in the winter of 1528-29. Toward the end of April, 1536, Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andres Dorantes, and a negro named Estevan, met some Spanish slave catchers near the Rio de Petatlan, in Sinaloa, west of the mountains which border the Gulf of California. These four men, with a single exception,[1] were the only survivors of the three hundred who had entered the continent with Narvaez eight years before.
Cabeza de Vaca and his companions stayed in Mexico for several months, as the guests of the viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza. At first, it was probably the intention of the three Spaniards to return to Spain, in order to claim the due reward for their manifold sufferings. Mendoza says, in a letter dated December 10, 1537,[2] that he purchased the negro Estevan from Dorantes, so that there might be someone left in New Spain who could guide an expedition back into the countries about which the wanderers had heard. An earlier letter from the viceroy, dated February 11, 1537, commends Cabeza de Vaca and Francisco Dorantes—he must have meant Andres, and perhaps wrote it so in his original manuscript—as deserving the favor of the Empress. Maldonado is not mentioned in this letter, and no trace of him has been found after the arrival of the four survivors in Mexico. All that we know about him is that his home was in Salamanca.[3]
Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes started from Vera Cruz for Spain in October, 1536, but their vessel was stranded before it got out of the harbor. This accident obliged them to postpone their departure until the following spring, when Cabeza de Vaca returned home alone. He told the story of his wanderings to the court and the King, and was rewarded, by 1540, with an appointment as adelantado, giving him the command over the recently occupied regions about the Rio de la Plata. The position was one for which he was unfitted, and his subordinates
- ↑ Buckingham Smith collected in his Letter of Hernando de Soto. pp. 57-61, and in his Narrative of the Career of Hernando de Soto <see index), all that is known in regard to Ortiz, one of the soldiers of Narvaez, who was found among the Indians by De Soto in 1540.
- ↑ Mendoza to Charles V, 10 Diciembre, 1537. Cabeza de Vaca y Dorantes,. . . despues de haber llegado aqui, determinaron de irse en España, y viendo que si V. M. era servido de enviar aquella tierra alguna gente para saber de cierto lo que era, no quedaba persona que pudiese ir con ella ni dar ninguna razon, compré á Dorantes para este ofecto un negro que vino de allá y se halló con ellos en todo, que se llama Estéban, por ser persona de razon. Despues sucedió, como el navio en que Dorantes iba se volvió al puerto, y sabido esto, yo le escribi á la Vera-Cruz, rogándole que vinieso aqui: y como llegó á esta ciudad, yo le hablé diciéndole que huhiese por bien de volver á esta tierra con algunos religiosos y gente de caballo, que yo le daria á calalla, y saber de cierto lo que enu ella habia. Y él vista mi voluntad, y el servicio que yo le puse delantre que hacia con ello á Dios y á V . M., me respondió que holgaba dello, y asi estoy determinado de envialle allá con la gente de caballo y religiosos que digo. Pienso que ha de redundar dello gran servicio á Dios y á V. M—From the text printed in Pacheco y Cardenas, Docs, de Indias, ii, 206.
- ↑ Some recent writers have been misled by a chance comma inserted by the copyist or printer in one of the old narratives, which divides the name of Maldonado—Alonso del Castillo, Maldonado—making it appear as if there were five instead of four survivors of the Narvaez expedition who made their way to Mexico.
traversed. Dr J. G, Shea, in his chapter in the Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, p. 280. disagrees in some points with Mr Bandelier's interpretation of the route of Cabeza de Vaca west of Texas, and also with Mr Smith's identifications of the different points in the march of the main army before it embarked from the Bahia de los Cavallos. Other interesting conjectures are given in H. H. Bancroft's North Mexican States, vol. i, p. 63, and map at p. 67.
