Section 1
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TEACHER: Welcome to New Mexico history. Today we'll be talking about Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Our essential question, what role did the explorations of Cabeza de Vaca play in the exploration of New Mexico? Our objectives will be to describe the land that de Vaca had seen and heard about, explain how de Vaca and his small group
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made their way to New Spain, describe what the Spaniards thought they would find as a result of de Vaca's report. First, let's take a look at the route that the de Vaca expedition took. First of all, they started out from Cuba, and their intent was to sail to Florida. They had heard that the interior part of Florida
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had some very wealthy cities, and so that's what they were going to find. At this point, they landed in what is now approximately Tampa Bay, and the expedition split into two parts. One part traveled by land and one part traveled by sea. Unfortunately, this was to become a very bad plan as the two groups never actually connected with each other
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after that. Now they have been battered by hurricanes along this trip from Cuba to Florida. Apparently it was hurricane season. So after some walking and exploring in the inland of Florida, they discovered that there were no wealthy cities. And by the time they reached the water again,
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many of their people had died along the way. This was an ill-fated journey right from the start. By the time, they reached the northern part of Florida, they were depending upon the kindness of the Apalachee Indians. And unfortunately for the Appalachee Indians, the Spaniards brought some sickness with them, and they were blamed for the many deaths of the Appalachee
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Indians. So de Vaca's men were forced to live in a swamp, and they killed off their horses one by one for food. And out of sheer desperation, they decided to build some rafts and try to get back to Cuba. They were very, very resourceful. They used the skins of the horses to spread across the rafts to make them watertight.
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They used the hoofs of the horses boiled to make some glue. And they used every single part of the horses and the goods that they found around them to make these rafts. Unfortunately, when they settled on the rafts and started to travel, instead of going back to Cuba, they were going deeper into the Gulf. And they traveled for a while until, over time, the group
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became decimated again with hurricanes and starvation. These rafts were blown on to islands that had no fresh water, and it was a very miserable situation. By the time they hit what is now Galveston, Texas, there were about 80 of them left. And at this point they were taken into slavery. So Cabeza de Vaca spent the next four years in slavery, and he was traded from one village to the next as a slave.
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Eventually they were down to only four of them left. And at that point, they decided that they could become faith healers and try to do some exploring and get back to New Spain. So from this point on, the explorations that they took could have been in several different directions. It could have been up this way into New Mexico. It could've been across Texas and even as far out as possibly
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Arizona. But we do know that eventually they did meet up with people from Mexico City, New Spain, and they were brought back into their Spanish civilization. So we're going to talk a little bit about what Cabeza de Vaca brought to the history of New Mexico through his explorations. He wrote a report, and the report recounted the trip.
Explanation:
trust me you will get it right i did it
