Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (ca. 1490-ca. 1557) was a Spanish explorer. Marooned on the Texas coast, he wandered for 8 years in a land no European had ever seen. His account is the earliest description of the American Southwest.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca was born into a distinguished family in Jerez de la Frontera. His strange name, literally "head of a cow," was won by a maternal ancestor, Martin Alhaja, who showed King Sancho of Navarre a pass marked with a cow's skull. Use of this pass enabled Sancho to win the famous battle of Las Navas de Tolosa against the Moors in 1212.

Raised by his paternal grandfather, Pedro de Vera, one of the conquerors and governor of the Canary Islands, Cabeza de Vaca joined the Spanish army in 1511 and served in Italy, Spain, and Navarre. In 1527 he joined the...