Citation Needed - The Narvaez Expedition

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

The Narváez expedition was a Spanish journey of exploration and colonization started in 1527 that intended to establish colonial settlements and garrisons in Florida.[1] The expedition was initially led by Pánfilo de Narváez, who died in 1528. Many more people died as the expedition traveled west along the explored Gulf Coast of the present-day United States and into the American Southwest. Only four of the expedition's original members survived, reaching Mexico City in 1536. These survivors were the first known non-Native Americans to see the Mississippi River, and to cross the Gulf of Mexico and Texas. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Dude, thanks so much for having me over. Well, it's about time. I mean, I've been here for three, four times now. Who's counting though? I mean, come on. Ethan's in quick. The natives are here. The arms are prepared, sir. Quick, Thomas Furr. Fire! I, sir!

Jesus! That almost hit me, man! What are you guys doing in my video game room? It's not even record, man. Right are you guys doing in my video game room? It's not even record day, man. Right. Indeed, it is not noble savage, but I heard you were coming to see Noah's collection of boring Nintendo's, and this week's episode got me thinking.

Why, don't I just take that collection, and then you'll hang out with me. That's not how it works, man. Right. And they aren't Nintendo's, they're second gen systems. I don't have to explain myself to you. You collect magic books. Okay, Eli, I get you, but Heath, Tom, really?

Come on, guys. Okay, in my defense, I was promised gold. And is mostly old in his eyes. They're not Nintendo didn't even have a chance to see. What about you? Oh, Eli told me that if we took over his antique video game system collection room, it would just upset him.

Ha, ha, ha, it would upset him. Yeah. Thank, thank you, Tom. Antique video game systems. Yes, not for the other thing, though. Oh, plus there was a cannon. You just said, like, that is. Sure, yeah, no, that's what I was pretty cool.

That was so big. So big! Pfff, so cool. Hello and welcome. The citation needed. Podcasts, we choose a subject, read a single article about a Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. This is the internet. That's how it works now. I'm Cecil and I'll be running this ship aground, but I need my crew to help me do just

that. First up, two guys that drank all our rum, 15 minutes into our voyage, Ethan Tom. Yeah, that's me, I drink. You do? I drink a lot. I'm a drinker. He's also tall. He's an insus thing, dude.

Cool. Yeah. How did that go? I'm leaning into the non-signing drunker. And that's it. Drinks, so I can fuck my sister. What? No, we're not having a thing. No. Also joining us tonight, two guys rightfully upset that we just didn't stay at the island paradise where we loaded all our cargo, Eli and Noah. Yeah, fountain of youth, shmountain of youth, we missed Kerry opening up for this price.

Me and my mutant knee jerk reactions ring. Ah, it's so good. That's so good. Today, we set sail searching for the legendary city of gold that would allow us to continue to make the show indefinitely till we find it though. We're gonna have to rely on your generous resupply efforts, patrons. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around till the

end of the show. And with that, all the way, tell us, Tom. What person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event we'll be talking about today? Today, we will be talking about the Narvaia's expedition. And Tom, you quickly scanned a cracked article about history's biggest fails. Are you ready to, uh, our ex-blader, strange new worlds to seek out new life and new civilizations to boldly go where no man has gone before? Florida?

Yeah. No man has wanted to go before. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. Absolutely. All right, two weeks ago, I admit that I waxed somewhat poetic about the spirit of exploration that animated the early 1900s. And I thought it'll be worth spending an essay talking about another age of exploration,

which was significantly less admirable and not at all immune to poor planning, bad luck, and utter failure. Keith's teen years. Okay. Okay. That's a different essay. That's accurate. Nonetheless. I'm talking here about the late 15th and 16th century, an age of European race to colonize every stretch of land they could land a ship upon. At this time, Spain was in sort of a, like a colonizer's

arms race with the English and the French vast fortunes were made by successful voyages of exploitation when they succeeded, which they very often did not. The Narvaez expedition is one of those stories that shows just how badly things can go when trying to plant your flag anywhere you can find a hole without first gaining enthusiastic consent. Okay, Tom, we already agreed. I get to do the S.A. and Harvey Weinstein. Stop trying to do it.

