SURVIVORS OF NARVAEZ' EXPEDITION
sent him back to Spain. The complaints against him were investigated by the Council for the Indies, but the judgment, if any was given, has never been published. He certainly was not punished, and soon settled down in Seville, where he was still living, apparently, twenty years later.[1]
While Dorantes was stopping at Vera Cruz during the winter of 1536-37, he received a letter from Mendoza, asking him to return to the City of Mexico. After several interviews, the viceroy induced Dorantes to remain in New Spain, agreeing to provide him with a party of horsemen and friars, in order to explore more thoroughly the country through which he had wandered. Mendoza explains the details of his plans in the letter written in December, 1537, and declares that he expected many advantages would be derived from this expedition which would redound to the glory of God and to the profit of His Majesty the King. The viceroy was prepared to expend a large sum—3,500 or 4,000 pesos—to insure a successful undertaking, but he promised to raise the whole amount, without taking a single maravedi from the royal treasury, by means of a more careful collection of dues, and especially by enforcing the payment of overdue sums, the collection of which hitherto had been considered impossible. This reform in the collection of rents and other royal exactions and the careful attention to all the details of the fiscal administration were among the most valuable of the many services rendered by Mendoza as viceroy. The expedition under Dorantes never started, though why nothing came of all the preparations, wrote Mendoza in his next letter to the King, "I never could find out."[2]
The three Spaniards wrote several narratives of their experiences on the expedition of Narvaez, and of their adventurous journey from the gulf coast of Texas to the Pacific coast of Mexico.[3] These travelers, who had lived a savage life for so long that they could wear no clothes, and were unable to sleep except upon the bare ground, had a strange tale to tell. The story of their eight years of wandering must have been often repeated—of their slavery, their buffalo-hunting expeditions, of the escape from their Indian masters, and their career as traders and as medicine men. These were wonderful and strange expe-
- ↑ Besides the general historians, we have Cabeza de Vaca's own account of his career in Paraguay in his Comentarios, reprinted in Vedia, Historiadores Primitivos, vol. i, Ternaux translated this narrative into French for his Voyages, part vi.
- ↑ The Spanish text of this letter has not been seen since Ramusio used it in making the translation for his Viaggi, vol. iii, fol. 355, ed. 1556. There is no date to the letter as Ramusio gives it. Ternaux-Compans translated it from Ramusio for his Cibola volume (Voyages, vol. ix, p. 287). It is usually cited from Ternaux's title as the "Première lettre de Mendoza." I quote from the French text the portion of the letter which explains my narrative:". . . Andrès Dorantès, un do ceux qui firent partie de l'armée de Pamphilo Narvaez, vint près de moi. J'ous de fréquents entretiens avec lui; je pensai qu'il pouvait rendre un grand service à votre majesté; si je l'expédiais avec quarante ou cinquante chevaux et tous les objets nécessaires pour découvrir ce pays. Je dépensai beaucoup d'argent pour l'expédition, mais je ne sais pas comment il se fit que l'affaire n'ent pas de suite. De tous les préparatifs que j'avais faits, il ne me resta qu'un nègre qui est venu avec Dorantès, quelques esclaves que j'avais achetés, et des Indiens, naturels de ce pays, que j'avais fait rassembler."
- ↑ Two of these are extant—the Relacion of Cabeza de Vaca and Oviedo's version of an account signed by the three Spaniards and sent to the Real Audiencia at Santo Domingo, in his Historia General de las Indias, lib. xxxv, vol. iii, p. 582, ed. 1853.
