Cabeza de Vaca: Across North America, 1528–36

On 17 June 1527 Pánfilo de Narváez's fleet left Spain from Sanlúcar, the port at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River, bound for La Florida. Among the officers was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, appointed royal treasurer, a post that made him second in command. The pin marks the town; the departure quay is not identified.

Location precision: The sources name the port but not the quay, so the pin marks the town centre.

In October 1527 Narváez put Cabeza de Vaca and a captain named Pantoja in charge of two ships sent to Trinidad for supplies. A hurricane struck soon after they arrived. Both ships sank, 60 men were killed and a fifth of the horses drowned. The expedition had not yet seen Florida, and it had already lost men and animals it could not replace. The pin marks the town of Trinidad, not the exact anchorage.

Location precision: The sources name Trinidad but not the anchorage where the ships were lost.

Land was sighted on 12 April 1528, north of present Tampa Bay, and Narváez landed with 300 men in Boca Ciega Bay at what is now called the Jungle Prada Site in St. Petersburg. Scholars still debate the exact landing place, though recent opinion favours the Tampa Bay area. Here Narváez decided to split his force and march inland toward Apalachee; Cabeza de Vaca argued against it but was outvoted, and he went with the marchers.

Location precision: The landing place is debated; the pin marks the Jungle Prada Site, one candidate.

Starving and under attack, the expedition began building boats on 4 August 1528. They made a forge from a log with deerskins for bellows, and killed one horse every three days for food and material. By 20 September five boats were finished, and they sailed on 22 September 1528. Disease, starvation and attacks had cut the party to 242 men. The pin marks Apalachee Bay, the wider area where the boats were built.

Location precision: The sources place the boatyard near the bay, not at a surveyed spot; the pin marks the bay.

In November 1528 two of the boats wrecked on or near Galveston Island. Of the 80 or so survivors, only 15 lived past that winter, and the Spaniards named the place the Island of Misfortune. Historians believe they landed at Galveston, but others think Follet's Island, just to the southwest, fits Cabeza de Vaca's description better. He stayed on the Texas coast for years among the peoples he met, with a shrinking group of comrades.

Location precision: Galveston Island is the traditional identification, but Follet's Island is also proposed.

By 1532 only four of the original expedition survived. Their exact route across the Southwest has been hard for historians to determine. In July 1536, near Culiacán in present-day Sinaloa, the survivors met fellow Spaniards on a slave-taking expedition for New Spain. After years on foot, the encounter closed the long walk from the Gulf Coast. The pin marks the city; the actual meeting place is not known.

Location precision: The sources say only "near Culiacán"; the pin marks the city.

The Spaniards took the survivors to Mexico City, and from there Cabeza de Vaca sailed back to Europe in 1537. He began writing his chronicle only once he was back in Spain, and had to rely on memory. That is one reason the route across the continent is still argued over. The pin marks the centre of Mexico City, not a particular building.

Location precision: The sources name the city only; the pin marks its historic centre.