A Land So Strange - book

A Land So Strange, by Andres Resendez (Basic Books, 2007).

This is one of the strangest accounts of culture contact during the early Colonial period to survive. It is the true story of a Spaniard with an unlikely name, Cabeza de Vaca (Cow’s head), who survived a journey in the 1500’s, on foot and by raft, all the way from Southern Florida to the Pacific coast. He, two other Spaniards, and an African slave were all that survived of a party of 300 who were charged with finding gold and other riches in the New World. Based primarily on two separate accounts by the survivors, as well as the considerable literature that now exists on this subject, Resendez has written an interesting, if attenuated, account of this remarkable, indeed, almost unbelievable journey.

There is an extensive discussion of how it is this particular voyage came about. It was to be a voyage of revenge, sponsored by Diego Velazquez, the official Spanish ruler of Cuba, because he was betrayed by Hernan Cortez, who without Velazquez’s permission, undertook the journey that eventually resulted in his conquest of Mexico. This gives the reader some insight into the politics of the Spanish exploration and settlement of the Caribbean and Mexico. Angered by the behavior of Cortez, but unable to do much of anything about it, Velazquez, too old to lead a voyage himself, charged one of his partners, Panfilor de Narvaez, to lead an armada designed to extend his authority to the mainland of the U.S., and also to bring Cortez back in chains if possible. Unfortunately, because of bad weather, and because they had so little knowledge of where they were to go, many of the ships were lost in terrible winter storms that swept across the Gulf of Mexico. Narvaez’s own ship, ignorant of the strength of the Gulf current, was taken to the west coast of Florida, far from where they thought they were. Hearing of large settlements in the north (where they optimistically thought they would find gold) they decided to send an expedition of 300 men by land, who were then to eventually meet up again with the ship. As they had no idea where they were this did not work out, and the expedition was forced to walk, first from near Tampa Bay to the north of Florida, and from there all the way across to what is now Mississippi. Because of the terrain they were forced to build rafts to take them from there to the coast of what is now Texas.

This was a journey fraught with almost unbelievable hardships. By the time they arrived in Florida, half of their horses had died and the forty that lived were so feeble they could not be ridden. They encountered various tribes of Indians, some of whom were helpful and some not at all. They were eventually forced to butcher and consume their horses, and by the time they reached Mississippi there were fewer than 200 of them left. With few tools, and not very much knowledge, the fashioned a number of rafts and set out to get to Mexico. The rafts landed at different spots and the party thus split up with most of them perishing from illness or at the hands of Indians.

Back on land they continued on foot, at times living as slaves for various Indian tribes, and then managing to move on to the next group. Soon there were only the four of them left. They somehow became perceived as shamans, and were apparently quite successful, so their lives became much easier as they continued. In any case, nine years after they began this unlikely trip, they were discovered by a Spanish expedition and their terrible ordeal came to an end. Two of the Spaniards became landholders and slave owners and lived out their lives in relative luxury. Cabeza de Vaca did not fare so well, spending some time in prison, before dying in Spain. The black slave was allowed to lead an expedition of exploration and was murdered by Indians.
This book was carefully researched and contains a long list of the literature relating to this strange episode so that if you become interested in reading further you may do so at length. If you do become so interested you will have to read further, because the problem with this book is that it does pique one’s interest but offers very little in the way of detail. It rather typically reports, “they stayed with that tribe for two months,” or they remained at X for six months, or they were forced to stay for four months, or so on, with virtually no discussion of what it is they were doing during that time. This is all the more unfortunate as they were the first Europeans to see much of the New World. I don’t know if this is because the detail doesn’t exist, even in the original accounts, or if Resendez didn’t choose to write in such detail. I enjoyed reading about a strange journey I had not previously been aware of, and I marvel once again at the unbelievable resiliency of the human spirit in the face of the most difficult, nay, even impossible, circumstances.