CORONADO

These island Indians whom deVaca calls “Deaguanes” he met for the first time while with a few other weakened survivors of the shipwreck. Things didn’t look good at first, because they faced, and from here I’m going to quote deVaca:

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, “La Relación… ,” trans. Fanny Bandelier, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536,” (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1905), p. 55-56:

"a hundred Indian archers …. We could not defend ourselves, as there were scarcely three of us who could stand on their feet. The inspector and I stepped for­ward and called them. They came, and we tried to quiet them the best we could and save ourselves, giving them beads and bells. Each one of them gave me an arrow in token of friendship, and by signs they gave us to understand that on the following morning they would come back with food, as then they had none.

The next day, at sunrise, which was the hour the Indians had given us to understand, they came as promised and brought us plenty of fish and some roots ...

p. 57:

"They thought themselves very rich with the little bells and beads we gave them, and thereafter visited us daily with the same things as before.

p.58:

"[After an attempt to leave the island in a makeshift boat, an attempt which resulted in the loss of the boat, we], as naked as we had been born, had lost everything …. It was in November, bitterly cold, and we in such a state that every bone could easily be counted…

p.59:

At sunset the Indians, thinking we had not left, came to bring us food, but when they saw us in such a different attire from before and so strange-looking, they were so frightened as to turn back. I went to call them, and in great fear they came. I then gave them to understand by signs how we had lost a barge and three of our men had been drowned … “Upon seeing the disaster we had suffered, our misery and distress, the Indians sat down with us and all began to weep …

p.61:

[The Indians conducted us to their dwellings where they continued to provide fish and roots] and treated us so well that we became reassured, losing somewhat our apprehension of being butchered.

p.63:

"[A few of us decided to try again to leave for New Spain, but] a few days after these ... Christians had left, the weather became so cold and tempestuous that the Indians could no longer pull roots, and the canebrake in which they used to fish yielded nothing more. As the lodges afforded so little shelter, people began to die, and five Christians, quartered on the coast, were driven to such an extremity that they ate each other up until but one remained ...

p.64:

"[Though these Indians had saved them from death,] at this the Indians were so startled, and there was such an uproar among them, that I verily believe if they had seen this at the beginning they would have killed them, and we all would have been in great danger. After a very short time, out of eighty men who had come there in our two parties only fifteen remained alive.

"Then the natives fell sick from the stomach, so that one-half of them died also, and they, believing we had killed them, and holding it to be certain, they agreed among themselves to kill those of us who survived. But when they came to execute it an Indian who kept me told them not to believe we were the cause of their dying, for if we had so much power we would not have suffered so many of our own people to perish without being able to remedy it ourselves.

p.68-9:

They wanted to make medicine men of us ... in order to be at least of some use. Thereupon they withheld our food to compel us to do what they wanted. Seeing our obstinacy, an Indian told me that I did not know what I said by claiming that what he knew was useless ... At last we found ourselves in such stress as to have to do it, without risk­ing any punishment.

Thus de Vaca had to do the Indians’ bidding. He was not forced to stay. But after some time,

p.74:

I could no longer stand the life I was compelled to lead. Among many other troubles I had to pull the eatable roots out of the water and from among the canes where they were buried in the ground, and from this my fingers had become so tender that the mere touch of a straw caused them to bleed. This is why I went to work and joined the other Indians [on the mainland]. Among these I improved my condition a little by becoming a trader, doing the best in it I could, and they gave me food and treated me well.

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