author
active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Best known as one of the four survivors of the disastrous Narváez expedition, he spent eight extraordinary years crossing parts of what are now the American South and Southwest. His written account mixes hardship, observation, and adventure in a way that still feels vivid centuries later.
3 Audiobooks
The Conquest of the River Plate (1535-1555)
by Ulrich Schmidel, active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Naufragios de Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
by active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, 1528-1543. The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeca de Vaca. The Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando De Soto by the Gentleman of Elvas
by active 16th century Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, active 16th century Pedro de Castañeda de Nájera, Knight of Elvas
About the author
Born in Spain around 1490, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was a 16th-century explorer, royal official, and writer. He joined the Narváez expedition to Florida in 1527, a mission that collapsed into shipwreck, starvation, and captivity.
Cabeza de Vaca survived and, with only a handful of companions, traveled for years across parts of present-day Texas, the Gulf Coast, northern Mexico, and the Southwest before reaching Spanish settlements in Mexico in 1536. His account of that journey, commonly known as La relación or Naufragios, made him one of the earliest European writers to describe many of the peoples and landscapes of those regions.
He later served in South America as governor of Río de la Plata, though that chapter of his life ended in political conflict and recall to Spain. Today he is remembered both as an explorer and as the author of one of the most remarkable survival narratives of the early colonial Americas.