CORONADO

Although de Vaca describes himself as being a slave to the Deaquanes Island tribe that saved his life, that tribe did not prevent him from leaving. Hoping to go back to New Spain, he left the island and affiliated with the mainland Guavenes, and worked more to his liking as a trader, which enabled him to learn the neighborhood. He did this for six years, each year urging his shipmate Lope de Oviedo who was still with the Deaquanes to join him in a westward trek that would hopefully take them to New Spain. (Oviedo elected to stay with the Deaquanes, though, suggesting he had found happiness. Can’t imagine what he meant, can you? Ha!) So there’s some really nice Indians.

Well, anyway, thanks to the assistance of one of the Guavenes, when it came time for the tribe to move to an area of ripening nuts, de Vaca met with Dorantes who was being held by a different mainland tribe, the Marianes. Dorantes had found this group an improvement over yet another mainland tribe, the Iquanes, who still held their shipmates Castillo and Esteban.

With the understanding that the four would meet together when the tribes came together for the three month prickly pear gathering season, de Vaca allowed himself to be given by Dorantes as a slave to the Indian family Dorantes stayed with. (A unique thing for a trader to trade himself, huh? ) They did it this way because of the custom they had become acutely aware of among the mainland Indians of punishing or killing any useful person attempting to leave the tribe.

The way to move across the landscape seemed to be to leave one tribe for another when tribes were close for partaking of the seasonally available wild foodstuffs. The neighboring Marianes and Iguanes tribes seemed loath to let useful people leave. And now I quote deVaca:

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, “La Relación… ,” trans. Fanny Bandelier, The Journey of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and his Companions from Florida to the Pacific, 1528-1536,” (New York: A. S. Barnes & Company, 1905), p. 88:

"All the others of that country are their enemies with whom they are always at war ...

p.90-91:

"The men do not carry burdens or loads, the women and old men have to do it, for those are the people they least esteem.

"Most of these Indians are great thieves… although very liberal towards each other, as soon as one turns his head, his own son or the father grabs what he can. They are great liars and drunkards … They are so accustomed to running that, without resting or getting tired, they run from morning till night in pursuit of a deer, and kill a great many, because they follow until the game is worn out, sometimes catch­ing it alive.

p.95:

So badly was I treated that I had to flee three times from my masters. and they all went in my pursuit ready to kill me.

So deVaca found that he was indeed a slave to this tribe, but it was because the tribe figured his escape to an enemy would make the enemy tribe stronger.

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