Bleeding Hands and Bitter Roots

After the Island

Last time, we left Cabeza de Vaca and the shattered survivors of the Narváez expedition on the Texas coast. The Island of Ill Fate had not killed them. But it had not freed them either. The expedition was gone. The ships were gone. Narváez was gone. The army was gone. And the men who remained were now trapped in a world they barely understood.

For Cabeza de Vaca, the years after the island would become years of hunger, labor, captivity, and transformation. The man who had landed in Florida as a royal official of the Spanish Empire would now be remade by the Texas coast. First as a servant. Then as a trader. And eventually, as something stranger still. But before he could become one of the most remarkable witnesses to early North America, he would have to survive the long years after the Island of Ill Fate.

Years of bleeding hands. Smoke and mosquitoes. Bitter roots. Years spent listening for rumors of other Spaniards. And years spent wondering whether he would ever see the world he knew again.

Captives on the Coast

Life after the Island of Ill Fate was brutal. The survivors were no longer shipwrecked guests among the peoples of the coast. They were dependents. Laborers. Captives. Men who ate only when food was given to them. Men who survived only as long as the people around them allowed them to survive. Cabeza de Vaca found himself assigned one of the most miserable tasks imaginable.

Gathering roots hidden beneath marshes and reed beds. Hour after hour he stood in cold water, digging through mud with his bare hands. The roots grew deep beneath the surface. The reeds sliced his skin. The broken stalks cut into his body. And his fingers became so worn and raw that even touching the plants caused them to bleed.

There was no glory in this. No conquest. No royal mission. No dream of empire. Only mud. Water. Pain. And hunger. Yet this was how people survived along the Texas coast. Food was difficult to obtain. Every meal demanded labor. Every season brought new hardships. And every day reminded Cabeza de Vaca that the man who had crossed the Atlantic seeking advancement in the Spanish Empire was being stripped away piece by piece.

The Trader

Eventually, he decided he could no longer endure the life being forced upon him. So he left. He crossed over to another people living on the mainland. And there, his fortunes slowly began to change. For the first time since the disaster, Cabeza de Vaca gained a small measure of freedom. He became a trader. A merchant moving between the different peoples of the Texas coast.

It is one of the strangest transformations in early American history. A Spanish royal official. A man who had crossed the ocean in service of conquest and empire. Now wandering the Texas coast carrying trade goods on his back. He carried shells gathered from the sea. Sea snail ornaments. Red ochre used in ceremonies and decoration.

Flint for arrow points. Animal hides. Canes for making arrows. And countless other goods exchanged through native trade networks. Alone and nearly naked, he traveled from village to village. Along beaches. Across bays. Through marshes. Over rivers. From coastal peoples to inland groups. One language to another. One world into the next.

The former conquistador became something few Europeans had ever been. A traveling merchant among the peoples of Texas. And wherever he traveled, he listened. Because more valuable than shells or ochre or hides was information. Every story taught him something about the land. Every journey showed him which peoples were at war. Which groups traded with one another.

Which routes could be traveled. Which places had food. Which places had danger. And most importantly, whether any of the men from Narváez's expedition still lived.

Six Years

Years passed. One year. Then another. Then another still. Storms rolled in from the Gulf. Winters came and went. Children were born. Elders died. Communities moved with the seasons. And still Cabeza de Vaca remained on the coast. By his own account, nearly six years passed in this manner. Six years since the wreck. Since the Island of Ill Fate.

Since the Narváez expedition had effectively ceased to exist. Think about that for a moment. Six years without hearing church bells. Without receiving a single word from Spain. Without bread, wine, horses, familiar streets, or familiar voices. Parents could have died. Brothers and sisters could have vanished. Children could have grown into adults.

The world he remembered might no longer exist. And the longer he remained among the peoples of the Texas coast, the more distant that old world became. Spain was not simply far away. It belonged to another life.

Rumors of Survivors

Yet Cabeza de Vaca did not abandon hope. As he traveled, he listened for rumors. Stories of strange men. Bearded men. Men who spoke an unfamiliar language. Sometimes those rumors led nowhere. Sometimes they led only to another tragedy. Another man dead. Another survivor gone. Another remnant of the expedition swallowed by the wilderness.

Some had died of starvation. Others had frozen during winter storms. Some had been beaten. Some had been murdered. Others had simply vanished. The expedition had not died all at once. It had died slowly. One man at a time. One winter at a time. One tragedy at a time. The grand army that had marched into Florida seeking conquest and glory had been reduced to scattered memories carried from village to village along the Texas coast.

And with every story Cabeza de Vaca heard, the list of the dead grew longer. Among the scattered survivors still known to Cabeza de Vaca was Lope de Oviedo. You may remember Oviedo from the Island of Ill Fate. He was the man Cabeza de Vaca had sent up a tree to look for signs of the mainland after the shipwreck. For years, Oviedo remained behind.

Each year Cabeza de Vaca returned and urged him to leave. Each year Oviedo delayed. Next year, he would say. Next year. Finally, Cabeza de Vaca convinced him. Together they left the island behind and crossed the waters that separated it from the mainland. They passed rivers and inlets along the coast. But the further they went, the more dangerous the journey became.

They heard stories of other Spaniards who had been killed. They heard of men beaten by boys and idle men. Men struck in the face. Clubbed with sticks. Men murdered for wandering from one house to another. Men killed after dreams convinced their captors they posed a danger. And soon, those stories became real. Oviedo was beaten with sticks. Cabeza de Vaca endured his share as well. Mud was thrown at them. Arrows were held to their hearts. And each day, they were told they might be killed like the others.

