remains until now since they have not been discovered chapter two of how Francisco Vasquez Coronado came to be governor and the second account which Cabeza de Vaca gave eight years after Nuno de Guzman made this expedition he was put in prison by a juez de residencia note a judge named the Licenci Diego de la Torre who came from Spain with sufficient powers to do this.

After the death of the judge, who had also managed the government of that country himself, the good Don Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, appointed as governor of that province Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, a gentleman from Salamanca, who had married a lady in the city of Mexico, the daughter of Alonso de Estrada, the treasurer and at one time governor of Mexico, and the son, most people said, of his Catholic Majesty Don Ferdinand, and many stated it as certain.

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.

The noble viceroy communicated this to the new governor, who gave up the visits he had in hand on account of this, and hurried his departure for his government, taking with him the negro who had come with Cabeza de Vaca, with the three friars of the order of St. Francis, one of whom was named Friar Marcos of Nisa, a regular priest, and another Friar Daniel, a lay brother, and the other Friar Antonio de Santa Maria.

The army which had stayed with Don Tristan de Arellano started to follow their general, all loaded with provisions, with lances on their shoulders, and all on foot, so as to have the horses loaded.

With no slight labor from day to day they reached a province which Cabeza de Vaca had named Hearts, Corazones, because the people here offered him many hearts of animals.

He founded a town here and named it San Jeronimo de los Corazones, St. Jerome of the Hearts.

After it had been started, it was seen that it could not be kept up here, and so it was afterward transferred to a valley which had been called Sonora.

The general sent Don Rodrigo Maldonado with his company forward from here.

He traveled four days and reached a large ravine like those of Colima, in the bottom of which he found a large settlement of people.

Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes had passed through this place, so that they presented Don Rodrigo with a pile of tanned skins and other things, and a tent as big as a house, which he directed them to keep until the army came up.

He sent some of his companions to guide the army to that place so that they should not get lost, although he had been making piles of stones and cow dung for the army to follow.

They also believe vaguely in four different lives after this one.

Cabeza de Vaca says that the Floridians buried their ordinary dead, but burned their medicine men, whose incinerated bones they preserved and drank in water.

After they, the medicine men and women of the Dakota, have four times run their career in human shape, they are annihilated.

Schultz says that the medicine men of the Sioux and the medicine women also, after death, may be transformed into wild beasts.

He also shows that whenever labrets are worn in a tribe, they are worn by both sexes and that the women assume them at the first appearance of the catamenia.

This is to be noted, that how many men these savages, Brazilians, do kill, so many holes they will have in their visage, beginning first in their nether lip, then in their cheeks, thirdly in both their eyebrows, and lastly in their ears.

Cabeza de Vaca speaks of the Indians near Mahalo Island.

They likewise have the nether lip bored, and within the same they carry a piece of thin game about half a finger thick.

Signed, Adolph F. Bandelier, New York City, March 28, 1905.

End of Introduction Section 1 of The Journey of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and His Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536.

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The first ones who came there should wait for the others.

as to embarking he said it would be to tempt god after all the vicissitudes of storms losses of men and vessels and hardships we had suffered since leaving spain and until we came to that place so his advice would be to move along the coast as far as the harbor while the vessels with the other men should follow to the same port to all the others this seemed to be the best except to the notary who said that before leaving the ships they should be put into a harbor well known safe and in a settled country after which we might go inland and do as we liked the governor clung to his own idea and to the suggestions of the others seeing his determination i required him on the part of your majesty not to forsake the vessels until they were in a secure port and i asked the notary present to testify to what i said the governor replied that he approved the opinion of the other officials and of the commissary that i had no authority for making such demands and he asked the notary to give him a certified statement as to how there not being in the country the means for supporting a settlement nor any harbor for the ships he broke up the village he had founded and went in search of the port and of a better land so he forthwith ordered the people who were to go with him to get ready providing themselves with what was necessary for the journey after this he turned to me and told me in the presence of all who were there that since i so much opposed the expedition into the interior and was afraid of it i should take charge of the vessels and men remaining and in case i reached the port before him i should settle there this i declined after the meeting was over he on that same evening saying that it seemed to him as if he could not trust anybody sent me word that he begged me to take charge of that part of the expedition and as in spite of his insistency i declined he asked for the reasons of my refusal i then told him that i refused to accept because i felt sure he would never see the ships again or be seen by their crews any more that seeing how utterly unprepared he was for moving inland i preferred to share the risk with him and his people and suffer what they would have to suffer rather than take charge of the vessels and thus give occasion for saying that i opposed the journey and remained out of fear which would place my honor in jeopardy so that i would much rather expose my life than under these circumstances my good name Seeing that he could not change my determination, he had others approach me about it with entreaties, but I gave the same answer to them as to him, and he finally provided for his lieutenant to take command of the vessels, an alcalde named Caravaggio.

End of section 1 Section 2 of The Journey of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and His Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536.

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