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Updated: June 28, 2025
By means of this trade Cabeza de Vaca had liberty to go wherever he pleased, and was well received wherever he went, receiving provisions in return for his merchandize.
Cabeza and his companions were much concerned at this; but those who had lost their goods in this manner made quite light of the matter, desiring them not to be troubled at it, as they would repay themselves farther on among tribes who were very rich.
The Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca, describes the Yguases in Texas, among whom he lived for several years, in these words: "Their support is principally roots which require roasting two days. Many are very bitter.
To be sure, though, they sent out a party of reconnaissance, under the control of a good father of the Church, Fray Marcos de Nizza, a friar of the Orders Minor, commonly known as a Franciscan, with Stephen, a negro, one of the escaped party of Cabeza de Vaca, as a guide, to spy out the land.
"At that time we had not heard of gold," said the Road-Runner; "the Spaniards talked so much of it we thought it must be something good to eat, but it turned out to be only yellow stones. But it was not all Cabeza de Vaca's doing.
There's no water; just enough to do assessment work on, and that to be hauled twenty-five miles from those little rock tanks at Cabeza Prieta. Deep drillin' may get water I hope so. But that will take time and money.
Before sending out a large expedition to conquer the cities and fertile land Cabeza de Vaca had described, it would be wise and cautious to send a cool-headed man, one who was prepared for any hardship, one who had no lust for gold in his own soul, yet who could be relied upon to bring back a straight and true story to the viceroy as to whatever he might discover concerning De Vaca's stories.
One disaster followed another in the vicinity of Pensacola Bay and the mouth of the Mississippi until at length only four men survived. These were Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca; Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a captain of infantry; Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado; and Estévanico, who had originally come from the west coast of Morocco and who was a slave of Dorantes.
Cabeza and his companions travelled above an hundred leagues with much satisfaction in this country, blessing God for having brought them at length into a land of plenty, as besides vegetable food in abundance, the natives killed venison and other game, and presented the Spaniards with cotton mantles, coral beads procured from the South Sea, turquoise stones, and several arrow heads made of emeralds, which they procured from a neighbouring nation in exchange for various coloured plumes of feathers.
It is not certainly known, but it is vaguely supposed they were Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions, shipwrecked on the coast of Florida in the Narvaez expedition, who wandered westward across the continent from Taos to Laguna and Acoma. As the legend runs, they were made slaves by the Indians and traded from tribe to tribe from 1528 to 1536, when they reached Old Mexico.
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