Cabeza De Vaca And Narvaez's

Colonization of the new world had may aspects behind it, including but not limited to the of exploring of new sectors of the world, to the expansion of empires, and the hopes of gaining wealth and higher social standings. These same principals of colonization are illustrated in both Castaways, Cabeza De Vaca’s personal narrative of his journey to the new world and Andres Resendez’s A Land So Strange an interpretation of Cabeza’s expedition. Both pieces of literature excellently demonstrate the hopes of people journeying to the new world and the shortcomings and tribulations the expeditioners did not anticipate or were prepared for. Within the two books Cabeza De Vaca and Panifilo Narvaez demonstrate this very struggle people faced. While it

From the start of Resendez’s novel it paints Narvaez with an aura of incompetence and arrogance. For example, before the novel reaches what was supposed to be the colonization of present day Florida, which was a problem within itself Resendez explains the trouble Narvaez faced while attempting to colonize Mexico. Narvaez was employed to colonize Mexico in place of Diego Velazquez who was a former conquistador because he was “… getting old, and his expanding waistline was already the butt of jokes.” while “Narvaez, by contrast was still in his thirties and looked every bit the part of the Spanish conquistador…” . Though Narvaez may have looked the part of a great colonist he did not play the part according to the accounts of Resendez as the events in Mexico Tenochtitlan depicted. Narvaez was sent to Mexico to “…apprehend Cortes and his soldiers, who were bad men with no license from the King of Spain...”, however the exact opposite happened. One night there was a storm and Narvaez “…had never believed that Cortes would dare to fight a force that was four times as large…” however that is exactly what happened and even after having the chance to prepare himself with news that “Cortes’s forces were about 3 miles from camp, the leader could not bring himself to take the threat seriously.” Narvaez did not take the

Though there may be some bias “Given what became of the expedition, it would have been very much in his interest to cast himself as the voice of reason in this decisive argument.” the events Cabeza recounts point to conflict between himself and Narvaez. The first of these events that displayed Cabeza’s lack of faith in Narvaez is also displayed in the text of A Land So Strange. It comes when the colonists first reach land after sailing for several months and Narvaez called for counsel among the leaders about the decision to move inland. This is first decision that Cabeza advises against stating “I replied that I thought we should by no means leave the ships…” instead of moving inland Cabeza wanted to find a safe harbor first, with hindsight being Cabeza’s friend his advice should have been taken. Instead Narvaez questioned Cabeza’s honor “I had stayed behind out of fear, and that my honor would be impugned; and that I preferred to risk my life rather than place my honor in that position” and led to the deaths of many. Furthermore, as the expedition aged on an conditions grew graver the decision making of Narvaez continued to deteriorate as well. At one point as they were sailing on three separate rafts towards land, as Narvaez believed it to be the best course of action the Narvaez refused to