Reference no: EM133572441

Question: You are now two chapters into the American Horizons volume. If you are still waiting on that book, please get it as soon as possible, as assignments will be drawn from it quite heavily. For today, though, I'd like you to read another primary source (or original account). It was authored by a Spaniard, Cabeza de Vaca, in the sixteenth-century South, especially Texas and surrounding regions. (You may find it under the Files tab.) He had been shipwrecked in the Gulf of Mexico, with most of the crew dying. His account includes a lot of information about the Native peoples who lived near him and who took him captive in this corner of Indigenous America. The main thing to note about de Vaca, like other colonial observers of Native people, is that we can learn as much about him, the author, as about Native Americans, the subjects. The dual nature of such a source is tricky but fascinating. Was he critical or praiseworthy of Native people, and if so, why? Conversely, what can we learn about Native people themselves, even if that knowledge has been mediated by a Spanish settler?