SOURCE: Introduction to Castaways: The Narrative of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, edited by Enrique Pupo-Walker and translated by Frances M. López-Morillas, University of California Press, 1993, pp. xv-xxx; 139-40.

In the following introduction to a 1993 translation of the Relación, Pupo-Walker links the literary qualities of Cabeza de Vaca's narrative with medieval romances and adventure stories, and suggests that the chronicle has had a profound impact on modern Latin American fiction.

Governor Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition that set out on “the seventeenth of June in the year fifteen hundred and twenty-seven” consisted of five ships, and crews totaling about six hundred men. After sailing from Sanlúcar de Barrameda the ships made a stop in the Canaries and went on for almost three months until, in mid-August, they reached Hispaniola. On this island they replenished their supplies and Narváez attempted without success to...