The Cow and the Smith

The voyage to the new land was one that had many hardships for almost anyone that went. When I think of whom I would go with there is only one person I would really want to go with: Àlvar Nùñez Cabeza de Vaca. On that same note there is one person I also would choose to not go with on the voyage to the new land with: John Smith.

Àlvar Nùñez Cabeza de Vaca was one who had the most hardships during his time on his voyage to the new land. Cabeza de Vaca writes, “My only duty is to transmit what I saw and heard in the nine years I wandered lost and miserable over many remote lands” and after all that he experienced on the new land it was evident that he did not have the best time on his trip to his voyage to the new land (45). The reason that through all of his suffer and turmoil he experienced that I would want to go with him is the fact that he got to experience life with the Indians, or more correctly Native Americans, as none had really gotten to do. It seemed to me that he had thought that some people might believe for his experience to be one that not factual but he backs it up when he mentions, “[This story may be] difficult to believe though the things narrated may be, I assure you that they can be accepted without hesitation as strictly factual” (45). This makes me realize that he wanted to write what he had written and he also did not want people to think that what he had written was something that he had just made up during what was possibly the hardest time of his life.

Throughout Àlvar Nùñez Cabeza de Vaca’s nine years on the new land, he had gotten to experience what life was like for the several different tribes he had gotten to experience. The tribes that he had collaborated with, not completely willingly, were the...

... middle of paper ...

...and want also what the resources of the land could give him. While reading through Smith’s work I just really did not like the idea of going with him just for the reason that something just feels “off” to me and I would prefer to stay away from someone who was like that.

I really think that if I got the chance to go back to go back into time I would definitely go with Àlvar Nùñez Cabeza de Vaca, and not with John Smith more because of what they had to endure. Maybe possibly if given the chance I would go with everyone to the new land to experience all what they had to do.

Works Cited

Baym, Nine, ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A., 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print.

Cabeza de Vaca, Àlvar Nùñez. The Relation of Àlvar Nùñez Cabeza de Vaca. 43-51.

Smith, John. The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. 83-92.