Where are you going? Okay. Okay, I want to be super clear here. Vast forches were made by successful voyages of exploitation is the phrase that Tom used, but you can also just say, Vast forches were stolen. That's also fair.

That's also fair. It's also a way of getting the same simpler, more concise writing. I appreciate it. Adam Smith right there. On the whole of the nation, they just stole that shit. Classic, boring economic

book reference. Thank you. No, that's a much of my shorter version is the honest one. Yeah, absolutely. TLDR. Who are your portions? We're stolen. There you go. And end of the second. if that's portions were stolen. There you go.

And end of the second. Actually, end of the second. This is my parents a bunch of money right there. Fuck. I like your incest bits better. We're giving notes live. Jesus. I like your other jokes better if we're giving notes live.

We're awful. We're awful. I know this story really begins before anyone sets foot on a ship. One of the things that I'm amazed by here is how these colonial expeditions were set up like a cross between black water mercenaries for higher and like a Jimmy John's franchise. It's not that. In order to begin the journey, Penn Philo de Narez had to petition for a license to attempt to claim a piece of the Gulf Coast, the United States for the Kingdom of Spain, which seems rather like

asking your dad for permission to steal a car to give back to him for Christmas. Yeah, but your dad stole it from your indigenous neighbor. And once permission to conquer land for Spain was granted, Spain doesn't actually do fuck all to assist that effort. The contract for conquest that Narvayez was granted gave him one year to gather and hire a private army, leave Spain, travel to the Gulf Coast across the ocean, found two towns of at least a hundred people each and garrison two forts along the coast.

And if this sounds like rather a lot to do in a year, the contract also stipulated that Narvaez had to secure all of his own funding to do all of this shit completely on his own possibly be to show up next to Mexico and build a few walls. Like what? Is that? Well, I'll last hate that would be a few centuries yet before there would even be a Mexico to pay for it. This really was very much like conquest by franchise. It was the potential for incredible rewards for Narvayez were enormous. Previous colonialists such as Cortez made for themselves enormous fortunes. See, even though the land itself would be stolen from the native inhabitants in the name of the Kingdom of Spain,

a significant portion of the spoils from this conquering went right into the pockets of those doing the actual conquering. Narvayez sold his expedition to investors by invoking the story of Cortez, and he promised that he too would bring riches untold back from his voyage. The play worked, and along with significant personal investment, he raised the money needed to finance his private army of mercenary sailors and soldiers. It was precisely because so much money was at stake, though, that the Spanish crown appointed

their own man as second and command of the expedition. Elvar Nunez Cabeza Devaco was to act as the eyes and ears of the king, primarily to make sure that the 20% kickback on all the spoils did make its way back to the crown. I don't know of that much Spanish, but I do know a little bit. At some point, the king of Spain was like, all right, we need a serious guy to foresee this thing. Alan head of a cow. Alan. Alan.

I don't know. You're on it. That's you. This is serious. The rest of the crew consisted of a guy whose job title was Royal Inspector of Mines. I guess in case they discovered like local mines whose paperwork might be out of date. I don't know what he's doing, a comptroller

because war for hire needs quality accounting ledgers, a contingent of priests, a shit ton of soldiers. And for some reason, an Aztec prince, I don't know why, he's in the list. All told, the expedition included 600 people, 450 troops, officers and slaves and 150 sailors, wives and servants. They set sail on July 17th, 1527. Okay. Now, that might seem like a lot of characters to keep track of, but obviously the director is just patting it so he can kill a bunch of them off and still have a story.

