Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1542

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-22

Chapters 23-29

Chapters 30-34

Chapters 35-38

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 16-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 16 Summary: “How the Christians Left the Island”

Dorantes and Castillo return and gather all the scattered European survivors. Cabeza de Vaca is too sick to travel, so he is forced to remain another year with the Indigenous people. The year is full of hardship: Harvesting the roots that are a staple of the Indigenous people’s diet is extremely difficult, plus Indigenous people of the area are depicted as constantly at war with one another. This provides Cabeza de Vaca the opportunity to become a mediator and trader between them. Cabeza de Vaca eventually adopts Indigenous ways: “I spent nearly six years in this country, alone with them and as naked as they were” (43). One reason de Vaca stays in the area so long is because he does not want to leave Lope de Oviedo, who lives with another group and is reluctant to go. Finally, Cabeza de Vaca convinces Oviedo to leave.

As they travel, they learn that those who left six years earlier mostly perished from cold and hunger. Those who survived now live among other Indigenous people, who mistreat them and regularly beat them. Due to these reports, Oviedo returns to the group he had been living with, while Cabeza de Vaca goes on alone.

Chapter 17 Summary: “How the Indians Arrived with Andrés Dorantes and Castillo and Estevanico”

Cabeza de Vaca encounters Captains Dorantes and Castillo gathering walnuts with the Indigenous group that is holding them. Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes, Castillo, and Estevanico reunite and give thanks to God that they are together again. The Europeans and Indigenous people remove to an area to eat prickly pears. The Indigenous people subsist on nothing but prickly pears for three months of the year. While with Dorantes and Castillo, de Vaca learns of their earlier travels and travails.

Dorantes and Castillo were on the same boat as the comptroller, Alonso Enriquez, and four monks, but the boat was swept out to sea where four men drowned. They traveled 15 leagues, losing two more men. Eventually, they found a group of Indigenous people eating blackberries and encountered Figeroa, “one of the four we had sent ahead from the Isle of Misfortune” (46). Figeroa recounts that the Indigenous people pursued and killed one of the others, Méndez, because he attempted to flee them and go to Pánuco. Dorantes and Castillo also met Hernando de Esquivel, who informed them about the fate of Narváez: Narváez was carried out to sea on his boat and no one ever saw him again. The remaining survivors traveled as best they could, but eventually resorted to cannibalism to survive. Esquivel was the last one alive when an Indigenous man found him. Figeroa tried to get Esquivel to come along, but Esquivel refused, so Figeroa went ahead without him.

Chapter 18 Summary: “Esquivel’s Account, Related by Figeroa”

Esquivel recounts the fate of the remainder of the fleet. Those who survived after Narváez’s boat was swept out to sea were enslaved by Indigenous people who heavily abused them, while others were killed by the Indigenous people. Andrés Dorantes fled from the enslavers, going over to the Marianes. Esquivel was there, but he fled after a woman dreamed that he would kill her son because dreams were seen as prophecy: “It is a custom of theirs to kill even their own children because of dreams” (49). Esquivel describes an insular, warlike people that practices female infanticide, reasoning that since all other tribes are their enemies, they do not want to be beholden to their enemies because of marriage (when marrying, they trade with their enemies for women). Dorantes describes more of the Marianes’ customs and some of those of the Yguaces. Cabeza de Vaca then finishes the narration by describing cows with short horns and long hair (bison).

Chapter 19 Summary: “How the Indians Separated Us”

Cabeza de Vaca remains with the other Europeans for six months. Just as they are all about to flee, a quarrel erupts between their groups of Indigenous people, so the Europeans are separated once more. Cabeza de Vaca is treated very poorly by his Indigenous people; he attempts to flee three times but is caught every time. Eventually, when the prickly pear season returns, the Indigenous people again reunite, bringing the Europeans back together as well. The Europeans again plan to escape.

Indigenous people consume prickly pears by digging a hole in the earth and filling it with pear juice. The Indigenous people are nomadic, and drink rainwater, having no “knowledge of springs or established water holes” (54). Cabeza de Vaca learns that the Camones are the ones who killed everyone in Peñalosa and Tellez’s boat.

Chapter 20 Summary: “How We Fled”

Cabeza de Vaca and the others finally flee captivity. On the second day, they come across a lone Indigenous man after spotting smoke from his fire. He runs away from them, but they send Estevanico to parley. The Indigenous man is part of the Avavares, and he takes the Europeans with him to his village. The people receive them warmly, having heard of the Europeans’ healing abilities.

Chapter 21 Summary: “How We Cured Several Sick People”

Some Indigenous people come to Castillo to be healed, so Castillo makes the sign of the cross over them. The ill say their pain is gone and give the Europeans venison and prickly pears. The Europeans remain with the Indigenous people for several days, traveling far in search of more prickly pears. Along the way, Cabeza de Vaca becomes separated and lost for five days, until he comes across the group again at a river. He thanks God for preserving him.

