The Island of Ill Fate

The Island of Misfortune

Last time, we followed the shattered remnants of the Narváez expedition as violent storms scattered their desperate handmade barges across the Gulf of Mexico. Pánfilo de Narváez vanished forever into the sea. And one surviving boat, carrying Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and a handful of exhausted men, finally crashed ashore on a low, windswept island off the Texas coast.

The survivors staggered onto the beach starving, half naked, dehydrated, and barely alive. Their once-proud expedition, which had sailed from Spain with royal banners, armor, horses, and dreams of conquest, now lay in ruins. Cabeza de Vaca would later name this place: La Isla de Malhado. The Island of Misfortune. Or as it is often translated today:

The Island of Ill Fate. And for the men stranded there... the true nightmare was only beginning. After the survivors had gathered themselves mentally, Cabeza de Vaca ordered Lope de Oviedo, one of the strongest among them, to climb a nearby tree and search for signs of the mainland. Oviedo returned with uncertain news. They were on an island.

From above, he had seen terrain marked and rutted in ways that briefly reminded him of land where cattle might graze. For one desperate moment, the survivors allowed themselves to hope there might be nearby Christians or Spanish settlements somewhere beyond the horizon. But there were none. Only marshes. Wind. Water. And endless unfamiliar coastline.

Oviedo had also discovered an abandoned native hut nearby. Inside were a few mullet fish, a cooking pot, and a small dog. Tiny discoveries. Yet to starving men, they felt almost miraculous. Soon afterward, several natives appeared cautiously along the shoreline carrying bows and arrows. Then more arrived. And more still. Before long, nearly a hundred stood watching the broken strangers from the sea.

To the terrified Spaniards, weak from starvation and barely able to stand, the warriors appeared enormous. Cabeza de Vaca and the royal inspector gathered what dignity they still possessed and approached slowly, offering beads and little bells. The natives responded peacefully, giving arrows as signs of friendship and promising food the next day.

And for the first time in many months... hope flickered. At sunrise the natives returned exactly as promised. They brought fish. Roots dug from beneath the water, gathered through exhausting labor in the marshes and tidal flats. Later they returned again, this time bringing women and children to stare curiously at the pale starving strangers who had emerged from the Gulf.

The Spaniards devoured the food desperately. After months of terror and hunger, it must have seemed possible, at least briefly, that perhaps they might survive after all.

The Gulf Takes Everything

Encouraged, the survivors attempted one final desperate gamble. They would refloat their battered boat and escape the island. Stripping naked in the freezing November wind so their clothing would stay dry, the men dragged the damaged craft toward the surf with bodies so weak many could scarcely stand. Then the Gulf struck again.

A massive wave crashed into them, soaking the survivors and throwing several men backward into the water. Another wave followed almost immediately. The boat overturned. The royal inspector and two others were swept away and drowned before the survivors could reach them. Everything the men still possessed vanished into the surf. Clothing.

Tools. Supplies. Hope. Cabeza de Vaca later wrote that they were left: “naked as when we were born.” Now winter closed around them. The north wind tore across the island with merciless force. The survivors huddled together trembling beside weak fires, their bodies reduced almost beyond recognition. Cabeza de Vaca later recalled:

“Our bones could be counted with little difficulty.” Months of starvation had transformed them into living skeletons. Since May, Cabeza de Vaca himself had survived largely on scraps of toasted corn. Even during the slaughter of the horses before launching the barges, he had received almost none of the meat. Now there was virtually nothing left.

No army. No commander. No mission. Only a handful of dying men trapped on a freezing island at the edge of an unknown continent. The hierarchy of the expedition dissolved completely. Noblemen. Officers. Soldiers. Treasurers. All distinction vanished. Each man simply waited to see who death would claim next. While searching for remnants of an earlier fire, the survivors managed to recover a few pieces of wood and kindle larger flames.

Gathered around them, many openly wept. Some begged God for mercy. Others confessed sins. Each looked upon the others and saw not proud conquistadors, but fellow souls slowly slipping toward oblivion. The empire that had marched confidently into Florida was gone. In its place sat starving men praying simply to survive another night.

An Unexpected Compassion

At sunset, the tribesmen returned once more. What they found shocked them. The strangers who had first appeared exhausted but hopeful now sat naked beside the fires, grieving the drowned and trembling uncontrollably in the cold. At first the natives recoiled in fear. But after Cabeza de Vaca explained through signs what had happened, something remarkable occurred.

The natives began to weep. Not quietly. Not ceremonially. But openly and sincerely. Cabeza de Vaca later wrote: “They sat down among us and began to weep loudly and so sincerely that it could be heard far away.” The crying continued for nearly half an hour. The Spaniards were stunned. Cabeza de Vaca himself seemed deeply moved by the moment. He later reflected that seeing these “crude” people show such compassion only increased the sorrow felt by the survivors themselves.

It was one of the first moments in which the worldview many of these Spaniards had carried across the Atlantic began quietly breaking apart. The natives then lifted the weakened survivors and carried them to their village. Along the way they lit great fires to warm them so they would not collapse in the cold. Cabeza de Vaca recalled that their feet barely touched the ground.

At the village, the natives had already prepared shelters and fires for the strangers. Yet even then, the Spaniards remained terrified. That night they barely slept, convinced at any moment they might be sacrificed to native gods. After everything they had endured, storms, starvation, shipwreck, they feared they had finally reached the end.

But the morning came peacefully. The tribesmen again brought fish and roots. And gradually... the survivors’ terror eased. More Spaniards soon appeared from other wrecked barges. Among them were Andrés Dorantes and Alonso del Castillo. Together, the reunited survivors numbered around eighty men.

