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Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1490 – c. 1559) was an early Spanish explorer of the New World and is remembered as a protoanthropological author. Member of the Narváez expedition, he was one of four shipwreck survivors in the Gulf of Mexico, later enslaved by a Native American tribe of the upper Gulf coast, who eventually reached Mexico City.
Traveling mostly in this small group, he explored what are now the U.S. states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona on foot from coastal Louisiana to Sinaloa, Mexico, over a period of roughly six years. During his travels Cabeza de Vaca developed sympathies for the indigenous population unusual among the conquistadors. Eventually, after returning to the colonized reaches of New Spain and encountering a group of fellow Spaniards in the vicinity of modern-day Culiacán, he went on to Mexico City and returned to Europe in 1537, where he wrote about his experiences in a work called La relación ("The Tale"). One motivation for publication of this work was Cabeza de Vaca's desire to succeed Pánfilo de Narváez as governor of Florida.
Instead, in 1540 he was appointed governor of La Plata, in what is now Argentina and surroundings. Political intrigue against him caused his arrest and return to Spain in chains, in around 1545. He was eventually exonerated and wrote another book, Comentarios ("Commentary") about this experience.
External links
- Cabeza de Vaca (http://www.bigoid.de/conquista/biographien/cabeza1.htm) The Journey of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
- PBS website for Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/cabezadevaca.htm)
- Cabeza de Vaca's Journey to the Southwest (http://www.english.swt.edu/CSS/Vacaindex.HTML)
- Cabeza de Vaca's La Relación (http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv/about/index.html) – contains hi-res photography of the 1555 edition of La Relación.de:Cabeza de Vaca