This episode is Cabeza de Vaca part 4, the final in the Cabeza de Vaca series. We recorded this episode on March 30, 2021 in Austin, Texas.

The last time the remnants of the ill-fated Narvaez expedition landed on a coastal island somewhere near today’s Galveston, Texas and, thereby, “discovered” Texas.  Of the eighty or so alive at the end of Cabeza de Vaca 2, only three remained with our protagonist, Cabeza de Vaca, and would eventually make it back to New Spain.  It is now 1534, almost six years after the expedition landed in Tampa Bay, and the final four are heading south in search of Panuco, the northernmost outpost of New Spain under the authority of one of that era’s nastiest conquistadors, Nuno de Guzman.

Selected references for this episode

Andrés Reséndez, A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, The Account: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's Relacion, An Annotated Translation by Martin A. Favata and Jose B. Fernandez

A New History of Old Texas Podcast by Brandon Seale

Cabeza de Vaca resources online at Texas State University