Approaches to Teaching Cabeza de Vaca’s Account and Other Texts

Teach a conquistador’s writings about his journeys in the Americas

In 1527 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca journeyed from Spain to Florida with the ill-fated Pánfilo de Narváez expedition--and ended up wandering by land for years with a small band of survivors before reaching Spanish outposts in modern-day Mexico. He later traveled to South America as an appointed provincial governor, only to be sent back to Spain in chains some years after his arrival. His written works describing his experiences provide insights into the lives of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and the attitudes of the Spanish conquistadores.

This volume provides background about the texts and discusses new ways to teach them, challenging outdated readings that erase the violence of Spanish imperialism. Essays examine the role of the enslaved African Esteban in Cabeza de Vaca’s account of the North American expedition, the indigenous and Spanish women who appear in the explorer’s texts, Cabeza de Vaca’s performance of multiple gender roles, and the reception of these works as examples of Chicano or Latin American literature. The volume also explores connections to archaeological findings and food studies.

This volume contains discussion of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca’s Naufragios y comentarios, Bartolomé de las Casas’s De Unico Vocationis Modo Omnium Gentium ad Veram Religionem, Haniel Long’s The Marvellous Adventure of Cabeza de Vaca (1973), Abel Posse’s El largo atardecer del caminante (1992), Leila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account (2015), Nicolás Echevarría’s film Cabeza de Vaca (1989), Ettore DeGrazia’s DeGrazia Paints Cabeza de Vaca (1973), Colin Matthews’s The Great Journey (1988), Raúl Ayala Arellano’s Cabeza de Vaca (2001), George Antheil and Allan Dowling’s Cabeza de Vaca (1961), and Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.