Chapter 22 Summary: “How the Following Day They Brought Other Sick People”

The next day, the Indigenous people bring five others who are sick and paralyzed, giving Castillo gifts of bows and arrows. Again, Castillo makes the sign of the cross, commending the sick to God. The next day, all five “went away in such good health that it was as if they never had had any ailment at all” (59).

Cabeza de Vaca and Estevanico also become medicine men, going to another village to heal someone with “sleeping sickness” (60). After they treat the sick, their families give de Vaca and Estevanico bows and prickly pears, which they in turn give to the Indigenous men who accompanied them as guides to the village. The next day, the Indigenous people report to de Vaca that the “dead man” (60) has recovered, walking around, eating, and conversing with others. Fame of the Europeans’ healing powers spreads throughout the area.

While spending eight months with the Avavares, the Europeans hear a strange tale from the Indigenous people about a “Bad Thing” (61) that walked the land, attacking and killing people. No one could see the thing’s features, but it was shaped like a man. The Europeans inform the Indigenous people that the thing was a demon, and that as long as the Europeans are with them, the demon cannot harm them.

Chapters 16-22 Analysis

Cabeza de Vaca’s ability to escape his enslavement on the Isle of Misfortune and become a trader greatly highlights his endurance and ingenuity. Like the main character of Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, Cabeza de Vaca’s account portrays a European, with European knowledge and work-ethic, industriously overcoming a wild environment. Cabeza de Vaca’s rise contrasts the disastrous fate of the other boats, though his third-hand account puts the full veracity of Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle into doubt. Esquivel’s story, which fits the literary trope of a story-within-a-story (embedded narrative), does not come directly from Esquivel. Instead, a man named Figeroa met Esquivel, learned his tale, and later told it to Dorantes, who relates it to Cabeza de Vaca. The inexactness of the narration is further compounded by time—Cabeza de Vaca is writing five years after returning to Spain.

Cabeza de Vaca once again provides information about many Indigenous tribes. While he received very harsh treatment from members of the Karankawa, among the Charrucans he finds a way to earn a living through manufacturing and trading goods. Interestingly, the Charrucans (also De Charruco), are only mentioned in Cabeza de Vaca’s chronicle, so there is nothing else known about them. In the area of Southeast Texas, Cabeza de Vaca encountered the Marianes, the Yguaces, and the Quevenes. The Quevenes probably belonged to the larger Karankawa group, whereas the Yguaces and Marianes were most likely of the Tonkawa.

Cabeza de Vaca describes relatively well the migratory nature and diet of the latter two groups, which are under the semi-sedentary grouping of Indigenous people: They eat nuts and prickly pears in the winter months; when the groups travel, they eat crawfish, meadowgrass, and blackberries. Cabeza deplores the meagre diet of the Marianes. He focuses on how hungry he and the Indigenous people were, and how they resorted to eating things such as spiders, ant eggs, worms, lizards, deer feces, and things he won’t even record. From Cabeza de Vaca’s perspective, the Marianes and Yguaces appear to scarcely gather enough food to survive, though a member of either group most likely would have viewed the situation differently. This further serves to remind the reader that Cabeza de Vaca is not an objective observer—his worldview and opinions color his narration. Cabeza also emphasizes how thirsty he was all the time. He was shocked that the Indigenous people he lives with do not possess any drinking vessels, drinking rainwater from various nooks and crannies rather than attempting to collect it in containers. Even though there are rivers in the area, the Indigenous people do not collect or transport water: “[the Indigenous people] have no knowledge of springs or established water holes” (54).

Cabeza de Vaca’s reporting always compares Indigenous ways to those of Europeans. Without saying it directly, Cabeza de Vaca judges the Indigenous people as barbarians, as his opinion on the landscape demonstrates: “it strikes me that the soil would be very fertile were the country inhabited and improved by reasoning people” (54). This statement highlights a key belief of the colonizing and conquering Europeans—that the land is wasted on Indigenous people, who do not develop it properly.

In one of the chronicle’s more overt discussions of race, Cabeza de Vaca points out that Estevanico played a diplomatic role among the Indigenous people because of his darker skin color. In one instance, Estevanico is able to communicate with an Indigenous man who flees the four white men. Since Cabeza de Vaca strongly believed that they were the first to encounter the Indigenous people in the area of Texas, it is probably that the strangeness of their skin color startled or frightened the man they are trying to talk to. Trusting the one who looks most like himself, the Indigenous man allows Estevanico to approach.

In Chapters 21 and 22, Cabeza de Vaca returns to his messianic theme of being a healer and messenger of God among the Indigenous people. He fills his descriptions with biblical allusions. For example, when Cabeza de Vaca is lost and must use torches to light his way, their light is reminiscent of the pillar of light that guided Moses and the Israelites through the desert in the Old Testament. To cement the connection, Cabeza de Vaca describes his few days of wandering around lost in detail that contemporary readers would have connected to the Book of Exodus; similarly, when he explains that his bush burrow caught fire during the night, readers would immediately think of the burning bush that began Moses’s mission of freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and his leading them to the promised land.