So. At some time in August, the expedition arrived at Santo Domingo, which is now part of the Dominican Republic. Pretty much immediately crew began to exerting the expedition. This is their first step. Now, I want to be fair here and I want to acknowledge that some amount of attrition is normal for these voyages. Many times, some portion of the crew who set sail underestimated the harsh reality of life on the sea while others would fall ill or become injured and be unable to continue. But the level of desertion at the very first stop was quite high,

and almost certainly because at port, the expedition crew learned of the fate of a prior expedition. Rumors about the disastrous voyage of Lucas Vazquez de A Leon, in which 450 of their 600 man-force parish before returning home, ignited fear among the Narvaia's expedition. 100 of the original 600 deserted the mission at Santo Domingo. hundred of the original 600 deserted the mission at Santo Domingo. Yeah, and then the captain writes an op-ed about how no one wants to do a hard day's conquering and everyone's right in the bottom on our slash anti-conquer. Now, while losing 18% of your workforce doesn't exactly scream good management, the expedition pressed on,

landing in Cuba a few weeks later. Narvaez was himself from Cuba, and he had a family there, so this stop was pretty much on plan. As since he was now home and he was well connected, he was able to resupply a ship, get some more horses and hire men to replace some of those who chose to stay behind on the beaches of the DR. Narvaez met with his buddy Vasco Porcayo who had a hook up in Trinidad to get more supplies and horses.

Narvaez split his fleet and sent some of them off to Trinidad to go shopping. Okay, everyone. As you probably know by now, we've had a real desertion problem. So here's a bunch of our money. Now leave the country with no way to travel. You want me to leave like a card on the bar? I don't understand. I stopped this from happening. I could just leave, right? There's nothing you can do. And all right, guys, it's going to take four ships and continue on to the Gulf of.

And I'm going to mispronounce this. to take four ships and continue on to the gulf of, and I'm going to mispronounce this. Wakaniyabo, which is still part of Cuba. While Kabeza, the king's man and second and command took two ships and headed over to Tridentad to get some horses. Kabeza led the two ships to Tridentad well enough, but pretty much immediately after they got done shopping for horses and supplies and like gate checking their luggage, a wild hurricane appeared. The vicious storm sank both the ships, killed 60 men, a fifth of the horses they had just acquired,

and sent all the rest of the supplies they had just purchased to the bottom of the sea. Cabesa survived. So, okay, but I feel like another possibility we should acknowledge is that Cabesa and some of the other guys found themselves sitting on a tiny little boat watching some newly wealthy deserter sail into the sunset thinking, okay, guys, we're going to need a better story. And then we'll call this huge fish. It was huge, he's so bad. So bad. Narvae has realized he needed to make some adjustments. He's now down a significant number of his original troops.

He has two less ships than he had when he started, as well as a shortage of horses and supplies. And all that he has done so far is to stop at home. We can't really be getting his expedition and the high quest phase. But Narvaez was nothing if not well connected. He was also pretty fucking wealthy. So he sent the four remaining ships under the command of Cabesa, who was crushing it so far.

Yeah, right. Well, Narvaez stayed behind to try to hire more men and purchase more ships. That MX Black card was absolutely smoking when he put it back into his wallet. He's like, ah, I'm at my credit limit. Will you work for Instagram exposure? You're probably going to die of actual exposure. I heard he tried to fundraise from his own brew like on the boat. He called it first matriarch. First matriarch. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's really good.

That's really good. The fun. But sailing ships aren't something you just buy off the shelf and hiring people to join your weird soldier of fortune team takes a little bit of time. So it took Narvaez four more months before he rejoined the bulk of his force at Sien Fuegas. He had two new ships and some new recruits, but the expedition is down to about 400 men and 80 horses. And the four months' weight meant that the men who were waiting were also literally chewing through their supplies. They planned to set sail to Havana for one last restock in the cupboard

before making their way to Florida. That's what they planned to do. What they actually did was to turn over the navigation duties to a brand new guy they just hired who claimed to be a master pilot with extensive knowledge of the Gulf Coast. It's like this master pilot. This master pilot Diego Menuelo took all of two days to run the entire fleet of ground on the shoulders of kind of rails just off the coast of Cuba, where they remained stuck for three weeks until a big ass storm came along and just blew them off the shores.

