Perhaps no one has ever been such a survivor as alvar Nunez
Cabeza de Vaca. Member of a 600-man expedition sent out from Spain
to colonize "La Florida" in 1527, he survived a failed exploration
of the west coast of Florida, an open-boat crossing of the Gulf of
Mexico, shipwreck on the Texas coast, six years of captivity among
native peoples, and an arduous, overland journey in which he and
the three other remaining survivors of the original expedition
walked some 1,500 miles from the central Texas coast to the Gulf of
California, then another 1,300 miles to Mexico City.
The story of Cabeza de Vaca has been told many times, beginning
with his own account, Relacion de los naufragios, which was
included and amplified in Gonzalo Fernando de Oviedo y Valdez's
Historia general de las Indias. Yet the route taken by Cabeza de
Vaca and his companions remains the subject of enduring
controversy. In this book, Alex D. Krieger correlates the accounts
in these two primary sources with his own extensive knowledge of
the geography, archaeology, and anthropology of southern Texas and
northern Mexico to plot out stage by stage the most probable route
of the 2,800-mile journey of Cabeza de Vaca.
This book consists of several parts, foremost of which is the
original English version of Alex Krieger's dissertation (edited by
Margery Krieger), in which he traces the route of Cabeza de Vaca
and his companions from the coast of Texas to Spanish settlements
in western Mexico. This document is rich in information about the
native groups, vegetation, geography, and material culture that the
companions encountered. Thomas R. Hester's foreword and afterword
set the 1955 dissertation in the context of more recent scholarship
and archaeological discoveries, some of which have supported
Krieger's plot of the journey. Margery Krieger's preface explains
how she prepared her late husband's work for publication. Alex
Krieger's original translations of the Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo
accounts round out the volume.
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