Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca | La Relación, c. 1528

In 1528 a group of Spaniards sailed from Cuba to Tampa Bay in present-day Florida. After failing to find great riches, the survivors tried to return to Cuba but were washed ashore at Galveston Bay. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three other men survived the expedition, but only after enduring a nine-year, six-hundred-mile trek across Texas and Mexico and enslavement by Indians. In an account of his journey, Cabeza de Vaca described his experiences on the Isla de Malhado (Island of Misfortune) off the coast of Texas.