A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca (Hardcover)

by Andrés Reséndez (Author)
Key Phrases: royal treasurer, Vázquez de Ayllón, Nuño de Guzmán, Cabeza de Vaca, New World, Gulf of Mexico (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In 1528, 300 conquistadores embarked on the ambitious mission of colonizing Florida. They all disappeared. Eight years later, a band of Spanish slave-traders were rounding up their fleeing human cargo in northwest Mexico when they espied a group of men who appeared to be natives approaching them. One was white. Just as astonishingly, a companion of his was African. Who were these strange figures? They, and two others, were the last survivors of the lost expedition. Their march across Florida, their voyage on spindly rafts across the Gulf of Mexico, their captivity in Texas and their trek across the southwest to the Pacific coast form the backbone of Reséndez's riveting account of the epic journey. The author, a history professor at the University of California–Davis, tells the tale from the Spanish, African and Indian points of view: Native Americans were just as amazed by the original visitors as the visitors were by them, and Reséndez focuses on how the interlopers remade themselves as medicine men and made sense of social worlds other Europeans could not even begin to fathom. Told from an intriguing and original perspective, Reséndez's narrative is a marvelous addition to the corpus of survival and adventure literature. 15 illus, 16 maps. (Nov.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
In A Land So Strange, University of California, Davis, history professor Andrés Reséndez relates this improbable tale with dynamic grace (Carolyn See of the Washington Post compares the book to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Moby-Dick). The author combines sound research—including more than 70 pages of footnotes and resources for additional study—with a pulp writer’s eye for the compelling detail. The author’s tale makes sense of La Relación, Cabeza de Vaca’s own account of his ordeal written after his return to Spain. The Dallas Morning News also points out the author’s deft interpretation of the text, which is "written in a literary style peculiar to 16th-century Spain and sensitive to the vagaries of the Inquisition." A must-read for anyone interested in the early history of European exploration in North America—or in real-life adventure, compellingly told.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (November 12, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465068405
• ISBN-13: 978-0465068401
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #173,817 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A different kind of Conquistador, February 9, 2008

By	Observer "Bernie" (Boston, MA, USA) - See all my reviews

The primary sources for this epic tale are the official transcript of and report on the testimomy of three of the survivors and Alzar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's 1542 narrative report on his 8 year odyssey from what is now Tampa, Florida to Mexico City.

Andrés Reséndez retells this story in a hugely entertaining and informative way. The book is well written and fast paced. The numerous maps, illustrations, detailed footnotes and extensive bibliograpy are extremely helpful. Many of the footnotes add significantly to the narrative and could have been made part of the text. Reséndez demonstrates an easy mastery of both primary and secondary materials. His expertise enables him to set the original Narvaez expedition in context and to provide valuable background information on all the major players.

Beyond the almost miraculous survival of the Royal Treasurer Cabeza de Vaca, Captains Andres Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo, and the black slave, Estebanico, the central puzzle of this survival saga is how these four sole survivors out of a force of over 300 managed to go from essentially captive slaves to shamans and revered healers. Reséndez provides a reasonable explanation: Castillo's father was a physician from Salamanca, Spain's great university town, and that his exposure to basic medical practices and demeanour probably equipped him with sufficient knowledge to effectively deal with certain illnesses. Castillo's family heritage plus the practical extensions of what these well-travelled soldiers had seen or personally experienced - for example, the extracting of an arrow and the suturing of the wound - helps partially explain their transformation from slaves to successful shamans. Reséndez also persuasively suggests that the Christianity of at least three of the four, their openness to the miraculous plus their ability to maintain a certain humility helped cement their roles as healers.

In explaining how the four survivors became shamans, Reséndez does a much better job than Paul Schneider in his recent retelling of the same story (Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America). (I reviewed Schneider's book two years ago and was struck by the limited way in which he addressed this issue. Schneider's book is still very good - but not nearly as informative as Resendez's.)

Reséndez also sketches out Cabeza de Vaca's almost modern and certainly more truly Christian views of the Indians and how to work with them. He sharply, unemotionally and objectively contrasts Cabeza de Vaca's enlightened views with the brutal, exploitative and counter-productive views of most leading Conquistadors - particularly Guzman and Mendoza - who were more interested in enslaving the indigenous population. Reséndez interestingly notes how Cabeza de Vaca's efforts to implement his more humane views when he became Governor of Rio de la Plata (Argentina) failed due to both the resistance of the Spanish settlers and the Indians. Latin America may have turned out a completely different place, if Cabeza de Vaca's approach to colonization had been adopted.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great storytelling, December 19, 2007

By	David A. Clary (Roswell NM) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a remarkable story about a remarkable 16th-century transcontinental adventure. Resendez is not just a solid narrative historian, but a born story teller. Reading this is like listening to the adventures of Cabeza and his partners around a campfire. Especially valuable is the author's ability to make the many Indian groups full participants in the history, not just part of the background as is so commonly done. This story was once well known, but it has faded. I hope that this book will bring it back, and remind Anglo Americans that Indians and Spaniards were spinning history on this continent long before the first Englishman landed at Jamestown.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars astonishing but true, November 27, 2007

By	Richard Cumming "richo" (blue state) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Almost 500 years ago the New World had just been opened up to European exploration. Columbus opened the floodgates for what was mostly a Spanish invasion early on. 30 years after Columbus made that historic first voyage the Spaniards were plundering places like Mexico and Peru.

The Spanish Crown granted land rights to the unexplored Florida territory. It stretched clear across the southern region of North America, from present day Florida to Baja California. An expedition set forth to lay claim to this domain. They sailed from Cuba-hundreds of Spaniards lusting for treasure.

Back in those days, it was tough finding good navigators to this little known region. They were trying to land along the coast of northern Mexico. Instead, they ended up on the coast of Florida. Native peoples lived in great numbers all along the Gulf coast. The voyage became a total disaster and a fight for survival as the invaders were felled by attacks from indigenous people, accidents, climate, disease, starvation, and their own incredible stupidity.

This story was once well known. The author has gone back and excavated lots of early source material. The most valuable was the account of the experience written by Cabeza de Vaca. I won't say any more about how this huge force of invaders was ultimately reduced to 4 starving, naked men. But it was.

One of them was de Vaca. There were 3 Spaniards and a Moorish slave. They wandered the area for years and made it all the way across the continent. It is an extraordinary story.

I'll leave those accounts for you, the reader to discover on your own.