SOURCE: Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Boise State University, 1991, pp. 1–51.

In the following study, Wild argues that Cabeza de Vaca's account of the years he spent lost and near death in North America has many elements of the modern novel and that the explorer masterfully blends factual events with literary devices to win favor for himself and gain support for his conviction that Native Americans were more likely to be conquered with a loving Christianity than the conquistador's sword.

I. Introduction

Recounting his adventures on an unknown continent, Cabeza de Vaca passes on a story he heard in an Indian village:

They said that a little man wandered through the region whom they called Badthing [Mala Cosa]. He had a beard and they never saw his features distinctly. When he came to a house, the inhabitants trembled and their hair stood on end. A blazing brand would...