Chapter Index

× Proem 1. Which Tells When the Fleet Sailed, and of the Officers and People Who Went with It 2. How the Governor Came to the Port of Xagua and Brought a Pilot with Him 3. How We Arrived in Florida 4. How We Entered the Land 5. How the Governor Left the Ships 6. How We Entered Apalachee 7. What the Land is Like 8. How We Left Aute 9. How We Left the Bay of Horses 10. Of Our Skirmish with the Indians 11. What Happened to Lope de Oviedo with Some Indians 12. How the Indians Brought Us Food 13. How We Found Out about Other Christians 14. How Four Christians Departed 15. What Happened to Us in the Village of Misfortune 16. How Some Christians Left the Isle of Misfortune 17. How the Indians Came and Brought Andrés Dorantes and Castillo and Estebanico 18. How He Told Esquivel's Story 19. How the Indians Left Us 20. How We Escaped 21. How We Cured Some Sick People 22. How They Brought Other Sick People to Us the Following Day 23. How We Left after Having Eaten the Dogs 24. About the Customs of the Indians of That Land 25. How the Indians Are Skilled with a Weapon 26. About the Peoples and Languages 27. How We Moved On and Were Welcomed 28. About Another New Custom 29. How They Stole from One Another 30. How the Custom of Welcoming Us Changed 31. How We Followed the Corn Route 32. How They Gave Us Deer Hearts 33. How We Saw Traces of Christians 34. How I Sent for the Christians 35. How the Mayor Received Us Well the Night We Arrived 36. How We Had Them Build Churches in That Land 37. What Happened When I Wanted to Leave 38. What Happened to the Others Who Went to the Indies
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repay and reward good people and condemn bad people to eternal punishment with fire. We told them to say that when good people died, God took them to heaven, where no one ever died or was hungry or cold or thirsty or in need of anything, but instead experienced the greatest bliss imaginable; and that in the case of those people who refused to believe him or obey his commandments, God would cast them under the earth in the company of demons, into a great fire that would never end and would torment them forever; and that, besides this, if they wanted to be Christians and serve God the way we told them to, the Christians would consider them brothers and treat them very well. And we would tell the Christians not to harm them nor remove them from their lands, but instead to be their good friends. But if the Indians refused to do this, the Christians would treat them very badly and take them to other lands as slaves.

The Indians replied to the interpreter that they would be very good Christians and they would serve God. When they were asked what they worshipped and sacrificed and whom they petitioned for water for their cornfields and health for themselves, they replied that it was a man who was in heaven. We asked them his name and they told us he was named Aguar, and that they believed that he had created the whole world and everything in it. We asked them how they knew this and they said their fathers and grandfathers had told them so, for they had known about this for a long time, and they knew that water and all good things were sent by him. We told them that we called the man they were describing God, and that they should also call him God and serve him and worship him as we had told them to do, and that things would turn out very well for them. They replied that they understood everything very well and would do so.

We ordered them to come down from the mountains in peace and feel safe to populate the land and build their houses. Among their houses we told them to build one for God and to place at the entrance a cross like the one we had, and to greet arriving Christians with crosses in their hands and not with bows and arrows, and to take them to their houses