The old expedition was not simply dead. It was being erased. Piece by piece. Then Oviedo lost his nerve. He turned back. Cabeza de Vaca tried to convince him to continue, but Oviedo would not go on. So once again, Cabeza de Vaca found himself alone among peoples whose language and customs he barely understood. Still searching. Then came something he had nearly stopped expecting.

Reports that three men like him were still alive.Not many. Only three. But alive. And their names were familiar. Andrés Dorantes. Alonso del Castillo. And Dorantes' North African slave, Estebanico. Against all odds, they had survived. When Cabeza de Vaca approached the place where they were staying, Dorantes came out to see who was arriving.

At first he could scarcely believe his eyes. For years he had believed Cabeza de Vaca was dead. Everyone did. Yet now a familiar figure was walking toward him from the wilderness. A man he thought he would never see again. Recognition slowly spread across his face. The two men embraced. Soon Alonso del Castillo joined them. Then Estebanico.

Imagine seeing a friend you believed had died six years ago. Not six months. Six years. These men had marched through Florida together. They had built crude barges along the Gulf Coast. They had watched companions starve, drown, and disappear into the wilderness. Each morning they had awakened uncertain whether any of the others still lived.

Now they stood together once more. Older. Thinner. Scarred. But alive. What stories did they exchange in those first hours? How many names did they speak aloud, only to learn that another friend had died? How many nights did they spend recounting the years they had lost? Cabeza de Vaca later wrote that this was one of the happiest days of their lives.

It is difficult to imagine otherwise. Yet reunion did not mean freedom. The survivors still lived among the Mariames and neighboring Iguaces peoples. These groups survived in a difficult land where food was scarce and movement was constant. Throughout the year they followed seasonal food sources. Roots. Fish. Game. And most importantly, the annual prickly pear harvest.

The Spaniards depended upon them completely. Even as they desperately wished to leave. Life there could be harsh. To European eyes, many customs appeared strange or shocking. Marriages could end suddenly over a trifle. Wives were purchased from neighboring groups with bows and arrows. And according to Cabeza de Vaca's account, many infant daughters were killed because constant warfare made families fear raising future enemies.

Whether every detail was accurate or not, these were the customs as he understood them. And they left a lasting impression upon him. The brutal contrast between cultures only made him even more homesick. Hunger remained relentless. The people dug bitter roots that required days of preparation before they could be eaten. When those failed, they survived however they could.

Spiders. Ant eggs. Grubs. Lizards. Snakes. Wood. Dirt. Even deer dung. Cabeza de Vaca later remarked that he believed if rocks had been edible, they would have eaten those as well. The women worked constantly while the men hunted. Gathering food. Carrying water. Collecting firewood. Preparing meals. Building and moving homes. Cabeza de Vaca wrote that many rarely rested more than six hours in a full day and night.

For the survivors, it was a daily reminder of how completely their lives had changed. Summer brought another misery. Mosquitoes. Vast clouds of them descended upon the camps. The insects were so numerous that entire communities surrounded themselves with smoky fires. The smoke burned their eyes. Made sleep nearly impossible. Yet the mosquitoes were worse.

At times people carried burning sticks through the grasslands, setting controlled fires simply to drive insects away and flush small animals from hiding. Cabeza de Vaca later wrote that among all the hardships he endured, few matched the misery caused by these insects. Yet there were moments of abundance. The Spanish called the fruit tunas.

Today we know them as prickly pears. When the harvest arrived, everything changed. Families gathered from great distances. Trade increased. Celebrations were held. The countryside filled with people. For a brief time each year, hunger loosened its grip. The fruit was harvested day and night. Dried. Stored. Traded. And consumed in enormous quantities.

For people who spent much of the year worrying about survival, prickly pear season became a season of celebration. Old friends reunited. Families gathered. Communities danced. And for a little while, life became easier.

The Chance to Escape

It was during this season that the survivors saw their best chance to escape. People from different groups gathered together. Trade routes opened. Movement increased. And strangers could pass from one community to another more easily than at other times of the year. If they were going to leave, this was the moment. The four survivors began to plan.

They would wait for the right season. The right gathering. The right opening. Then they would flee. But even that proved difficult. Conflicts broke out among the peoples they lived with. Groups separated. The survivors were pulled apart. Plans collapsed. Months passed. Then more months. Several times they came close. Several times the opportunity vanished.

Each delay made the dream of escape feel more fragile. But the desire never disappeared. Home. Mexico. New Spain. A road back to the world they had lost. Even after six years, the hope remained. By September of 1534, during the height of the prickly pear harvest, the survivors finally saw their opportunity. Four men from an expedition that had once numbered in the hundreds.

The wilderness had taken almost everything from them. But it had not taken their determination. And now, after years of suffering, they made their choice. They would flee. They did not know where the road would lead. They did not know how many miles remained between them and Mexico. And they did not know whether they would ever see another Spaniard.

All they knew was that they could not remain where they were. For nearly six years, the Texas coast had been both prison and teacher. It had broken them. Changed them. And prepared them for the road ahead. Now, at last, they would risk everything to leave it behind. But escape did not mean safety. Beyond the coast lay unknown rivers.

Unknown peoples. Unknown languages. Hunger. Cold. War. And miles of country no European had ever described. The four survivors were leaving captivity behind. But they were walking into something even more uncertain. Would the road west lead them home? Or would it simply become another wilderness grave?

Next time...

Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes, Alonso del Castillo, and Estebanico leave the coast behind and begin the journey that will transform them from castaways into legends. The merchant years are ending. The road west is about to begin.