Never let Eli drive. It's like, it's like, I can't even just like the rules. Okay. Okay. In my very obvious ancestors defense, this is as much the last guy to run a grounds fault as it is the first guy to run more or more so even because the first guy didn't just watch three other motherfucking boats yet. Now, even lower unsupplies than before, from their unexpected layover, the fleet continued

on toward Havana, still beset by storms. The crew eventually rounded the western edge of Cuba and were making their way to the port of Havana, getting so close they could see the masks of the ship's Doctin Port when another storm blew up and blew the fleet into the Gulf of Mexico. Still lacking their much-needed resupply, Narvaez gave up trying to supply his expedition properly and pressed on with their plans to colonize the golf coast. And who needs supplies? Yeah, they will. It turns out the golf had other ideas, even though Cuba is close enough to Florida that in 2013,

a 64 year old woman swam from one to the other. The fleet still spent a full month battling the Gulf Stream struggling to reach land. It should ask that lady to tell him. She could. Right. Right. On April 12, 1528, the expedition spotted what is now known as Tampa Bay, but evidently realizing that there's nothing worth stopping for in Tampa.

I didn't make land. Choosing instead to look for what their master pilot insisted was a great harbor nearby. A two more days into looking for this harbor, one of the fleets five remaining ships sank. It doesn't say why, but I admire their pluck. I do. They're just going along. A 60 year old woman is just swimming around their boat for a month haunting them. She pulls up next to him. Hard eye contact revs or engines. I'm out. But so, okay, look, if the options are sink or Florida, they need to write short. No, they made the right choice. Right.

Otherwise, Narvaez, perhaps sensing that their master pilot had somehow padded his resume or the fleet to enter the next shallow harbor they found. They came upon Bocca Ciego Bay in what is now St. Petersburg and made land after citing signs of local civilization. They were excited to see that the land wasn't unoccupied because they desperately needed food, water, and to be very frank here, conquering land itself isn't nearly as prosperous as conquering people on that same land and then just stealing

all their shit. All right, all the natives ran away when we came ashore. This could, I don't know, this ruins it for me. Like, I guess I'll pillage by like, I don't know, this boring. I heard they couldn't see the ships. This is both. That's it. That's it. Now, I love this part.

The first guy off the ship was actually the comptroller. What? Pretty much immediately began trading with the indigenous peoples for fresh fish and venison. This detail isn't actually at all interesting, except that chronologically, this comes before Narva Yes ordering the rest of the crew to disembark and make camp, which means the accountant basically splashed his way alone up the beach, trying to like, get take out while everyone else was still unbuckling themselves from the

Thus making the first time I've ever identified with an account The account's like I can give you let me see you know what just take it all I'm just gonna kill all of you in 10 minutes and take it back anyway Just yeah, what you want at this point the expedition was basically illegally squatting on land that belonged to the native inhabitants. And this, this would not do. So the day after setting foot in Florida, the crew of the expedition assembled and declared that the land they stood on was, by order of the Pope and their franchisee license, now the property of Charles. Oh, cool. I thought they were going to do something ethical there. I think you were setting it up like they were going to be like, you know what, this is wrong.

We shouldn't. Man, ethical will not be the bag. No. Now because they were also fair and Christian men, they also declared that everyone who lived on the land had the choice to convert right now to Christianity so they could be loved as brothers and sisters in Christ or they could be slaughtered wholesale and war-waged

against them totally Totally. They're called the natives are like, Oh, I was afraid we're going to have to sit through a fucking time share pitch. They way last time we can't be Christian. It's true. The natives, some of whom somehow got the gist of this assembly, both leaded with the leaders in the expedition and threatened them. Their entreaties fell on deaf ears and Narvaez decided to stroll about and explore some of the land he had just claimed by rights of his Jimmy John's war certificate or whatever, and over which he had now declared himself governor.

After bopping about and sightseeing for a bit, he returned to have a chat with his master pilot. How is that guy still the master pilot? No, he's not. He's having fun. Right? They don't have a good second choice though. He ordered the master pilot to take one of the ships with a small crew and sail back to find that great harbor that he had been so excited about earlier.

