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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very difficult ascent. There we found many people gathered together for fear of the Christians. They received us very well and gave us everything they had. They gave us two thousand loads of com, which we gave to those miserable, hungry people who had taken us there. The following day we dispatched four messengers from there, as was our custom, to call and convene all the people they could to a village three days' journey from there. After doing this, we set out the following day with all the people there. Along the way we found signs and traces of the places where Christians had spent the night. At midday we came upon our messengers, who told us they had found no people because they were all hiding in the mountains, fleeing so that the Christians would not kill them or enslave them. They said that the previous night they had seen Christians. The Indians had hidden behind some trees to see what the Christians were doing and they saw that they were taking many Indians in chains. The Indians who had come with us were greatly upset by this, and some of them turned back to give the warning throughout the land that Christians were coming. Many more would have done the same if we had not told them not to do it and not to be afraid. They were greatly reassured and relieved by this.

Indians who lived one hundred leagues away then came with us there since we could not persuade them to return to their homes. To reassure them we slept there that night. The next day we traveled on and slept on the way. The following day, the Indians we had sent ahead as messengers led us to where they had seen the Christians. We arrived there at the hour of vespers and clearly saw that they had told the truth. We noticed that horsemen had been there because we saw the stakes where the horses had been tethered.

From this place, called the Petutan River, to the river reached by Diego de Guzmán, where we first heard of Christians, there may be eighty leagues; from there to the village where we were caught in the rains, twelve leagues; and from that village to the South Sea,