This week we are kicking off perhaps the most unbelievable story of individual survival in all the History of the Americans, the disastrous Narváez expedition and the amazing journey of Cabeza de Vaca. In the spring of 1536, a group of Spanish horsemen were ranging north along the Pacific coast of Mexico, looking for Indians to capture for slaves in territory that the Spanish had neither settled nor explored. The horsemen encountered a group of Indians, but among them were three Spanish nobles and a black slave. The four were the last survivors of a disastrous expedition that had landed in Florida eight years before, and they had traveled across North America and now found themselves as the spiritual leaders of the first known mass religious movement in North America. In between they endured unbelievable suffering, and their survival is its own monument to human resilience. Over the next several episodes, we will recount this story, and look forward to its consequences.

Selected references for this episode

Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Account: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion, An Annotated Translation by Martin A. Favata and Jose B. Fernandez

Alex D. Krieger, We came Naked and Barefoot: The Journey of Cabeza de Vaca Across North America

Gonzalo Fernandez Oviedo y Valdez and Harbert Davenport, "The Expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez," The Southwestern Historical Quarterly