Unknown Texas 01

Pánfilo de Narváez, after having agreed with Charles V in 1526 to explore the land to the north of the territory controlled by Cortés, from Pánuco to the tip of Florida, left Sanlúcar de Barrameda on June 17, 1527. He took with him four ships, a brigantine and 600 men, with Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca as second in command.

They arrived in Florida on April 12, 1528. He then decided to send all the ships away and move up the coast by land with his people, staying close to the coast. After a long march, he decided to go back to the sea and build new ships, as there was no way for him to contact the ships he had sent away.

They fashioned five boats and boarded them. Pánfilo de Narváez and his remaining 200 men set sail on September 21, 1528.

In November, they reached the mouth of the Mississippi.

On the twenty-second day of the month of September (…) we embarked in this order: forty-nine men went in the governor’s boat (Narváez and Pantoja); the same amount went in a boat given to the accountant and the commissary (Alonso Enríquez and Fray Juan Juárez); the third was given to Captain Alonso del Castillo and Andrés Dorantes with forty-eight men, and another to two captains named Téllez and Peñalosa, with forty-seven men” The other went to the inspector and I (Cabeza de Vaca and Alonso de Solís), with forty-nine men (…).