Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 12.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and this week we are kicking off perhaps the most unbelievable story of individual survival in all the history of the Americans.

The disastrous Narvaez's, and the amazing journey of

Cabezza de Vaca and Friends. I am recording this on March 10th, 2021, in Austin, Texas.

One day in the spring of 1536, a group of Spaniards on horses were ranging north along the

Pacific coast of Mexico, on the coastal plain between the Sierra Madre Occidental to the east

and the Great Ocean to the west on their left. They were looking for Indians to capture

an enslave in a region unsettled and even unexplored by Europeans.

In the distance, a vanguard of four horsemen saw 13 Indians clad in skins.

These Indians at first seemed entirely like other Indians in the region,

except that rather than running from the Spanish horsemen,

they walk straight toward them.

Now let's turn to a passage by Professor Andresresendez of the University of California, Davis,

who renders the encounter vividly enough.

At closer range, the unexpected details began to emerge.

One of the natives seemed very dark.

In fact, he was black.

Was he an Indian too or an African emerging from the depths of North America?

The horseman's unease must have turned into shock

when they realized that one of the others in the group was a white man. He had gone completely native. His hair hung down to his waist,

and his beard reached to his chest. The man's skin was leathery and peeling. As the two parties

approached, the slavers could hear that the haggard white man spoke perfect Spanish.

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