Brutal Journey: Cabeza de Vaca and the Epic First Crossing of North America [Paperback]

Paul Schneider (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0805083200 | ISBN-13: 978-0805083200 | Publication Date: May 1, 2007

"Schneider's thorough research and vivid writing create a fast-paced, moving story, one that is difficult to believe and impossible to forget." 

--The New York Times Book Review

 

A gripping survival epic, Brutal Journey tells the story of an army of would-be conquerors, bound for glory, who landed in Florida in 1528. But only four of the four hundred would survive: eight years and some five thousand miles later, three Spaniards and a black Moroccan wandered out of the wilderness to the north of the Rio Grande and into Cortes's gold-drenched Mexico. The survivors brought nothing back other than their story, but what a tale it was. They had become killers and cannibals, torturers and torture victims, slavers and enslaved. They became faith healers, arms dealers, canoe thieves, spider eaters. They became, in other words, whatever it took to stay alive.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite his failure to suppress the rebellious Cortés in Mexico, would-be conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez was given another chance by the king of Spain, who awarded him governorship over the entire Gulf Coast of the modern United States. But Narváez's luck was no better this time: the expedition, which arrived in 1528, was a complete disaster. Out of the 400 men who went ashore in Florida, only four made it to Mexico eight years later, long after Narváez himself was lost at sea in a makeshift boat. Schneider (The Adirondacks) has only two firsthand documents to work with, but he ably combines the raw narrative with a wealth of secondary research to create a vivid tale filled with gripping scenes, as when natives lead the starving Spanish forces into a swamp ambush. Though primarily concerned with the Spaniards' experiences, Schneider also provides well-rounded portrayals of the indigenous cultures they came in contact with—among them tribes that came to regard the handful of survivors as magical healers who could raise the dead. The ethnographic balance takes a thrilling adventure and turns it into an engrossing case study of early European colonialism gone epically wrong. Illus., map. (May 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Schneider presents would-be conquistador Cabeza de Vaca's incredible survival story. The treasurer of an attempted conquest of Florida in 1528, de Vaca was one of four remnants of the disastrous Narvaez expedition and wrote a memoir about his ordeal. Working off that central document, Schneider seamlessly fixes it to contextual sources (archaeology; records of the ensuing de Soto and Coronado expeditions) to render a perceptive sense of the country the fugitive Spaniards traveled through and the Indians they encountered. Under the theme of inverted expectations, Schneider relates the Spaniards' incremental descent from violently self-assured superiority over Indians, to dependence, and, finally, enslavement for the last of the living. That one of them, Esteban, already a slave, helped lead the band to Mexico, and received re-enslavement for his pains, enhances Schneider's excellent development of cultural self-perceptions. Equally able in his dramatizations of the privations and brutalities suffusing this extraordinary tale, Schneider scores big with fans of historical (mis)adventure. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805083200
• ISBN-13: 978-0805083200
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born and raised in Massachusetts, mostly Amherst, a college town in the western half of the state. Went to public high school then Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. After stints working with refugees in Thailand, prep-school students in Switzerland, and a brief career as a wire-service stringer in Kenya, I settled into magazine journalism in New York City. On staff at Esquire, and freelancing all over town, (including Vanity Fair where I met my wife) I eventually found myself writing mostly about environmental issues, primarily for the National Aububon Magazine.

That work led to my first book, The Adirondacks, A History of America's First Wilderness, which was a New York Times notable book of 1997. My second book, The Enduring Shore, A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, was also published by Henry Holt and was well received.

Sometime in between those two books I came across a very brief mention of the Cabeza de Vaca story in an obscure book on the old trails west. I knew immediately that I had to know more about this incredible story of four who survived and crossed America out of 400 who landed in Florida in 1528. That obsession eventually resulted in Brutal Journey, my newest book, which the New York Times called "hard to believe, and impossible to forget."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stellar, gripping adventure, May 30, 2006

By 

Jeff H. Swimmer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America (Hardcover)

Paul Schneider's third book is a delight from cover to cover. The Odyssey-like narrative is full of suspense, sublime characters, and indelible scenes that sound almost made up. The fact that this amazing, tragic and (brutal) journey happened right under today's strip malls and freeways along the Gulf Coast makes it even more amazing.

The reader is transported like an archeologist straight into the rampaging egos, wild delusions and doomed strategies of the would be conquistadors. They traverse "their' thoroughly alien and violent territory with eyes wide shut, battered to and fro as if from one of the squalls that greet their arrival in the New World from the get-go.

Schneider is a masterful writer, and the text is lean and full of sly wit. It's mercifully shorn of the unwieldy and tedious detail to which so many historians subject their readers. The structure is crisp and orderly, and moves swiftly. The author seems to enjoy peeling back the layers of this larger-than-life tale as much as the reader will, and we can thank Schneider for unveiling this vital piece of American history.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible!, May 25, 2006

By 

Stephen Balbach (Ashton, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America (Hardcover)

Amazing story of 400 Spanish explorers who walked into the bush of southern Florida in the 1520s and disappeared - eight years later four survivors showed up naked in Mexico with nothing but a few hundred friendly Indians in tow. In the intervening 8 years it was one page-turning adventure after the next, mostly dire tales of starvation, violence and exotic peoples, but also the spinning wheel of fortune from conquerer to slave and back again. They were the first to enter North America and cross it, encountering countless tribes and customs of the new world that within a century or two completely vanished. An otherwise little known story today, it was a classic best-seller in the 16th century, retold here with the latest scholarly findings.

Note: the original story was by Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca called "Castaways" (1555) (also goes by other names) and is still highly readable and widely available in modern English translation, it is a classic of 16th century literature. National Geographic ranks Cabeza de Vaca's narrative #63 on their "100 Best Adventure Books" list. I have not read it and wonder how it compares with this modern retelling.

Schneider's retelling is as good as "Over the Edge of the World" ("Brutal" takes place about 12 years after Magellan's expedition returned to Spain). Where Cabeza de Vaca's narrative has blank spots Schneider fills in from a lot of other sources. For the non-specialist this book is a synthesis of a lot of scholary research and discoveries, and also just a great adventure story.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars There IS a movie!!, June 18, 2006

By 

Paul (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America (Hardcover)

For everyone who wishes this book were made into a movie - your wishes WERE granted in 1993 when "Cabeza de Vaca" (winner of 8 international film awards) was released by Roger Corman - directed by Mexican director Nicolas Echevarria. When I first saw the movie, it just blew me away. This movie inspired me to find and read "Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America" (University of New Mexico Press)- the translated account of de Vaca's report to the king of Spain (obviously one of the many sources for Schneider). I do believe I bought my VHS copy of "Cabeza de Vaca" from Amazon.com (haven't checked to see if it is available in DVD - hopefully so) If you liked Schneider's book, then find, buy, and ENJOY this remarkable film.