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The Cabeza de Vaca tile, located in the Cos House courtyard (downtown San Antonio) 
An early photo of the Cos House (DRT Library)
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The Verdadera
Relación (1542) of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca is historically, as well as literarily,
significant as the first piece of writing by a European based on experiences
in what is now the state of Texas. It predates John Smith's True Relation
(1608), which Smith expanded into The General History of Virginia (1624),
by 66 years. It is tempting to speculate that Cabeza de Vaca may have
passed through the area that is now San Antonio and visited the spring-fed
sources of the San Antonio River and San Pedro Creek, especially since
archeological evidence of human activity in these areas goes back hundreds
of years.
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The San Antonio River near its spring-fed source on the grounds of the University of the Incarnate Word |
A
geologist named Robert T. Hill, writing in the 1930's, projected
a route up the Colorado River from the coast to the Austin area. Then from
Austin or San Marcos the trail led southwestward to San Antonio before heading
out west to the Trans-Pecos area (Chipman 139). Similarly, in 1940 the non-academic
historian Cleve Hallenbeck argued that Cabeza de Vaca, after fleeing the
Mariames Indians, traveled northwest from San Antonio to the area around
present-day Big Spring, where he crossed the Concho River and headed further
west (Chipman 141). Another chronicler agrees in general with the theories
of Hill and of Hallenbeck, having Cabeza de Vaca rendevous with his comrades,
Castillo, Dorantes, and Estevanico, in the vicinity of San Antonio during
September 1534 (Lowry 38). |
San Pedro Spring in San Pedro Park |
Unfortunately
for those who would like to believe that Cabeza de Vaca visited the life-giving
springs of the San Antonio River watershed, nothing in the text of his monumental
narrative can be found to specifically support that conviction, and several
more recent scholars have supported a more southerly route (Chipman 142-48).
In fact, at one point the Relación, in describing the behavior of the natives,
seems to indicate just the opposite: |
The San Antonio River near its source |
Nearly
all these people drink rain-water, which lies about in spots. Although there
are rivers, as the Indians never have fixed habitations, there are no familiar
or known places for getting water. Throughout the country are extensive
and beautiful plains with good pasturage; and I think it would be a very
fruitful region were it worked and inhabited by civilized men. (Smith 112-13) |
The title page of Cabeza de Vaca's Verdadera Relacion (Courtesy University of Pennsylvania Library) |
The
context and the latter part of the quoted passage, however, make clear that
the explorer's observation was based on the coastal plain before he moved
further inland, so it does not rule out the possibility that Cabeza de Vaca
or some of his European companions may have visited the San Antonio River or San
Pedro Springs. Therefore, it is certainly appealing to believe, along with
some historians, that "Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Andres Dorantes de Carranza,
Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and a Moor called Estevan--arrived at a friendly
Indian campsite near San Pedro Springs." If this theory is accurate, it
would make San Antonio the "oldest identifiable village within the present
limits of the United States" (Jennings 29). It would also make the Relación
the earliest piece of literature by far that includes San Antonio, if the
term "literature" is considered in a broader context.
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