Cabeza de Vaca's Drift Across North America

Timeline

1. 1528–1529Malhado Island · Gulf of MexicoAfter Narváez's rafts became separated, the raft carrying Cabeza de Vaca and two other remnant vessels ran aground on the Texas coast, with about eighty men landing on the island. Hunger and disease during the first winter killed the vast majority; the survivors began attaching themselves to coastal indigenous groups to survive.
2. 1529–1534Texas Gulf Coast · TexasCabeza de Vaca passed through states of dependence and enslavement among coastal groups, later trading shells, animal hides, and other goods between tribes, and improving his position as a healer. He recorded dwellings, food, and ceremonies, becoming the earliest European ethnographic observer of the region.
3. 1534–1536Interior of the North American Southwest · SouthwestAfter reuniting with Castillo, Dorantes, and Dorantes's slave Estevanico, Cabeza de Vaca traveled west, crossing Texas and northern Mexico, moving with indigenous groups as a healer along the way, and leaving early accounts of the interior's ecology and villages.
4. 1536Culiacán to Mexico City · MexicoThe four encountered Spanish slavers near Sinaloa and traveled via San Miguel de Culiacán to Mexico City. Cabeza de Vaca later wrote the Relación (later known as Naufragios), an early text through which Europeans came to know the indigenous peoples and geography of the North American interior.