The master pilot was to return to Cuba if he was unsuccessful finding that great harbor. As he had proven thus far unsuccessful in finding anything that he was actually looking for. Hon, would you run to the store and get 2% milk? And if they don't have that, will you sell five months back to Cuba for me, sweetie? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Also, you failed nine times at getting 2% milk to be clear.

So I feel like this is bad idea. Just because your title is master milk getter. Narvae has the responsible now for turning this mess into a profit. So he took a small party and explored a way inland where he encountered another village. Here the Spaniards found a little bit of food and gold, but nothing we're getting excited about, and which they pillaged anyway. These villagers convinced the Spaniards that maybe they should go bother their neighbors to the North,

the Appalachian. Narvaez thought this was a fine idea and made his plans to head North. Okay, based on the story so far, I'm guessing the natives just kept pointing them to bigger and bigger tribes, so eventually he ended up invading Spain. That would be amazing.

At this point, Arvay has decided the best way to cover the most ground was to split his force into a land and sea division. The land crew would consist of 300 men heading north on foot through undeveloped Florida, while the 100 remaining men would take the remaining ships and sail up the coast where they would supposedly rendezvous. Narvaez thought this would work because he thought the mouth of Tampa Bay was just like a hop-skipping a jump north when in fact it was actually south from where he was at. The idea was such a bad one that Cabesaza vociferously objected, though he was ultimately

overruled. Narvaez then asked Cabezza to lead the fleet of ships, but Cabezza insisted on joining Narvaez because he was basically being called a chicken and his fragile ego couldn't take the insult. Well, that means it's time to take a break. We get back, we'll be exploring where the Washington Football team got its name. But that's not for a little apropos. That's nothing.

Hello there, local savage. Hi. Hi. Me conquering Spaniard. You subject. Dude, dude, I speak Spanish. You guys have been here for like 20 years, 30 years? Oh, um, okay, well, I have good news.

Today is the day you get a chance to become a Christian. Become a Christian and you should be treated as a brother. Resist and you will die as I take these lands which are rightfully mine. Rightfully yours. Yeah, these lands are mine by birth and by the granted writ of Spain. I see. Okay, tell you what, I'm in. You're in?

No one says that. Mm-hmm. I'm all the way're in? Man says that. Sure, I'm all the way Christian now, except Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior. The only problem now is you. What about me? Well, you own these lands by birth and Christians like me are conquering them. So I'm sorry, can I borrow that musketeers?

The United States really shouldn't have those. Oh yeah, okay. I'll tell you, I'll make you a shouldn't have those. Oh yeah, I'm okay. But I'll tell you, I'll make you a deal. If you convert to Christianity, I will spare you. But I'm already Christians. Ooh, that's too bad. Nothing I can do for you then, sorry. No, no, I get it, I get it.

Fair is fair. Hey, as long as you don't teach my kids critical race theory, am I right? Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Well, when we left off, the expedition was blindfolded. They spun them around three times and Native Americans were yelling, Marco, what happened next?

It's a little more organized than they were. The 300 men who set off on foot were no better supplied at this point than when they were undersupplied a few weeks prior, like onboard their ships. They were near to starvation when two weeks into their trek, they came upon a village and immediately enslaved its inhabitants and ate all of their food, including the corn in their fields, like locusts with silly metal hats. Okay, locusts and silly hats is my head, newgent cover band. That's what I was talking about.

Locusts and silly metal hats is also a pretty apt description of conspiracy theories. Yeah. And R.I.S. sent two smaller parties downstream from a local river to see if they could spot the ships they hoped to rendezvous with, but to no avail. And I love this part. Remember the dumbass master pilot who was supposed to either find the great harbor or go back to Cuba? He didn't do either. Neither of those things. Yeah, none of them. Well, when he couldn't find the harbor, he had evidently invented in a fever dream. He didn't go to Cuba as he was ordered.

