Welcome to Cabeza de Baca.

Episode 2, Missing the Mark. I'm Brandon Seal.

The transatlantic leg of the Panfilo de Narvae's expedition to the new world had played out like a highlight reel of the previous half-century of Castilian conquest.

First, the Narvaise Expeditionaries had stopped in the Canary Islands, which Cabesa da Vaca's own grandfather had conquered.

Then, in Hispaniola, the site of Columbus's first settlement.

And lastly, in Cuba, from which point Hernan Cortez had launched his conquest of Mexico.

And yet this expedition was off to a rough start. By November of 1527, it had already lost 140 men to the boomtown

atmosphere of Hispaniola, which reduced its crew from 600 to about 460. The one-eyed commander

of the expedition, Governor Panfilo de Narvaise, still hadn't managed to find a pilot with actual

navigational experience in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and supplies in the Castilian Caribbean

were in such high demand that Narvaise couldn't even scrape together sufficient provisions

to feed all of his men for more than a few weeks. And so as soon as his five ships touched Cuba, Narvaise decided to split up his forces.

While he hung back to search for a pilot, he dispatched the expedition's treasurer,

Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, to go ahead with two of his ships and 60 men to the tiny

port of Trinidad on the southern coast of Cuba.

These are still the early years of European exploration of the Caribbean we need to recall,

and its larger weather patterns remained a bit of a mystery.

Still, a certain leariness of sea travel in the late fall had started to take form in Castilian sailors' minds.

And when the more seagoing types saw the poor harbor at Trinidad and noted the, quote,

not good, no wena, weather indications that morning, they expressed their reservations out loud.

Still, most of the 60 men dutifully remained on board when a smaller party,

including the man holding the purse strings, Cabesa de Vaca, went ashore to acquire what

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