Cabeza De Vaca Dbq Essay

From a proud Conquistador, to a castaway, a slave and trader, and then medicine man, Cabeza de Vaca was the first European to explore much of the southern coast of Texas. Cabeza was a 37 year old military veteran in 1527 when he left on the Narvaez Expedition to find gold and colonize the Gulf Coast. He was the expedition’s treasurer. Cabeza de Vaca was enslaved by Indians in 1528 when one of the rafts the crew made crashed on present day Galveston island, he then escaped in 1530 and joined/was enslaved by another tribe called the Charrucos until his escape with 3 other survivors in 1534. He then walked to Mexico City. Cabeza survived this ordeal because of the incredible patience he had, his skills of diplomacy and goodwill, and his amazing wilderness survival skills.

One of the reasons Cabeza de Vaca survived was due to his incredible

(Background Essay) Another example would be that after he escaped, he walked to Mexico City from Texas, the long way. It took Cabeza 21 months to reach Mexico City going around 2 mountain ranges and through a desert in between the mountain ranges until he was forced to go through the mountain range in order to reach his destination with his fellow survivors. Overall he traveled over 2500 miles(Doc A) Without these skills Cabeza de Vaca might have been to hasty to leave and probably would have been caught and killed several times over

A second reason Cabeza de Vaca survived was because of his diplomacy and goodwill skills, or the fact that he was just a good person in general. A good example of this reason would be that, shortly after being captured by the Charrucos, Cabeza de Vaca became friends with them, they which in turn allowed him to be a trader, (though still enslaved,) to tribes as far as 150 mile from the Gulf Coast region.(Doc B) A second example of this reason would be, while Cabeza de Vaca was enslaved, as well as during his trek to Mexico City, Cabeza