They marched north for two-and-a-half months before reaching the Zuñi pueblo of Hawikuh in present-day northwestern New Mexico. In 1540, Viceroy Antonio Mendoza ordered Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to lead an expedition to the northern reaches of the Spanish empire to conquer the region and claim the wealth for Spain.Ĭoronado gathered 1,000 men and thousands of horses, mules, sheep and cattle for the expedition. Rumors like these fueled Spanish exploration of Texas and the surrounding areas for nearly 70 years.Ĭabeza de Vaca’s tales of riches were reinforced when a Franciscan friar reported cities of gold in present-day New Mexico. Instead, they returned with tales they heard from American Indians of riches elsewhere in North America. In the eight years they spent in Texas, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions failed to discover any gold or claim any new territory for Spain. They followed a winding route that covered approximately 2,400 miles, and took them south of the Rio Grande, across northern Mexico, and eventually south to Mexico City. After recuperating for eight months, the men set out for Mexico. Six years after the expedition began, the four men escaped the Mariames one by one and headed south, where they were taken in by members of the Avavares tribe. Once reunited, Cabeza de Vaca was also enslaved. These men had been enslaved by an American Indian group known as the Mariames. On his journey south, Cabeza de Vaca rediscovered three Spaniards who had been separated from his party soon after their shipwreck. Moving between the mainland and the coast, Cabeza de Vaca worked as a trader and healer to survive, with the ultimate goal to make it to Mexico City. Despite receiving food and shelter from the nearby Karankawa tribe, only fifteen of the men survived the winter.įor the next eight years, Cabeza de Vaca and the remaining survivors would become the first Europeans to view the diversity of the landscape and people of what we now call Texas. The party included Estevanico, a North African enslaved man believed to be the first person of African descent to set foot in North America. A group of 90 men, headed by Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, shipwrecked near Galveston Island.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AMERICAN CONQUEST UNDER WHAT COUNTRY SERIES
A long series of disasters left most of the expedition dead.
In 1528, another expedition, led by Pánfilo de Narváez, set sail from Spain to explore the North American interior. However, it would be another nine years before any Spaniards explored the Texas interior. In 1519, the explorer Alonso Álvarez de Piñeda became the first European to map the Texas Gulf Coast. When Cabeza de Vaca joined fellow Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narváez on an expedition to conquer and colonize the North American Gulf Coast in 1528, he began a journey that would take more than eight years to complete.
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