First edition. U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing's copy, with his bookplate on front endpaper (these were purchased from a family library in Henderson Harbor, NY, near his birthplace in Watertown, which included many other works owned by him). Page ridges lightly foxed. 1907 Hard Cover. xv, 411, 4 pp. Volume 2 in series. With maps and a facsimile reproduction. The Narrative of Alvar Nunez Cabeca De Vaca; The Narrative of the Expedition of Hernando De Soto by the Gentleman of Elvas; The Narrative of the Expedition of Coronado, by Pedro De Castaneda. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1488/90/92 ? after 19 May 1559) was a Spanish explorer of the New World, and one of four survivors of the 1527 Narváez expedition. During eight years of traveling across what is now the US Southwest, he became a trader and faith healer to various Native American tribes before reconnecting with Spanish civilization in Mexico in 1536. After returning to Spain in 1537, he wrote an account, first published in 1542 as La relación y comentarios ("The Account and Commentaries"), which in later editions was retitled Naufragios y comentarios ("Shipwrecks and Commentaries"). Cabeza de Vaca is sometimes considered a proto-anthropologist for his detailed accounts of the many tribes of Native Americans that he encountered. In 1540, Cabeza de Vaca was appointed adelantado of what is now Paraguay, where he was governor and captain general of New Andalusia. He worked to build up the population of Buenos Aires but, charged with poor administration, he was arrested in 1544 and then transported to Spain for trial in 1545. Although his sentence was eventually commuted, he never returned to the Americas. He introduced the story of the India Juliana in his accounts. Hernando de Soto (c. 1497 ? 21 May 1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was involved in expeditions in Nicaragua and the Yucatan Peninsula. He played an important role in Francisco Pizarro's conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru, but is best known for leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States (through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and most likely Arkansas). He is the first European documented as having crossed the Mississippi River. De Soto's North American expedition was a vast undertaking. It ranged throughout what is now the southeastern United States, searching both for gold, which had been reported by various Native American tribes and earlier coastal explorers, and for a passage to China or the Pacific coast. De Soto died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River; sources disagree on the exact location, whether it was what is now Lake Village, Arkansas, or Ferriday, Louisiana. Pedro de Castañeda Nájera was a Spanish conquistador who wrote a chronicle of the expedition of Francisco Vásquez de Coronado in New-Mexico; Arizona and Texas.
