Ezequiel cabeza de vaca biography kids

But when they reached the mouth of the Mississippi River , the powerful current swept them out into the Gulf, where the five rafts were separated by a hurricane. In November , two crafts with about 40 survivors each, including Cabeza de Vaca, wrecked on or near Galveston Island now part of Texas. Of the 80 or so survivors, only 15 lived past that winter.

They tried to repair the rafts, using what remained of their own clothes as oakum to plug holes, but they lost the rafts to a large wave. As the number of survivors dwindled rapidly, they were enslaved for four years by various American Indian nomadic tribes of the upper Gulf Coast. The tribes to which Cabeza de Vaca was enslaved included the Hans and the Capoques, and tribes later called the Karankawa and Coahuiltecan.

Traveling mostly with this small group, Cabeza de Vaca walked generally west through what is now the U. He traveled on foot through the then-colonized territories of Texas and the Gulf Coast, but encountered no other Europeans. He continued through Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya present-day states of Chihuahua and Durango ; then down the Gulf of California coast to what is now Sinaloa , Mexico, over a period of roughly eight years.

Throughout those years, Cabeza de Vaca and the other men adapted to the lives of the indigenous people they stayed with, whom he later described as Roots People, the Fish and Blackberry People, or the Fig People, depending on their principal foods. During his wanderings, passing from tribe to tribe, Cabeza de Vaca later reported that he developed sympathies for the indigenous peoples.

He became a trader and a healer, which gave him some freedom to travel among the tribes. His group attracted numerous native followers, who regarded them as "children of the sun", endowed with the power to heal and destroy. He finally decided to try to reach the Spanish colony in Mexico. Many natives were said to accompany the explorers on their journey across what is now known as the American Southwest and northern Mexico.

From there he sailed back to Europe in Cabeza de Vaca wrote about his experiences in a report for Emperor Charles V. Numerous researchers have tried to trace his route across the Southwest. As he did not begin writing his chronicle until he was back in Spain, he had to rely on memory. He did not have instruments to determine his location; he had to rely on dead reckoning , and was uncertain of his route.

Aware that his recollection has numerous errors in chronology and geography, historians have worked to put together pieces of the puzzle to discern his paths. Cabeza de Vaca was assigned to find a usable route from this colony to the colony in Peru, on the other side of the Andes Mountains on the Pacific Coast. En route, he disembarked from his fleet at Santa Catarina Island in modern Brazil.

Once Irala returned and reported, Cabeza de Vaca planned his own expedition. He hoped to reach Los Reyes a base that Irala set up and push forward into the jungle in search of a route to the gold and silver mines of Peru. During Cabeza de Vaca's absence, Irala had stirred up resistance to his rule and capitalized on political rivalries.

Scholars widely agree that Cabeza de Vaca had an unusually sympathetic attitude towards the Native Americans for his time. The elite settlers in modern Argentina, known as encomenderos , generally did not agree with his enlightened conduct toward the Natives; they wanted to use them for labor. The former explorer was returned to Spain in for trial.

Although he was eventually exonerated, Cabeza de Vaca never returned to South America and died in Seville in Cabeza de Vaca reported on the customs and ways of American Indian life, aware of his status as an early European explorer. He spent eight years with various peoples, including the Capoque, Han, Avavare, and Arbadao. He describes details of the culture of the Malhado people, the Capoque, and Han American Indians, such as their treatment of offspring, their wedding rites, and their main sources of food.

Cabeza de Vaca and his three fellow survivors at times served as slaves to the American Indians to survive. Through his observations, Cabeza de Vaca provides insights into 16th-century American Indian life near the present-day Mexico-Texas border. For many peoples the accounts of Cabeza de Vaca and Hernando de Soto are the only written records of their existence.

At the time the pay for these elected officials was very small and he had by now a large family. Although his failing health prevented him from taking a significant part in his own campaign, he was elected the Governor of New Mexico on November 7, Inaugurated on January 1, , he was sworn into office on his sick bed in St. Vincent Sanitarium in Santa Fe, with only a score of persons attending.

He died on February 18, , in office. He had been sick for a long period of time and had traveled to California for treatments which were not successful. De Baca County is named for Governor de Baca. Ezequiel and Margarita Cabeza de Baca had 14 children, 5 of whom died in infancy. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history.

Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. Early life [ edit ]. Children of Ezequiel and Margarita [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. After communicating with the Native Americans, the Spanish heard rumors that a city named Apalachen was full of food and gold. Apalachen had no gold but only corn, but the explorers were told a village known as Aute, about 5 or 9 days away, was rich.

They pushed on through the swamps, harassed by the Native Americans. A few Spanish men were killed, and more wounded. When they arrived in Aute, they found that the inhabitants had burned down the village and left. But the fields had not been harvested, so at least the Spanish scavenged food there.

Ezequiel cabeza de vaca biography kids

Slaughtering and eating their remaining horses, they gathered the stirrups, spurs, horseshoes, and other metal items. They fashioned bellows from deer hide to make a fire hot enough to forge tools and nails. They used these in making five primitive boats to use to get to Mexico. Cabeza de Vaca commanded one of these vessels, each of which held 50 men.

Depleted of food and water, the men followed the coast westward. But when they reached the mouth of the Mississippi River, the powerful current swept them out into the Gulf, where the five rafts were separated by a hurricane. Two crafts with about 40 survivors each, including Cabeza de Vaca, wrecked on or near Galveston Island. Out of the 80 or so survivors, only 15 lived past that winter.

The explorers called the island Malhado or the Island of Doom. They tried to repair the rafts, using what remained of their own clothes as oakum to plug holes, but they lost the rafts to a large wave. As the number of survivors dwindled rapidly, they were enslaved for a few years by various American Indian tribes on the upper Gulf Coast. Because Cabeza de Vaca survived and prospered from time to time, some scholars argue that he was not enslaved but used a figure of speech.

He and other noblemen were accustomed to better living.