Description:

Cabeza de Vaca gives us perhaps the most intriguing account of the inhabitants of the North American continent during the earliest contact with the Spanish. His report covers nine years, from 1527 - 1536, and his route over the bays, rivers, marshes, prairies, woodlands and along major Indian trails may have spanned 6,000 miles or more. Through his account we learn that there were important cultural centers within our modern boundaries. Though Cabeza de Vaca himself did not visit them, he would later misrepresent the pueblos in the interior as places of great wealth. Within a few years of Cabeza de Vaca's arrival in Mexico City, Spaniards such as Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and Hernando de Soto would terrorize the interior lands. The conquest would be in full motion by 1540 and many indigenous populations would seek refuge from the Conquistadores in the new Christian mission settlements, where they hoped Dios (God) would save them from slave raiders and killers.