Álvar Cabeza de Vaca

Álvar Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1490-c. 1557), Spanish explorer, born in Jerez de la Frontera. In 1527 he was appointed treasurer of a royal expedition of about 300 men led by the Spanish soldier Pánfilo de Narváez to conquer and colonize Florida. The expedition sailed into Tampa Bay in about April 1528, began an overland march to Apalachee Bay, and then attempted to reach Mexico. During the next two years more than half the men died, and Cabeza de Vaca emerged as the leader. He led a small band of survivors to an island, possibly Galveston Island, off the south-western coast of what is now Texas, where the band was captured by Native Americans. Early in 1535, Cabeza de Vaca and the three other survivors of the expedition escaped and began a trek through what are now the south-western United States and northern Mexico. In 1536 the four men reached a Spanish settlement on the Sinalo River in Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain in 1537 and was rewarded with an appointment as governor of Río de la Plata (now largely Paraguay).

In 1541-1542 Cabeza de Vaca led an expedition 1,600 km (1,000 mi) through the south of present-day Brazil to Asunción, the capital of Río de la Plata. He took office as governor of the province in 1542 but was ousted two years later as the result of a revolt. Recalled to Spain under arrest in 1554, he was later banished to Africa. In 1556 he obtained a pardon and a pension. His account of the Narváez expedition, Relación (1542), and his tales of the Zuñi and their villages, the legendary Seven Cities of Cíbola, encouraged other expeditions to America, notably those of the explorers Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vásquez de Coronado.