Note Back to Main Text — Chapter II · PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES.

Far more important, historically, and in many ways more instructive than the wanderings of David Ingram, was the journey of The case of Cabeza de Vaca, 1528-36. Cabeza de Vaca and his ingenious comrades, in 1528-36, from the Mississippi river to their friends in Mexico. This remarkable journey will receive further consideration in another place.[305] In the course of it Cabeza de Vaca was for eight years held captive by sundry Indian tribes, and at last his escape involved ten months of arduous travel. On one occasion he and his friends treated some sick Indians, among other things breathing upon them and making the sign of the cross. As the Indians happened to get well, these Spaniards at once became objects of reverence, and different tribes vied with one another for access to them, in order to benefit by their supernatural gifts. In those early days, before the red men had become used to seeing Europeans, a white captive was not so likely to be put to death as to be cherished as a helper of vast and undetermined value.[306] The Indians set so much store by Cabeza de Vaca that he found it hard to tear himself away; but at length he used his influence over them in such wise as to facilitate his moving in a direction by which he ultimately succeeded in escaping to his friends. There seems to be a real analogy between his strange experiences and those of the Fisherman in Drogio, who became an object of reverence because he could do things that the natives could not do, yet the value of which they were able to appreciate.