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Page 39
In April, 1528, three hundred enthusiastic young nobles and gentlemen
from Spain landed at Tampa Bay, under the leadership of Narvaez, whom
Cortez supplanted in the conquest of Mexico. Narvaez had been given a
commission to hold Florida, with its supposed wealth of mines and
precious stones, and to become its governor. Led by the customary
fables of the natives, who told only such tales as they supposed their
Spanish tormentors wished most to hear, the brilliant company wandered
hither and thither through the vast swamps and forests, wasted by
fatigue, famine, disease, and frequent assaults of savages. At last,
after many distressing adventures, but four men were left--Cabeza de
Vaca, treasurer of the expedition, and three others. For eight long
years did these bruised and ragged Spaniards wearily roam across the
region now divided into Texas, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, New Mexico,
and Arizona--through tangled forests, across broad rivers, morasses,
and desert stretches beset by wild beasts and men; but ever spurred on
by vague reports of a colony of their countrymen to the southwest. At
last (May, 1536), the miserable wanderers, first to make the
transcontinental trip in northern latitudes, reached the Gulf of
California, where they met some of their fellow countrymen, who bore
them in triumph to the City of Mexico, as the guests of the
province....
In that golden age of romance travelers were expected to gild their
tales, and in this respect seldom failed to meet the popular demand.
The Spanish conquistadores, in particular, lived in an atmosphere of
fancy. They looked at American savages and their ways through Spanish
spectacles; and knowing nothing of the modern science of ethnology,
quite misunderstood the import of what they saw. Beset by the national
vice of flowery embellishment, they were also pardonably ignorant of
savage life, and had an indiscriminating thirst for the marvelous.
Thus, we see plainly how the Cibola myth arose and grew; and why most
official Spanish reports of the conquest of the Aztecs were so
distorted by false conceptions of the conquered people as in some
particulars to be of light value as material for history. It was,
then, small wonder that Cabeza de Vaca and his fellow adventurers, in
the midst of the hero worship of which they were now recipients,
should claim themselves to have seen the mysterious seven cities, and
to have enlarged upon the previous stories.
Coronado, governor of the northern province of New Galicia, was
accordingly sent to conquer this wonderful country, which the
adventurers had seen, but Guzman failed to find. In 1540, the years
when Cortez again returned to meet ungrateful neglect at the bands of
the Spanish court, Coronado set out with a well--equipped following of
three hundred whites and eight hundred Indians. The Cibola cities were
found to be but mud pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico, with the aspect
of which we are to--day familiar; while the mild--tempered
inhabitants, destitute of wealth, peacefully practising their crude
industries and tilling their irrigated field, were foemen hardly
worthy of Castilian steel.
[1] From Mr. Thwaites' "Rocky Mountain Explorations." By
permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Co. Copyright 1904.
Cabeza de Vaca was born at Jeraz de la Frontera, in Spain, about
1490, and died at Seville some time after 1560. In 1528 he was
made treasurer of an expedition under Narvaez to Florida. From
Florida he sailed westward with Narvaez and off the coast of
Lousiana was shipwrecked. A combat with Indians ensued from which
De Vaca and three others escaped with their lives. After spending
six years with the Indians as captives, he reached Mexico in 1536,
meanwhile making the journey here described. He returned to Spain
in 1537, and in 1540 was made Governor of Paraguay, which he
explored in 1543. In the following year he was deposed and
imprisoned by Spanish colonists in Paraguay for alleged arbitrary
conduct and sent to Spain, where he was sentenced to be banished
to Oran in Africa, but was subsequently recalled and made judge of
the Supreme Court of Seville.
CABEZA DE VACA'S JOURNEY TO THE SOUTHWEST
(1535-1536)
DE VACA'S OWN ACCOUNT[1]
Castillo returned at the end of three days to the spot where he had
left us, and brought five or six of the people. He told us he had
found fixt dwellings of civilization, that the inhabitants lived on
beans and pumpkins, and that he had seen maize. This news the most of
anything delighted us, and for it we gave infinite thanks to our Lord.
Castillo told us the negro was coming with all the population to wait
for us in the road not far off. Accordingly we left, and, having
traveled a league and a half, we met the negro and the people coming
to receive us. They gave us beans, many pumpkins, calabashes, blankets
of cowhide and other things. As this people and those who came with us
were enemies, and spoke not each other's language, we discharged the
latter, giving them what we received, and departed with the others.
Six leagues from there, as the night set in, we arrived at the houses,
where great festivities were made over us. We remained one day, and
the next set out with these Indians. They took us to the settled
habitations of others, who lived upon the same food. From that place
onward was another usage. Those who knew of our approach did not come
out to receive us on the road as the others had done, but we found
them in their houses, and they had made others for our reception. They
were all seated with their faces turned to the wall, their heads down,
the hair brought before their eyes, and their property placed in a
heap in the middle of the house. From this place they began to give us
many blankets of skin; and they had nothing they did not bestow. They
have the finest persons of any people we saw, of the greatest activity
and strength, who best understood us and intelligently answered our
inquiries. We called them the Cow nation, because most of the
cattle[2] killed are slaughtered in their neighborhood, and along up
that river for over fifty leagues they destroy great numbers.
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