NUNEZ CABEcA DE VACA, nM"nynth kii-nn'tha da \Vita, ALVAR (c.1490-e.1560). A Spanish adventurer in North and South Amer ica. He was born in Jevez de la Frontera and was living in Seville when Narvaez was raising his forces for the colonization of Florida. He received an appointment as royal treasurer and high sheriff to the expedition. He shared in all the misfortunes of the under taking, and was chiefly instrumental in extri cating the party from the interior and getting it back to the Gulf coast. In the final wreck of the boats of the Narvaez expedition Nunez was cast ashore with a few others on one of the isl ands outside Matagorda Bay, November 6, 1528. The Indians took charge of the survivors, and for some time the Spaniards lived on the islands and adjoining mainland in a state of semi-servitude. Alvar Nunez secured freedom, and for several years wandered about the country in what is now Texas and Arkansas, trading among the different tribes and acting as physician or medi cine man. Eventually, with three others, the only survivors of the Narvaez expedition, Estevan Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo, and a Moorish negro named Estevanico, lie started to find the route back to civilization. Slaking their way from tribe to tribe, across Texas to the Rio Grande, then through Sonora and so on west ward, they finally came upon a party of Spanish soldiers in Sinaloa. not far from the Gulf of
California. They were sent on to the City of Mexico, where the Viceroy welcomed them on July 24, 1536. Cabeza de Vaca went hack to Spain, where he arrived in August, 1537. He claimed some compensation for his years of suf fering. asking for the Governorship of Florida. Instead he was granted authority to conquer the territory of the Paraguay Indians along the Rio de la Plata. He expended all his means in equip ping an expedition. which sailed in 1540. He soon became involved in difficulties with his sub ordinates, who eventually put him under ar rest and sent him back to Spain. The Council for the Indies after six years sentenced him to banishment in Africa. This sentence was prob ably not enforced, however, for he is said to have settled in Seville, where he was living some twenty years later. Cabeza de Vaca's own ac count of his various adventures, first published in 1542 and 1555, has been translated by Buck ingham Smith (New York, 1871) and by Domin guez in the Hakluyt Society volume for 1S91.