Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Estevanico in 1528 - Arrival & survival on Galveston Island: Texas History Guide

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Interested in information covered in this episode? Dive deeper into the links below! :
Life of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alvar-Nunez-Cabeza-de-Vaca
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in Texas: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/cabeza-de-vaca-lvar-nunez
Estavanico AKA Esteban de Dorantes : https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/estevanico

Podcast series of Cabeza De Vaca & Estavanico's endeavors:https://open.spotify.com/episode/1CxfQvF35ZKKvlqHHkcaa6?si=33b1aef6c0364ee7

Transcript:
In the early 1500s, Spain was one of the most dominant of the European empires. Spanish explorers were sent by the king of Spain to expand their kingdom, spread the word of God and search for valuable tradable commodities. Many of these explorers, known as conquistadors were sent to the New World to accomplish the Kings will. One of these grand expeditions of over 600 men to the new world was led by Pánfilo de Narváez. The intention of this mission was to sail from Spain to New Spain, modern day Mexico, but through a series of unfortunate events, the crew had been ravaged by storms and bad weather and eventually ended up on the west coast of Florida. The expeditionary crew became separated into smaller groups and eventually lost track of each other. One of these groups was led by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, and by his side a man named ;, also known as Esteban de Dorantes.Estávanico is the first African to be documented to have explored North America. After multiple miscommunications and conflicts with the natives along the Florida coast.And with the ship and remaining crew nowhere to be found, The crew had no choice but to build rafts out of their surroundings and begin to float in the Gulf of Mexico and hope they drift towards new Spain. Unfortunately for the group, they were over 1500 miles away from their original destination at Tampico, Mexico. As the gulf current slowly carried them west, The five rafts supporting roughly 50 Explorers each, began to separate. To make matters worse, every time a raft would go ashore, they would be attacked by natives. After weeks of drifting in the gulf and  running low on supplies and water, the Cabeza de vacas group became weary and close to death.