|
Books > History > American history
|
Buy Now
A lvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca - American Trailblazer (Paperback)
Loot Price: R770
Discovery Miles 7 700
|
|
|
A lvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca - American Trailblazer (Paperback)
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
|
In November 1528, almost a century before the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth Rock, the remnants of a Spanish expedition reached the
Gulf Coast of Texas. By July 1536, eight years later, Alvar NUNez
Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1490-1559) and three other survivors had walked
2,500 miles from Texas, across northern Mexico, to Sonora and
ultimately to Mexico City. Cabeza de Vaca's account of this
astonishing journey is now recognized as one of the great travel
stories of all time and a touchstone of New World literature. But
his career did not begin and end with his North American ordeal.
Robin Varnum's biography, the first single-volume cradle-to-grave
account of the explorer's life in eighty years, tells the rest of
the story. During Cabeza de Vaca's peregrinations through the
American Southwest, he lived among and interacted with various
Indian groups. When he and his non-Indian companions finally
reconnected with Spaniards in northern Mexico, he was horrified to
learn that his compatriots were enslaving Indians there. His
RelaciOn (1542) advocated using kindness and fairness rather than
force in dealing with the native people of the New World. Cabeza de
Vaca went on to serve as governor of Spain's province of RIo de La
Plata in South America (roughly modern Paraguay). As a loyal
subject of the king of Spain, he supported the colonialist
enterprise and believed in Christianizing the Indians, but he
always championed the rights of native peoples. In RIo de La Plata
he tried to keep his men from robbing the Indians, enslaving them,
or exploiting them sexually-policies that caused grumbling among
the troops. When Cabeza de Vaca's men mutinied, he was sent back to
Spain in chains to stand trial before the Royal Council of the
Indies. Drawing on the conquistador's own reports and on other
sixteenth-century documents, both in English translation and the
original Spanish, Varnum's lively narrative braids eyewitness
testimony of events with historical interpretation benefiting from
recent scholarship and archaeological investigation. As one of the
few Spaniards of his era to explore the coasts and interiors of two
continents, Cabeza de Vaca is recognized today above all for his
more humane attitude toward and interactions with the Indian
peoples of North America, Mexico, and South America.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(2)
