In April 1528, the experienced conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez led a disastrous expedition to explore and conquer the vast region from present-day Florida to Texas and beyond. Only four of the expedition’s 300 members survived, living for eight years as slaves of native Americans in Texas, the American Southwest, and northern Mexico. One of the survivors, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, described their ordeal in his Narrative, published in 1542.

The Narrative offers the first detailed, eyewitness account of life among native Americans in the present-day United States. Cabeza de Vaca wrote from the rare perspective of a Spaniard who expected to become a rich conqueror and instead became a naked and famished slave of the people he came to conquer. Much of the Narrative describes his suffering, but in the excerpt below Cabeza de Vaca describes how, after years of captivity, he and his companions earned the respect of their captors by healing their wounds and curing their illnesses. These healing episodes helped the Spaniards survive until 1536 when they stumbled upon a few Spanish soldiers hunting for Indian slaves, who rescued Cabeza de Vaca and his companions and brought them back to Mexico. As you read the passage below, try to decipher what the healings meant for both the Native Americans and their Spanish captives.