Hunger and Disease

But the relief did not last. Winter tightened its grip across the coast. Storms prevented fishing. Food became scarce for both natives and Spaniards alike. Hunger settled over the island like a curse. Cabeza de Vaca later described men going days without eating anything at all. Some survivors became so desperate they resorted to cannibalism.

In one hut, starving Spaniards consumed the bodies of dead companions until only a single man remained alive. Even the natives were horrified. Cabeza de Vaca wrote that had the natives witnessed such acts earlier, they likely would have killed every survivor immediately. Then disease swept through the camps. Of the eighty Spaniards now gathered on the island...

only fifteen survived. And the suffering was not limited to the Europeans. A devastating stomach illness spread among the Indians as well, killing many. Frightened and grieving, some natives blamed the strangers for the sickness and proposed killing the remaining Spaniards. Only the intervention of one tribesman saved them. He argued that if the Christians truly possessed such deadly power, why had so many of their own already died? Why could they not save themselves?

The others listened. And once again... the survivors narrowly escaped death.

The People of the Coast

Cabeza de Vaca spent years among the peoples of the Texas coast, and during that time he recorded some of the earliest surviving European observations of the region’s native societies. Most historians believe the peoples Cabeza de Vaca encountered along the Texas coast were likely related to the groups later known collectively as the Karankawa.

He described the island people as tall and physically powerful, armed mainly with bows and arrows which they used with extraordinary skill.

Cabeza de Vaca wrote: “All of the people in this country go nude; only the women wear on their bodies some covering made of a wool that grows on the trees. The girls cover themselves with deer skins. They are a very liberal people with regard to giving what they have to others. There is no lord among them. All who are of the same lineage stay together. Two manners of language inhabit them. The first are called Capoques, and the others Han. They have a custom when they know each other and see each other from time to time, before they speak, they spend a half hour crying. After this is over, the one who is being visited rises first and gives all that he has to the other, and after a little while, he leaves with it. Sometimes, after receiving it, they leave without speaking a word.”

The men pierced their nipples and lower lips with cane ornaments. The women carried much of the daily labor of survival, while the men hunted and fished the marshes and coastal waters. Entire communities survived through fishing, shellfish gathering, and harvesting roots hidden beneath shallow coastal waters. Hunger remained a constant companion.

Even for the native peoples, survival along the Gulf Coast could be brutally difficult. Cabeza de Vaca described customs surrounding mourning and death that deeply fascinated him. “Of all the people in the world, they love their children the most and give them the best treatment.” When children died, entire villages mourned them daily for a full year.

The elderly, however, were mourned far less intensely. The islanders believed old people had already lived their lives and consumed resources needed by the young. Most dead were buried except healers, who were cremated amid dances and ceremonies. Bones were sometimes ground into powder and consumed ceremonially by relatives. De Vaca described the tribesmen as mostly monogamous, with the exception of healers, who would sometimes have two or three wives.

Again and again, Cabeza de Vaca encountered societies far more complex and emotionally rich than many Europeans expected to find. And slowly... the wilderness changed him. The conquistador who had landed in Florida dreaming of conquest was beginning to disappear.

The Healers

Eventually, the natives forced the surviving Spaniards into a new role. Healers. The island peoples believed sickness could be cured through ritual blowing and sucking pain from the body. At first the Spaniards laughed and refused, insisting they possessed no such powers. The tribesmen responded simply: then you will not eat. Faced with starvation once more, the survivors reluctantly agreed.

Cabeza de Vaca later described making the sign of the cross over the sick, reciting Christian prayers, and blowing upon the afflicted. To the astonishment of the Spaniards themselves, many natives afterward claimed they felt healed. Word began spreading among the island people. The broken castaways from the sea had taken on a strange new role.

They were still hungry. Still dependent. Still trapped. But something had changed. For the first time, the survivors had found a way to become useful in the eyes of the people around them. And that usefulness might be the only reason they stayed alive.

What Remained

But survival on the Island of Ill Fate did not mean rescue. It did not mean freedom. And it did not mean the nightmare was over. The Narváez expedition was gone. The ships were gone. Narváez was gone. The army was gone. The dream of conquest was gone. What remained were scattered men clinging to life among peoples whose languages, customs, and territories they barely understood.

Some would be taken inland. Some would be forced to work. Some would disappear from the story entirely. And others would die without ever knowing how close they had come to becoming part of one of the strangest journeys in American history. For Cabeza de Vaca, the island was not the end of the disaster. It was the beginning of a new captivity.

The Texas coast would hold him for years. Years of hunger. Years of bleeding hands. Years of smoke, mosquitoes, bitter roots, and strange roads through marsh and thorn. Years spent listening for rumors of other Spaniards. Years spent wondering whether Spain still remembered him at all. And somewhere beyond the western horizon lay the only hope left.

Mexico. New Spain. A world of church bells, bread, horses, ships, and familiar voices. But between Cabeza de Vaca and that world stood a continent he did not understand. A land of rivers he could not map. Peoples whose languages he did not speak. Winters that could kill. Hunger that never ended. And a wilderness that had already devoured almost everyone he knew.

The conquistador who landed in Florida was gone. The Island of Ill Fate had stripped that man away. What walked out of this disaster would be something else. A servant. A trader. A healer. A wanderer. And eventually, one of the first Europeans to leave a written account of the land that would one day become Texas.

Next time...

Cabeza de Vaca leaves the Island of Ill Fate behind. But freedom does not come with him. Before he can escape the Texas coast, he will have to survive years among the peoples of the mainland. He will dig roots until his fingers bleed. He will become a merchant moving from village to village. He will hear terrible news of the men who came with Narváez.

And slowly, almost impossibly, the scattered survivors will begin searching for a way home.