Cabeza de Vaca’s Survival Secrets Imagine that you are cold, lonely, and stranded on an empty island with only 3 other people. What would you do? Cabeza de Vaca and the other 3 survivors’ raft has been washed ashore on the Isle de Malhado, an island also known as the Island of Bad Luck. It was November of 1528, and the clueless Spaniards had no ships, let alone clothes and food.
Their stories show us their feeling while discovering a new world. In Christopher Columbus’ Extracts from Journal, he tell his story about discovering a new world. In his journal, Columbus, for the most part, wrote his letters everyday. He starts writing it in the year 1492, on Friday August third, and he continues to write until the twenty-first
In this paper, the epic journey and expedition of Cabeza de Vaca would be discussed that why is his tale significant to understand the Spanish invasion of the Americas, what communication difficulties did he faced and what were the main aspects of his journey and our learning’s about native societies. 1. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (c.1490-c.1560) was born in Jeréz de la Frontera, Spain, to a respectable family; his initial profession was in the military. It was from San Lúcar de Barrameda that Cabeza de Vaca was to start his first venture in 1527 and, he was delegated second in charge of an expedition headed up by Panfilo de Narváez, who needed to assert the domain from Florida to Mexico for Spain. . Cabeza de Vaca's family had a long history of renowned support of Spanish eminence.
(Doc D) Document D is Cabeza De Vaca’s journal. He expresses that he and his crewmates healed the indians to show that they cared about the Indians to survive. They proved their worth to the Indians so that they could
Cabeza de Vaca attitude towards the new world was that of suffering and starvation. During his travels, he ate very little, mostly deer-tallow and at one point powdered straw. They did not eat during the day and ate very little at night. Cabeza de Vaca and his men grew very tired and hungry, but could not let the Native Americans see this suffering because they were upholding their authority over them. Cabeza de Vaca’s description of the terrain in some parts differed greatly from that of Columbus in that Columbus stated that the terrain he saw was rich lush lands with warm air and year round green
The Columbian Exchange between the new world and the old world significantly change people’s lives. After 1492, Europeans brought in horses to America which changes the nomadic Native American groups’ living from riding on buffalos to horses. This interchange also change the diet of the rest of the world with foods such as corns (maize), potatoes which are major diet for European nowadays. Besides all the animals from old world to the new world, Spanish also brought in the diseases that Native Americans were not immune of, such as smallpox which led to a large amount of Native Americans’ deaths.
In 1492 Christopher Columbus led 90 sailors in three ships on a voyage into the unknown. As the voyage dragged on, the sailors grew angry. Columbus wrote: "I am told . . . that if I persist in going onward, the best course of action will be to throw me into the sea some night. " Before that could happen, a lookout from the ship Pinta made the signal that he had spotted land.
Moreover, in 1537, another Spanish explorer known as Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, wrote a book titled La Relación, where he explained the obstacles him and his crew had to face during the Narvaez expedition in 1527 to the Spanish King, Charles I. In connection to all the men who sailed “from Cuba to Tampa Bay in present-day Florida” only “Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and three other men survived the expedition, but only after enduring a nine-year, six-hundred-mile trek across Texas and Mexico and enslavement by Indians…….” In my opinion, this letter gives the reader a much clearer understanding of the things that Cabeza de Vaca saw during his journey because he writes his letters using words like “my”, “I”, and “me” which makes it clear to us
“Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress”, chapter one of “A People’s History of the United States”, written by professor and historian Howard Zinn, concentrates on a different perspective of major events in American history. It begins with the native Bahamian tribe of Arawaks welcoming the Spanish to their shores with gifts and kindness, only then for the reader to be disturbed by a log from Columbus himself – “They willingly traded everything they owned… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” (Zinn pg.1) In the work, Zinn continues explaining the unnecessary evils Columbus and his men committed unto the unsuspecting natives.
The Spanish and Portuguese two vast empires that took over the New World and made it their own for over three hundred years. Spain and Portugal were able to maintain their empire for over three hundred years due to the following resources and advantages. Financial stability, military superiority, and slavery, which both utilized in order to dominate the new world. In the age of exploration as Spain and Portugal were shipping out famous explores such as Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Pedro Alvares Cabral, and Ferdinand Magellan.
Therefor; the indians trusted them and helped them along their journey.”Cabeza De Vaca put in effort to learn four Indian languages and sign language,”(DOC B). The adventurer wanted to learn the languages and sign language to better understand and communicate with the Indians. So how did Cabeza De Vaca survive?
In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue. We all know this catchy tune right? But what we don’t know, is what Columbus thought when he arrived in the North America or what he though of the Native Americans he met. In fact, we don’t know much about all the explorers after Columbus and what they thought. Each explore had their own view of the Native Americans, and three great examples are Columbus, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de Las Casas
The English were more concerned with finding gold rather than building functioning societies; which were primarily built around biblical teachings, while the Spanish intended for European national power to extend to western civilization beginning with Catholicism and influence of the pope. English settlers were driven from England due to religious practices and perceived themselves as saving the Indians from the Spanish and their tyrannical ways. For the English, owning land would give men control over their own labor and the right to vote in most colonies, and this land possession would show wealth. This new obtained wealth would not only have demonstrated power, but it could also be used to influence a society a certain way to convince others to follow suit. The English believed that their motives for colonization were pure, and that the growth of empire and freedom would always go together, unlike the Spanish.
As the world of global exploration and colonization grew, many powerful European empires set out to see what the New World had in store for them. Each empire had their own individual agendas and incentives for colonization. This led to the many differences between methods of colonization and exploration in every colony and region. The Atlantic World portrayed these contrasts between the Spanish, French, Dutch and British empires. However, the British settlements along the Eastern seaboard differed the most from those of other empires because there were no established policies or methods in British colonization, which led to differences in the economics and culture of each colony depending on who settled it.
Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes were both famous Spanish adventurers during the Age of Exploration. When the explorers came upon land, they encountered two different cultures. In 1492, Columbus encountered the Taino people, and in 1520, Cortes encountered the Aztecs. The two cultures that the men encountered were different in more ways than they were similar in regards to how the natives treated the men, what weapons they had and their war-like behavior, their technologically advancements, their housing and architectural structures, and even their religion.
