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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while the sole purpose of the others was to steal everything they found, never giving anything to anybody. In this manner they talked about us, praising everything about us and saying the contrary about the others. They replied this way to the Christians' interpreter and told the others through an interpreter they had among themselves, whom we understood. We properly call the people who speak that language the Primahaitu, which is like saying the Basques. We found that this language was used among them and no other was used in the 400-league stretch that we traveled.

The Indians could not be persuaded to believe that we were the same as the other Christians. We had great difficulty and had to insist in order to persuade the Indians to return to their homes. We ordered them to make themselves secure and settle their villages and plant and till the soil, which was already overgrown because it had been abandoned. This land is without a doubt the best in all the Indies, the most fertile and abundant in food. They plant crops three times a year. They have many fruits and beautiful rivers and many other very good bodies of water. There is great evidence and signs of gold and silver deposits. The people are very congenial: they serve Christians-the ones who are friendly-quite willingly. They are well built, much more so than the Indians of Mexico. This truly is a land that lacks nothing to be very good.

When the Indians departed they told us that they would do what we said and would settle their villages if the Christians would allow them. I want to make it quite clear and certain that if they should not do so, the Christians will be to blame. After we sent the Indians away in peace, thanking them for the trouble they had taken with us, the Christians sent us under guard to a certain Justice named Cebreros and two other men with him, who took us through wilderness and uninhabited areas to keep us from talking to Indians and so that we could not see or understand what they really did to the Indians. From this, one can see how easily the ideas of men are thwarted, for we wanted freedom for the Indians,