Spanish in new world

[caesar novus]

I was recently startled to find my self immersed in a memoir by Cabeza de Vaca who was one of the 1% that survived a traverse of the rim of Gulf of Mexico starting 1527. <edit: can't seem to get below map img to display in browsers other than safari>

 

 

There are short versions on the web, but I am reading the long version (with some confusing notes by scholars on how his short versions contradict various details). The fact that it was so extremely ill fated leads to all kinds of interesting glimpses, such as literally years spent going from one indian tribe to another begging them to take him up as a slave since he can't support himself. He has been called one of the first anthropologists based on resulting observations - some tribes he lived with seem almost pathologically generous vs. others killing their children based on dream interpretations etc.

 

Contrast this to accounts of the "winners" like Columbus or Cortez and you don't learn much from their quick successes. I think Columbus was a genius in navigating and captaining ships (although a bad leader on land) and Cortez had luck and I forget if a lot of skill also. Cabeza had a nutcase boss and bad luck with health. I do think he was lucky with weather because a freak cold spell apparently kept alligators in hibernation while they spent early summer wading thru Florida swamps.

 

Are there other such accounts? I also like the memoir "With Santa Ana in Texas" with is by another intelligent and skeptical observer under a doomed leader. The second half of it is controversial and possibly a fake, but not the first half leading up to the battles which gives great observations of Texas under contrasting ways of life by the sparse settlers. (This comes to mind because Cabeza was stranded for years in Texas which was hard scrabble and no paradise for hunter/gatherer types).

Edited June 13, 2011 by caesar novus

[docoflove1974]

I believe that there were chronicles of the travels up the California coast, either by De Anza or Father Junipero Serra. But I can't recall anything.

 

The other area to think about is the Andean region. I believe the monks who went with the Pizzaro brothers tended to react negatively to the butchering of the various Incan and Ayumaran tribes.

[Kosmo]

Look for an English version of the account of friar Gaspar de Carvajal who traveled with Orellana down the Amazon. Like Doc said search for accounts of monks because usually conquistadors were illiterate or otherwise busy but they always had clergy with them.

The expedition of Cabeza de Vaca (Cowhead was blamed for spreading disease across US South and that led to the collapse of native populations in the area, especially of sedentary people.

[Ludovicus]

Pedro de Valdivia, conquerer of Chile, 1540's, left letters. You can find the collection in English translation on Amazon.

[caesar novus]

Thanks all.

 

blamed for spreading disease across US South and that led to the collapse of native populations in the area, especially of sedentary people.

The focus on sedentary peoples suggests non-foreign diseases were also at play. He spent some time as a trader between tribes going hundreds of miles inland, because only a neutral party could make contact across certain tribal borders. Therefore some sedentary tribes apparently weren't getting exposed to even nearby diseases. They defended their borders with effective bows and arrows that could even pierce spanish armor.

 

The expedition was laid low in early stages by what scholars guessed was malaria and dysentery, which I read as local. No mention of syphilis but I think that is of new world origin. His first long term stay killed half of his indian hosts due to disease, but that was a year into the expedition and may have not been a european contagion still active. He didn't say if it looked like smallpox or whatever - just the regrettable fact that mourning rituals keep the survivors from needed food gathering work which killed a lot of them too.

[caesar novus]

Some further thoughts after reading the scholars epilogue and forward and such: I didn't see any mention of disease notoriety, although the next expedition by DeSoto seems famous for that, along with brutality. Cabeza's trip thru the SE US actually had quite rare interactions with inhabitants. He probably would have led the DeSoto expedition (with very different legacy?) if not being delayed getting back to Spain by weather, a sinking ship and French pirates.

 

Contrast that with Cabeza's later stranding in Texas and Mexico where the inhabitants took them as shamans to treat the sick (and made him breathe over each of the well as a protection). At least in the short term, all "patients" got better (psychosomatic?) including one who was thought to be dead. The half of a village that I mentioned dying on his arrival seemed to expire due to dysentery which I think is passed locally and not via Europe.

 

Cabeza supposed he was leaving a trail of peace because he insisted in neighboring tribes stopping hostilities before he would treat them. He was horrified by Spanish slavers, and seemed to have a vision of how the Americas could be a symbiotic paradise once friction among the indians and with the Spanish could be turned positive. If that sounds delusional, you would have to read his account to see how his self-deprecating style seduces you into believing it. I guess he went on to an ill fated South American quest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Edited June 25, 2011 by caesar novus