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Usually ships in 1 business days | | | | | | Cabeza de Vaca came to the New world in 1527 as part of a Spanish expedition to conquer the region north of the Gulf of Mexico. His exploration party lost contact with their ships, set out northward on foot, and traveled, their numbers soon reduced from 300 to 4, across Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico for the next eight years. In addition to being one of the great true adventure stories of all time, Cabeza de Vaca's account of their travels is an unparalleled source of firsthand information on the pre-European Southwest--the variety of its climate, its flora and fauna, the customs of its natives. They were the first to see the opossum and the buffalo, the Mississippi and the Pecos, pine-nut mash and mesquite-bean flour. This book contains the first description in literature of a West Indies Hurricane. "Cabeza de Vaca was not only a physical trailblazer: he was also a literary pioneer, and he deserves the distinction of being called the Southwest's first writer.... The Relación, while not fiction, possesses most of the attributes of a good novel."--William T. Pilkington | | | |
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| | Product Details | | Author: | Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca | | Paperback: | 160 pages | | Publisher: | University of New Mexico Press | | Publication Date: | April 01, 1983 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 082630656X | | Product Width: | 1.37 centimeters | | Product Height: | 2.0 centimeters | | Product Weight: | 0.01 pounds | | Package Length: | 7.9 inches | | Package Width: | 5.3 inches | | Package Height: | 0.3 inches | | Package Weight: | 0.45 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 24 reviews |
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 24 customer reviews )
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24 of 24 found the following review helpful:
 The best 500 year old account you'll ever read May 09, 2001
By Scott Swindle
Cabeza de Vaca and some of his fellow Spaniards went through some incredible hardships as some of the first Europeans in the New World. They first set out on an ill-advised voyage from Cuba to Florida, where they lost their ships. They built primitive boats which they intended to sail around the coast to Mexico. They went past Mobile Bay, then cut across the Gulf to Texas, where they were captured by the local tribe. Of the 300 Spaniards who left out on the voyage, only 4 survived to tell the tale. De Vaca spent years as a slave to the Indians. He was half-starved (as were his hosts), regularly beaten, and naked. He eventualy linked up with some of his surviving comrades, including a Moorish slave, and they began an epic journey across what is now the Southwest United States and Northern Mexico. He gained a reputation as a medicine man, and soon had an entourage of thousands that travelled with him from village to village. When he finally reached Spanish settlements on the Pacific, the only thing his fellow 'civilized' men were interested in were his followers, which they saw as easy prey for slaves. De Vaca tried in vain to stop the slavers. This was a man who never lost his faith in God or his faith in man. It is simly an incredible journey, and one that does not get enough attention. Though this account is nearly half a millenium old, the translation is easy to read and not at all boring.
15 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Good translation of DeVaca's original Relacion. Jun 13, 1998
This work relates the adventures of a Spaniard who travelled on the first foray into Florida, under the command of a greedy Governor Navarez who was eager to find rich cities to conquer, as Cortez had recently done against the Aztecs. Navarez, however, was no Cortez, and one mistake after another put the entire expedition in jeopardy. De Vaca's account relates what became of this expedition into Florida and the American West. It is no exaggeration to claim that this is one of the most significant books ever to be written, however this particular translation was not without its own flaws. I could imagine a better, easier to read translation than this (this one was first published in 1961). Additions made in brackets were sometimes confusing and broke in without often adding any information that aided in the reading. He does include portions that compare this account with another referred to as the Joint Report which were all right. Descriptions of place would better have been shown on a map (but the book has no maps or illustrations at all). At the close I would have liked to see a concluding bio of De Vaca but instead got an unneccesary Epilogue on the literary significance of the work, after the work has already spoken for itself. The first time I read about this was in Journey Into Darkness by John Upton Terrell, who used this Relacion to tell the story, but failed by often looking back on the event from our own day, as opposed to transporting you back as a translation of the original Relacion should do. In this case the rating is based only on this edition while the story itself is one of the most important works in the world.
18 of 19 found the following review helpful:
Stunning true story Mar 18, 1999
By John
After reading Cabeza de Vaca's account, it is hard to believe his tale hasn't been made into an epic movie. Of course, the story's treatment of Indians as real, complex people would not have worked in the era of the cowboy-and-Indian movies. Ironically, now that attitudes toward Native Americans would allow a sensitive treatment, such a vast story would be prohibitively expensive to shoot and take several hours to tell properly. But the payoff would be immense. When the lights came up, the viewers would wonder how they ever could have settled for the mythical movie "Dances with Wolves".Note: Cabeza de Vaca's story is paraphrased in a book called "Journey into Darkness". It helps greatly in understanding the true nature of his journey, telling, for example, what Indian tribes he may have been encountering and where exactly he was at a given time. Incidently, Cabeza de Vaca greatly underestimated the distance he had traveled.
9 of 9 found the following review helpful:
fascinating Mar 13, 2001
Everyone else's reviews are so right on the money. The story reminds us of a century of American exploration that occured before the English had even taken an interest in the New World. And it also gives us an amazingly close glimpse of what life was probably really like among the tribes of Native Americans living along the Gulf Coast. I don't know what to add, except for a comment about the afterward: Cabeza de Vaca could be described as the first American naturalist. Somewhwere between the discovery of the new world, and the twentieth century, people began to travel through the wilderness for the sake of enjoying nature rather than for any practical reason like looking for gold(Humboldt, Muir, Rooseveldt are just a few examples of this sort of "explore for pleasure" mind set). 8 years in the wilds of Florida, Gulf Coast, Texas and Northern mexico were enough to give Cabeza de Vaca a permenant case of new world wanderlust. When the King of Spain awarded Cabeza de Vaca with the governorship of Paraguay years later, Cabeza de Vaca did something strange: en route to Assuncion, he ordered his boats to go ashore in unexplored southern Brazil, 1000 miles from Assuncion, and took a band of men on a voluntary hike through the wilds overland to Assuncion, rather than sailing the boats up the Rio de Plata. Cabeza de Vaca's second book features an account of his voluntary nature hike. A moor survived the US trek with Cabeza de Vaca (appears as a character in the book), but never quite found his place his Spanish society afterword; the moor wandered up into New Mexico to live again among the native americans, and eventually was killed by angry native americans.
15 of 17 found the following review helpful:
An Unknown Chapter in American History Sep 14, 2002
By John R. Foulks
When I first moved to the Southwest, I asked locals to recommend books to learn about the area. I am so glad someone recommended this. I had never heard of Cabeza de Vaca. His peregrinations through the terra incognita of America in the early 1500's led me to the whole obscured chapter of the history of North America: when much of it was a colony of Spain. Cabeza de Vaca & his few companion shipwreck survivors started it all. His tales of what he'd seen (& heard of) in what's now the American Southwest led to Coronado's quest for the golden Cities of Cibola (guided by Esteban,a black servant who had been one of de Vaca's companions); & directly to the European settlement of the region centuries earlier than it otherwise would have happened. In most history books, the Spanish colonization is-AT BEST-a footnote in a history that begins with the Pilgrims (a century LATER).
And to archaeologists: take heed! Not all explorers of a new land leave distinctive artifacts to mark their passage. If not for de Vaca's written description of his experiences, which led directly to the Coronado expedition, this journey would be "unknown".
Its a shame that history books are so biased toward the "east-to-west" Anglo. version of American history; nobody should miss wonderful episodes like Cabeza de Vaca's 8-year odyssey. This chapter in history shouldn't be "unknown" to anybody!
See all 24 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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