Grade 12 American Literature – Lesson 1

English 4: American Literature

Lesson 1: Cabeza de Vaca, Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America (1542).

Reading assignment:

Chronology of Spanish exploration. Download here.

Biography of Cabeza de Vaca.

Adventures, Section 1

This document is an autobiography/travelogue. It is an account of a journey that lasted from 1527 to 1536. Cabeza de Vaca (“head of a cow”) was a Spanish soldier. He was part of a military expedition. It began with 300 men. It ended with four.

Here is a map of his journey. There are several maps of his journey. They are guesses.

The document is 81 printed pages. You must read about 20 pages per day.The document has explanatory material in brackets. I recommend skipping these, except for dates and locations. This will speed up your reading without losing efficiency. You are studying the literary impact of the document, not the minute historical details of the era. You won’t remember them anyway. You don’t need to remember them.

The second half of the document provides remarkable insights into the Indian tribes of the Southwest. This was before the Indians had adopted the horse, which the Spanish introduced. The horse dramatically changed the lives of buffalo-hunting tribes. It also changed warfare.