Similarities Between Cabeza De Vaca And Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr has very specific views on the role and purpose of religious authoritative figures on their people and how the inner man of these religious figures is supposed to behave. On the other hand, Cabeza De Vaca has own views and ideals for these figures and he exposes these views quite clearly in the Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition where he describes his growing religious authority over the indians. Martin Luther would disagree with Cabeza De Vaca’s practices and views of religious authority because Cabeza De Vaca’s works acted towards the native indians are committed for selfish reasons and not for the faithfulness in God due to the fact that Cabeza De Vaca’s inner man is corrupted. Due the fact that Martin Luther feels

For example, when Vaca was with the People of the Figs, he was asked to help them with their daily tasks but he would look forward to doing one specific task, scraping skins and tanning them. He looked forward to this task because he would gain food from it. This shows that Cabeza De Vaca is religiously weak internally as his faithfulness in God is lacking. As a good Christian, Vaca should want to perform all tasks he is assigned as a good Christian is a “dutiful servant to all”(FoTC 1). In doing this, Vaca would become a servant of God and thus a good religious figure in Luther’s eyes. However since he is doing the opposite, he is misusing his religious status that grants him many opportunities, such as this task, that he uses for his own personal gain instead of for bettering of everyone

That without these selfish acts, he would no longer be able to be a dutiful servant to all nor a free lord to all in an appropriate manner because he wouldn’t have survived the struggles that the land presented. This is where faith plays a big role in Cabeza De Vaca’s actions and where it shows that he lacks in faith in God. Frankly enough, this is where Martin Luther argues greatly and tries hard to convey the message that faith in God is all a good Christian needs to live a good life. Since he Cabeza De Vaca decides to act in an inappropriate manner in Luther’s eyes, he is showing that he doesn’t believe that God will save him and his people from damnation. He believes that in order to survive, he needs to take matters into his own hands and take what he needs from the Indians and then repay them with deceiving good works so that they continue to follow him whereever it is he goes. Not only that, but when his followers decided to start raiding the new found towns and villages in order to give the treasures to Cabeza De Vaca, Vaca as a religious leader, should have stepped in and stopped them from committing those acts as those are corrupted acts in the eye’s of God since those people are considered his neighbors. However, Cabeza De Vaca did not step in to stop them because he feared that if he