Instead he headed back to Tampa Bay, but now everyone was all gone. He then headed back to Cuba and returned to Tampa Bay with a ship full of supplies, and here he actually met up with the other boats who had looked for the land force with no luck for quite some time. Together the fleet of ships decided they were just going to fuck right off and go to Mexico rather than continue to be a part of it. Oh God, it's the colonial version of you didn't text us back. So we ate without you. It's the land force continued their foray north when they ran into the Timakua people. The Timakua chief and Narvaya's were able to communicate

a bit through hand gestures, and the chief was made to understand that the Spaniards were on their way to meet the Appalachian. Since the Timakua and the Appalachian were enemies, the Timakua were more than happy to help lead these deadly idiots to the door of their foes. This brings me to the incident at the river. The Timuku led the expedition north until they reached the river.

I guess this river just like confused a shit out of one one Velasquez because on horseback, he just fucking gunned the horse and charged into the river. It's promptly drowned the man and the horse. And I think this is very likely confused the hell out of everybody watching. And so we've dealt the Tim Accua. Did you think that horse was just Jesus? This guy's covered in metal armor.

It just ran into the river. She's surprised. The starving army ate the horse. This was actually the very first casualty that didn't die in a shipwreck, but it would not be their last. Well, the first unless we count the natives, which obviously, you know, and you can't make me learn about that either, Dan.

That's against the god damn law. You know what? Just for that, I elected a guy. I don't know anything about to be governor. No, this is okay. We're talking about Spaniards doing it. It's fine. They don't have the issue with that at all. The next night while getting water, an arrow was shot at, but missed one of Narvaeza's men. Maybe to see if he'd like chase it like a dog fetching it a stick.

Shoot it into a river. See what happens. The very next morning, like a folder's crystal switcherude took place and all the Timokuon natives were gone and hostile local natives had taken their place. Will they notice? Son of a bitch. Somehow Narva has figured it out and they managed to capture a few of them who they pressed into acting as guides. And the expedition continued northward toward the Appalachian, whom they were sure had

gold, and which they were quite sure they would have no trouble overwhelming and defeating. Okay, so we're lost and like a bunch of us are dead. And one thought he was like Aquaman or something. I don't know, I don't know what I'm in there. And it's fine, it's fine, we got this way, we can go. On June 25th, 1528, the Narvaez expedition came upon a village of about 40 homes, which they immediately mistook for the Appalachia capital, an absolutely perfect example of the wild underestimation of the natives that

characterized this whole detestable endeavor. After sacking the village, Narvaez and his men found none of the expected gold, but they did find plentiful food. It took a number of hostages, and then installed themselves in the homes they had just captured, thinking they had defeated the Appalachian, though disappointed by the lack of spoils for their efforts. They're walking around the next day rocking. They're like, I defeated the Appalachian. All I got for it was this lousy t-shirt, does. They could not have been more wrong about defeating the Appalachia. Almost immediately, the first band of 200 warriors attacked Narva Yazan as men using burning

arrows to set fire to the homes the men were occupying. A second force of 200 warriors attacked the next day, this time with larger, more powerful bows and attacking from the other side of the village. This is pretty easy to twerk, guys. All we have to do is take sharpened stakes and put them at a 45 degree angle. That's pretty good. I just, I love that they,

like they saved the big bows for the second lady. Right? Like, so kind of movie villain bustin' out the rocket launcher. Wait, wait, wait, wait, try to give the Spaniards a fighting chance here. I feel like there was a big fight when they were like, all right, you're the first guys. You're the a big fight when they were like, all right, you're the first guys, you're the small bow guys and they're like, what? This is why

I'm not just tonight. I'm with the bigger bows all be on the other so we can put half the big bows on this side and half the big bows on that side. We can just win right now with the big bows. Why are we doing this? No, I told you guys were going for rogue like it. We're going to the road. The Spaniards were forced to abandon the village, but the warriors continued to press their advantage, assaulting quickly from the dense cover of the surrounding wilderness and fading back into the woods before the occupiers could reload their slower, more cumbersome weapons. This went on for three weeks before the Spanish decided to head back south, hoping now to lose their pursuers and run instead into the

outay, a tribe which they heard was smaller and had plenty of food they could steal. You guys just want to go back down south and wait for our Uber there. You guys. That's a really good idea. Oh, guys, we are getting our ass kicked in this Arby's parking lot. I'm gonna head over to Wendy's and pick a fight there. That guy's smaller. That's my old friend.

