Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1542

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-22

Chapters 23-29

Chapters 30-34

Chapters 35-38

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Spiritual and Physical Conquest of the Americas

The Chronicle of the Narváez expedition is an engrossing tale of the early attempts by Spain to colonize North America, and it stands in stark contrast to the successes experienced by Hernán Cortés in his conquest of the Aztecs. Pánfilo de Narváez knew Cortés personally and had even been imprisoned by that conqueror, so it is no stretch of the imagination to think that Narváez wanted to conquer territory and bring back to Spain riches to parallel Cortés. However, unlike Cortés or even his predecessor to Florida, Ponce de León, Narváez failed to conquer anything, and the attempt cost him and hundreds of his men their lives. One of the few survivors, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, found himself changed from conquering warrior to someone struggling to survive. Cabeza de Vaca and his three other companions lived among Indigenous people of the lands through which they traveled, gaining respect for them and their ways of life. This newfound respect, coupled with the men’s unquestionable Catholic faith, transformed them from conquerors to missionaries and diplomats.

Cabeza de Vaca marks this transition by describing himself and the others as “naked as we had been born” (32)—a significant change that strips him of his conquistador armor and Spanish dress, placing him on par with Indigenous people, who were unclothed. As Cabeza de Vaca was reduced to barebones survival, Indigenous people fed and housed him, keeping him from death, and allowing him to see their lives and customs from an insider’s viewpoint.

After abandoning his conquistador status, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions were urged to help Indigenous people by becoming healers. It is unclear why the Indigenous people felt the Spanish could perform cures; the Europeans did not know medicine but used Catholic prayers to heal the sick. The miraculous and self-aggrandizing description of these prayers efficacy makes readers question the veracity of Cabeza de Vaca’s report, but the fact remains that at this point, Cabeza de Vaca went from survivor to Christian missionary. By the time he and his companions left the Isle of Misfortune in modern-day Texas, they were leading a large congregation of Indigenous followers.

Being a faith-based healer dramatically transformed Cabeza de Vaca’s attitude towards the Indigenous people. While the original expedition planned to conquer, subdue, and possibly enslave the inhabitants of La Florida, by the time Cabeza de Vaca and his companions arrived in Spanish colonial Mexico, they were fully convinced of the need for humane and civil treatment of the Indigenous people by their Spanish compatriots. The last chapters of the chronicle are dedicated to the Cabeza de Vaca’s diplomatic efforts on behalf of Indigenous people.

Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle is a microcosm of Spanish policies towards and dealings with the Indigenous people of the Americas, which always followed a pattern of martial conquest and conversion to Catholicism/Christianity.

Role of Observer

Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle of his experiences with the Narváez expedition is one of the earliest first-hand accounts of Europeans among Indigenous peoples in North America. Indigenous people did not keep written records, so Cabeza de Vaca’s accounts are some of the only sources of their ways after the groups’ extinction. Cabeza de Vaca’s role as an observer provides anthropologists with some evidence of pre-Columbian life.

Cabeza de Vaca attempts to maintain objectivity when describing morally neutral details, though his description is often colored by his experience and beliefs. Sometimes this allows him to explain foreign details to Spanish readers: He often likens new objects to something similar and known back in Spain. One example of the drawbacks of this approach is when Cabeza de Vaca labels unfamiliar plants and animals not by their Indigenous names, but by incorrect European terms—calling bison “cows” or pecans “walnuts,” for example.

However, he often passes judgment on the Indigenous customs and behavior he observes—judgment that is in keeping with his Spanish and Christian worldview. The most notable instance is his reaction to marriage between men among Indigenous people in the Texas region, which he describes as “repulsive” (71).

Despite these subjective observations, the chronicle is filled with useful anthropological information about many Indigenous peoples: their diet, migratory practices, customs, abodes, and physical appearance. His attention to detail has allowed scholars to roughly place Indigenous groups on a modern map. For example, scholars can identify the Indigenous people on the Isle of Misfortune, the Cavoques and Han, as members of the larger Karankawa group, and to concur that the Isle of Misfortune is more than likely Follet’s Island in Texas.

Of course, one cannot forget that Cabeza de Vaca’s greatest motivation for writing and publishing his chronicle was to aid the Spanish Crown in the martial and spiritual conquest of the Indigenous people in North America. As he writes in his dedication to the king:

This account, to my mind, will be counsel of no little use to those who, in your name, may go to conquer those territories and, collectively, bring them knowledge of the true faith and true lord and service to Your Majesty (4).

Fiction or Nonfiction?

Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle of the Narváez expedition is above all one man’s story of survival in an alien world. It is hard to draw a line between what is fact, what is exaggeration, and what is invented whole cloth—especially since Cabeza de Vaca wrote at a time when academic objectivity was not a strongly held value in Europe.

Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle is not a survival guide. His language is laconic, and he often elides details of the physical and mental ordeals he experiences: “It would take me a long time to recount my sufferings while trading in this way. Danger, hunger, storms, and frost often overtook me” (43). He does not dwell on what it took to live day to day; instead, he spends far more time describing the Indigenous people, chronicling their mores and evaluating their readiness to be colonized.

Cabeza de Vaca does his best to catalog what is around him but is limited by the fact that he is not a naturalist. Often, when he does not have any words to describe what he sees, he falls back on familiar Spanish terms rather than adopt Indigenous labels like other explorers often did. For example, he uses the word “cow” for bison, “walnut” for pecan, and “roots” for any number of plants.

Much of Cabeza de Vaca’s account promotes his ingenuity, loyalty to Spain, bravery, and steadfast faith—subjective self-evaluation that sometimes beggars belief. As Cabeza de Vaca went from naked survivor to learning from his Indigenous hosts what to eat, where to go, and how to behave among them, the chronicle highlights his intellect, capacity for withstanding hardship, and adaptability. Even more dramatically questionable is Cabeza de Vaca and his companions’ work as medicine men, successfully healing large numbers of Indigenous people through Catholic prayer and becoming an enormously popular missionary who attracted hundreds of Indigenous followers. The broad facts of Cabeza de Vaca’s account are verifiable, but the details of his miracles sometimes seem too good to be true. Still, Cabeza de Vaca’s account is predominantly nonfiction, holding important information about the peoples of North America before their extermination.