Time Line of Cabeza de Vaca's Travels Through Mid-North America 1528-1536

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Time Line of Cabeza de Vaca's Travels
Through Mid-North America 1528-1536

June 17, 1527: Fleet leaves Spain from near Cadiz
Fleet arrives at Santo Domingo (Island of Hispaniola) where it stays 45 days
Fleet arrives at Santiago, Cuba.
Fleet sets out for Trinidad, Cuba but stops at Cabo de Santa Cruz, Cuba and sends Cabeza de Vaca on with two ships to obtain supplies at Trinidad.
Cabeza de Vaca takes some soldiers ashore. The two ships are caught in a hurricane and lost along with sixty men.
November 5, 1527 Governor Narvaez arrives with four ships at the place where Cabeza de Vaca and his men are.
Cabeza takes ships to Jagua (Xagua, now Cienfuegos) to spend the winter
February 20, 1528: Governor Narvaez arrives with brigantine bought at Trinidad. He also has a pilot, Miruelo, who claims knowledge of the Gulf Coast of North America
April 12, 1528: Fleet arrives in Florida in the vicinity of Tampa Bay
April 15, 1528: Expedition disembarks from the ships on the Florida coast
April 16, 1528: Governor Narvaez claimed possession of the land in the name of the King of Spain
April 17, 1528: Governor Narvaez decides to take a party of forty men to explore the area
May 1, 1528: Governor Narvaez announces that he want the main body to penetrate the interior of Florida while the ships and crew were travel the coast to find a harbor. This was the fatal split in the expedition.
June 17, 1528: Expedition on its way to the town of Apalache is met by a friendly chief and his band.
June 25, 1528: Expedition gets view of Apalache without the inhabitants being aware. Cabeza de Vaca with fifty infantry and nine cavalry entry Apalache and find only women and boys there, the warriors having abandoned it.
July 19-20, 1528: Expedition leaves Apalache and heads for the town of Aute, reputed to have plentiful food.
August 1, 1528: Expedition leaves Aute heading toward the sea to build boats to take them to New Spain (Mexico).
September 20, 1528: Five boats completed.
September 22, 1528: Last of the horses eaten and the expedition departs in the boats, about fifty men to a boat.
September 29, 1528: Expedition at the mouth of St. Marks Bay. Material from captured natives' canoes used to improve the boats.
October 27-28, 1528: Natives near Pensacola Bay, probably Choctaws, appeared to befriend the expedition. They take the Spanish to their village and feed them, but in the middle of the night attack them and try to kill the Spanish.
November 1528: Expedition boats pass the outflow of the Mississippi River. The men are able to drink fresh water from the sea. A north wind blows the boats out to sea where they are separated.
November 6, 1528: Cabeza de Vaca comes to an island after being three as sea. The island is named by Cabeza de Vaca's men, "Isla de Malhado," the Island of Misfortune. It was probably Galveston Island.
November 7-8, 1528: Cabeza de Vaca's group tries to leave the island. Their boat is buried in sand and they strip to better work in the surf to free the boat. The boat is launched but a short distance from shore it is overturned by a wave. Many are drowned and those that survived are naked and left with nothing.
1528-1534: Cabeza de Vaca and the other survivors lived on the Isle of Misfortune and its vicinity. There were initially eighty or so survivors who arrived on the island but very soon, due to hardship, disease and execution by the natives, the number was reduced to fifteen.
After spending more than a year as a slave of one group of natives on and near the Isle of Misfortune Cabeza de Vaca escapes to the mainland and joins another group of natives. Here he was allowed to operate as a trader. He dealt in sea snails, shells, hides, ocher and pigments.
1533: Capture of Cabeza de Vaca and Andres Dorantes by Mariames tribe.
Late September or early October 1534: Escape from the Mariames by Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes and escape from Iguases by Estebanico and Castillo. The four headed west instead of directly south to New Spain because they were told that the natives to the south so hated Spaniards that they would kill them immediately.
1534-1535: The four men reside with the Avavares tribe for about eight months.
June 1535: The four leave the Avavares.
January 1536: The four meet Spanish soldiers of New Spain in what is now the State of Sinaloa in northwest Mexico.
February 1536: The four arrive at Culiacan, a frontier outpost of New Spain.
July 1536: The four are welcomed to Mexico City by Hernan Cortes and Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain.
October 1536: Cabeza de Vaca is ready to sail for Spain but the ship he was going to travel on is wrecked in a storm.
April 1537: Cabeza de Vaca leaves for Spain. The other three stay in New Spain.

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