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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Proem

But, since my counsel and my diligence were of little avail in accomplishing the task for which we went in the service of Your Majesty, and since God permitted, because of our sins, that of all the expeditions that ever went to those lands, no other encountered such great dangers or had such a miserable and disastrous outcome, I can render only this service: to bring to Your Majesty an account of what I learned and saw in the ten years that I wandered lost and naked through many and very strange lands, noting the location of lands and provinces and the distances between them as well as the sustenance and animals produced in each, and the diverse customs of the many and very barbarous peoples with whom I came into contact and lived, and all the other particulars which I could observe and know, so that Your Majesty should be served in some way by this. For although I always had very little hope of escaping from them, I always took great care and diligence to remember the particulars of everything, so that if at some time God our Lord wished to bring me to the place where I now am, I could give witness to my will and desire to serve Your Majesty.

Since my account of this is, in my opinion, prudent and not frivolous, for the sake of those who go to conquer those lands and also to bring the inhabitants to a knowledge of the true faith and true Lord and to the service of Your Majesty, I wrote with great certainty; although one may read some very novel things, very hard to believe for some, they can believe them without a doubt and accept them as very true, for I am brief rather than long-winded in everything. And it will suffice for this that I have offered it to Your Majesty as such, whom I beg will receive it in the name of service, for this is the only thing that a man who returned naked could bring back.