That's Wendy's the smaller guy. To reach the outay, the expedition had a cross a large swamp, which as soon as they entered and were up to their chests in water and mud, they were again attacked with a brutal shower of arrows. Stuck in the muck, their horses were of no use in chasing down or intimidating their attackers, their weapons were too slow and heavy, and their armor, well protective, weighed them down, making them much slower. Once free of the deepest part of the water, they were able to force their attackers to retreat

again into the woods, but the same chain of events repeated again and again over the course of two more weeks as they slogged their way through the Floridian swamp. Upon reaching the outay, they discovered that it had already been burnt to the ground and deserted, though they were able to scrounge enough food from the surrounding area to feed their starving party for a moment, but things were extremely dire for the Spaniards. Cabezza went forward to scout for a way back to the ocean, but he was unable to find the ocean. What?

He did, however, find shallow, salty beds full of oysters. Narvaez loaded up all the horses with the sick and wounded, and they made their way to the muddy shallows. Could Keesador Elias like, ooh, oysters. Are you hinting at something? Captain Cabezza. Mr. The men were starting to break down, starting. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, There were serious discussions about the relative merits of cannibalism at this point.

And some of the Kabayeros, basically the cowboys in charge of the horses, strongly consider just taking the horses and ditching the rest of the party. Finally after a few days camped among the muck, digging for oysters, one of the men suggested they reforge the metal in their armor and weapons, build new boats, and sail to Mexico. Jesus. And as insane as this plan sounds, it was the best idea they had and the party agreed to give it a try. All right.

That was the vote was 32, 31. We're doing a reset. We're bankers from Boston now. They're blocking it. Now, you have to pause here and admire what reforging their armor and weapons in the middle of a Florida swamp actually means just work wise. To reforge the metal, they had to build a goddamn forge from swamp stuff. And they did.

They cut down trees one after another and they slowly burn them to make charcoal. They forged a bellows from deer skin. Once the forge was made, they beat their swords not into plowshares, but into axes, saws, and nails. They stitched their shirts into sails and gathered pine pitch to make caulking for the boats. The whole time they were working on building their makeshift boats, the Appalachee continued their intermittent gorilla assaults, twice killing 10 men gathering oysters within sight of the Spanish camp. Out, out. We're not even doing war stuff anymore. You guys are damn. Four seems low for people

who just made nails out of their muskets though, right? The horses, they were all killed in eaten and the hides and hair turned into rope and storage bags. A mere six weeks after beginning, and this is actually pretty fucking impressive, they managed to construct five ships from tools made from reforged armor, sales from shirts, rope from animals, and trees fell by hand in the swamp. At this point, only 242 men from the original 600 were left alive. Each of the five ships was able just barely to carry 50 men. The men set sail two days after completing the five boats. The people that are waiting for them to return with the on-told riches are like, come on, man, what are they like building

the boats come on guys. First IPO ever. So life at sea initial pillage off. Life at sea would not prove easier on the already weakened men. The ships headed west, but storms, along with starvation and thirst, reduced the 242 survivors down to 80 before another hurricane poured down on the beleaguered men and ground the coast on a small barrier where the men continued to endure even more starvation and disease. This time, their misery was so so terrible they named the island the island of misfortune and the island of doom

historians believe that they actually landed in Galveston, Texas So the names But their power grid was like so independent guys Just as good as staying warm. Narvaaz was no longer in charge of anything at this point. He was sick and useless. And the command of the dwindling band of men was now led by a cabane. He started useless though. He didn't need to.

That is very fair. For the next four years, the men lived among a number of indigenous. Four years. Four years. Four years. Four years. to wait for your profits. The next four years, the men lived among a number of indigenous tribes of South Texas. Cabasa became something of an armchair anthropologist, actually, keeping detailed notes on the cultures and traditions of the various people he and his men met and gleaned their meager survival from. By 1532, there were only four men of the

original 600 left alive. Narvaez was not among them. The surviving forceum headed out of South Texas hoping to reach a Spanish outpost in Mexico. They traveled across Texas into New Mexico into Arizona through Mexico to the Pacific Ocean before turning around, becoming quite by accident, the first Europeans to travel the American Southwest. They did not find the outpost. Hey, boss. Is there any way we can stop deciding the direction we go in by throwing a dark is that possible? Okay. Mexico is down into the left. Look at the map. It made sense for us to do this. We just want to have a fucking master pilot here, okay?

