Narváez expedition

The Narváez expedition is a Spanish journey of exploration launched in 1527 and intended to establish some colonial settlements and garrisons in Florida.

Some three hundred soldier-settlers are assigned to explore Florida by land; they number eighty by late 1528.

More men die as they traveled west along the Gulf Coast and Southwest of present-day United States and into the north of Mexico; the four survivors reach Mexico City in 1536.

The expedition is led by Pánfilo de Narváez, who dies in 1528.

The survivors of the land expedition are the first known Europeans and Africans to see the Mississippi River, and cross the Gulf of Mexico and Texas.The crew initially numbers about six hundred, including men from Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy.

Making stops along the way to Florida at Hispaniola and Cuba, the expedition suffers a hurricane, among other storms, losing two ships.

After landing near Sarasota Bay, the expedition is split, with three hundred men sent overland in search of gold.

They are subject to attacks by American Indians, and suffer from disease and severe lack of food.

By September 1528, following an attempt by survivors to sail on makeshift rafts from Florida to Mexico, only eighty men survive after being swept onto Galveston Island, Texas.

Over the next few years, survivors are enslaved by Native American tribes; more men die from harsh conditions and disease.Only four of the original party survive the next eight years to encounter Spanish slave catchers in Sinaloa in 1536.

With them, the survivors, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and his enslaved Moor Estevanico, finally reach Mexico City.

After returning to Spain, Cabeza de Vaca is notable for writing about the expedition in his La Relación (The Relation), published in 1542 as the first written account of North America.

With later additions, it is published under the title, Naufragios (Shipwreck).

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