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Cabeza de Vaca and his companions judged that the extent of country through which they had travelled, from Florida on the Atlantic to San Miguel on the South Sea, could not be less than two hundred leagues , as they declared upon oath before a notary at San Miguel on the 15th of May 1536, before whom likewise they subscribed a narrative of all the incidents of their weary pilgrimage.
They also said that the Indians had slain Orantes, Valdivieso, Huelva, Esquibel, and Mendez ; but that the three who still lived were very ill used, especially by the boys, who kicked, beat, and abused them for their amusement. At this time the Indians treated Cabeza and Oviedo very ill, so that Oviedo went back along with some of the natives, but Cabeza stayed and they two never met more.
Cabeza de Vaca was essentially a humanitarian Governor, who proved himself extremely loth to employ coercion and the sword, which means, in fact, he only resorted to with extreme reluctance as a very last resource.
Cabeza and his companions joyfully gave thanks to God for hearing some news of Christians after their long and distressing sojourn among the barbarians, and hastened on their journey to find them the sooner, telling all the Indians that they were going to order these bearded men not to kill or make slaves of the natives nor to do them any harm.
We cannot but recall how Cortes and his Spaniards were held by the superstitious Aztecs to have come from another world, and how Cabeza de Vaca was believed to exercise the power of God to heal the sick. The throng of savages, without comprehending a word, listened in awe-struck silence.
Moreover, 'Why work? asked many natives. The curate says that the rich man will not go to heaven The rich man on earth is liable to all kinds of trouble, to be appointed a cabeza de barangay, to be deported if an uprising occurs, to be forced banker of the military chief of the town, who to reward him for favors received seizes his laborers and his stock, in order to force him to beg for mercy, and thus easily pays up.
A fine house of boards for the family of a cabeza perhaps costs nearly $100; and the possessions of such a family in stock, furniture, ornaments, etc. Some reach even as much as $10,000, while the richest family of the whole province is assessed at $40,000.
There was a sickening, crashing thud, and twenty Navajos fell to earth with crushed skulls, each cabeza having been whacked simultaneously, right and left, fore and aft, by two stone clubs in the hands of a pair of devils.
Anyway, their report of golden cities and vast, undiscovered land pricked New Spain into launching Coronado's expedition of 1540. Preceding the formal military advance of Coronado, the Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza and two lay brothers guided by Cabeza de Vaca's negro Estevan, set out with the cross in their hands to prepare the way. Fray Marcos advanced from the Gulf of California eastward.
Now that their chief rival had been defeated, even the worst of the irreconcilable insurgents looked on with calmness while a young cabeza de barangay asked for the floor.
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