In 1536, the survivors ran it as some fellow Spaniards in Mexico who were there kidnapping people to enslave and export them. Cabello had a right of this encounter that the Spaniards they encountered were, quote, dumbfounded at the sight of me, strangely dressed in the company of Indians, they just stood, staring at me for a long time. The four survivors and the Spanish slavers traveled together to Mexico City where they recovered from their ordeal. One of the survivors, a more named Estav Vanico, went on to become a guide for other expeditions. While Cabesa returned to Spain and wrote a full account of the fate of the doomed expedition, and described in detail the many customs of the many indigenous peoples that he both imperiled and was imperiled by.

And I would like to say that he learned a hard lesson here on the evils of colonialism, but he didn't. Instead, after writing his fucking memoirs, he went on to serve the Spanish colonial government this time trying to make South America great again. If you had to summarize, you'd learn in one sentence, Tom. What would it be? Florida wasn't worth the trouble then, and it is not worth the trouble now. Very true.

Ready for the quiz? I am. All right. Eli earlier, you were talking about what the captain did fundraising from his own sailors, right? What was that called? First mate, Trion.

First mate, Trion. Speaking of which, what's the best place to crowd fun your pirate stuff? Speaking of that, all right. Yep. A, kick star, terror. Don't go stuff. R, okay.

Thank you. You're like, B, go fund me. I like that. I like that. Or C, Wendy Gogo. Oh, that's good. That's good. That's good. I like that. Or see, Wendy GoGo. Oh, that's good. That's good. That's good.

Cause they sell. All right, I'm gonna go with GoFundsMe where the clock is ticking. Nice. Nice. I was gonna say it was different one, but that's excellent. You added something, it's correct. And it's all right. I want to know.

Yes. He hooked you. All right, Tom, based from your last two essays. What's your next essay going to be about? Hey, that time I almost made it to the bathroom at that Ruby Tuesday. Oh, B, all of Heath's romantic remission shows.

C, Noah's ill-fated Sojourn as a hostage negotiating. Hey, I didn't give up shit. I won that negotiation. We did this, true. Or D, Cecil agreeing to do this podcast with me. All right. Well, it can't be D because we don't cover tragedies of that scale. They're just not fun at all.

It's got to be C Noah's ill-fated soldier as a hostage negotiator. I would pay limitless funds to watch that. You think I give a fuck about those assholes? No. But do you not get any money? Fucking break. All right. I got one for you Tom.

What is the moral of this story? All right. Hey, never enter into a military endeavor without sufficient intelligence and sufficient information gathered in advance of the operation to assist commanders in the decision. B, Florida man was always going to be a thing. There was none of them to do about it. See, if you find yourself stranded in Florida, get the fuck out of there. Even if you have to build a forge to make the tools to turn your clothes into an ocean-y vessel. Or D, the native tribes that conquis stormed doors came to rape and pillage still treated

Hispanic immigrants better than the Trump justice department. Wow. Okay, well D's got too much of a fucking truth. Too much truth. That's little harsh, little harsh. C is just good advice. I'm going with C. Oh, I'm sorry you were so close.

It was B. It was B. There were a couple. That's all so true. That means Noah's our winner. All right, well, I think, I think, Cecil, you should have to do an essay next week because it's just been too long. Okay. All right, well, for Noah, Eli, Heath and Tom, I'm Cecil, thank you for hanging out with

today, we'll be back next weekend by then. I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, listen to all our other shows you can find them at cetationpod.com and if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash cetationpod or you can leave us a five star review everywhere you can with the money's better than that. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com.

Native season. Span your season. Native season! Native season! Span your season! Fire!