Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

c.1490-1558

Life

Identity

Soldier
Explorer of America

Homes

Spain
Southwestern region of modern-day United States

Religion

Catholic

Chronology

c.1490: born in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
serves in wars in Italy and Spain
1527: sails to America on a voyage led by Pánfilo de Narváez
c. 1528: in the midst of attacks from Native Americans in modern-day Florida, Narváez and his crew flee to the Gulf of Mexico
1528-1536: abandoned by Narvaez, Cabeza de Vaca and three others from the original expedition endure starvation, captivity, blistering heat, long treks, and other difficulties as they live among local tribes in modern-day Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico
1536: Finding him among the Indians, a group of Spaniards arrest Cabeza de Vaca because he protests their enslaving the Indians
1537: returns to Spain
1540: becomes governor of an area around Rio de la Plata in South America
1542: Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
1545: returns to Spain as a prisoner because local Spanish officials disliked his generous attitude toward the native tribes
1551: expelled to modern-day Algeria

Issues and themes

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spanish explorer who was abandoned by his leader and wandered through the arid regions of the American Southwest from 1528 to 1536, has left us one of the most important early American exploration narratives in The Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, published in 1542. In its references to religious conversion and exploitation of the American land, his account is representative of many of these narratives, including ones written by Christopher Columbus and John Smith. Cabeza de Vaca's narrative is interesting and revealing for its distinctive features, as well. For example, his account of the cultural contact between European and Native American peoples is more sympathetic to the natives. Furthermore, because Cabeza de Vaca spent part of his time in America as a prisoner of native tribes and to a great degree became assimilated, his story is an early example of a captivity narrative, a genre later used by Mary Rowlandson (c.1635-c.1678) and James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851).

Work

Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

Publication: 1542
What kinds of things does Cabeza de Vaca's narrative describe? What do you suppose was the purpose of these descriptions?
How would you characterize Cabeza de Vaca's descriptions of the Native Americans he encounters? Is it objective, condescending, respectful, pitying? Cite particular passages to support your analysis. How else might he have described the same people?
Where does Cabeza de Vaca's religious convictions and background emerge in his narrative? How does his religion influence his attitude toward the American Indian tribes?
According to this narrative, how do some of the local tribes react to the white Europeans they encounter? Why?
What is the significance of Cabeza de Vaca's comment that he and his fellow Europeans shed their skins "like snakes"?
When Cabeza de Vaca finally encounters some of his fellow Spaniards, how do they react to him? Why?
Analyze the following passage: "Alcaraz bade his interpreter tell the Indians that we were members of his race who had been long lost; that his group were the lords of the land who must be obeyed and served, while we were inconsequential. The Indians payed no attention to this. Conferring among themselves, they replied that the Christians lied: We had come from the sunrise, they from the sunset; we healed the sick, they killed the sound; we came naked and barefoot, they clothed, horsed, and lanced; we coveted nothing but gave whatever we were given, while they robbed whomever they found and bestowed nothing on anyone" (25).

Bibliography

"Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 14-16.
Cabeza de Vaca, Álvar Núñez. The Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter Fourth Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. 16-26.

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