Slavery and captivity in Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca's 1542 La Relación

Abstract

acaescido en las Indias... continues to be mined for information about the early conquest period of the Americas. Scholarly explorations of different Spanish conquerors' accounts offer opportunities to discern social/cultural layers of the Spanish conquering enterprise. The examination by diverse scholars of Cabeza de Vaca's discursive representation of America in La Relación has resulted in varied insights and/or interpretations of the work. Approaches that deal, for example, with an evolving eyewitness experience, a captivity account, and Cabeza de Vaca's attempt to validate his royal service allow one to perceive and recognize the emergence of discursive relationships of knowledge in La Relación's intersecting historical, cultural, and social factors. Yet challenges remain in studies of Cabeza de Vaca's account, in part, because of the persistent need to better understand how meaning is constructed in the narrative. First, one must note several significant versions of Cabeza de Vaca's narrative, which include the "Joint Report" as contributor, Oviedo's use of the "Joint Report" for an account in his Historia general y natural, the 1542 La Relación, Oviedo's makes an addition to his earlier account of the Pánfilo de Narváez Expedition after reading the 1542 narrative, the 1555 edition of La Relación which re-conceptualizes the original narrative, and Las Casas's utilization of Cabeza de Vaca's work to support his discourse of pacification. In the 1700s, Cabeza de Vaca's account became tied to regional histories in which the evangelizing role of the castaways became fundamental.

Translation and Translanguaging in (Post)multilingual Societies

“…Each party involved in an exchange appeals to an ultimate listener standing above the dialogue, not necessarily physically, delimiting responses and understandings. The superaddressee is very much a part of a dialogue and is in flux itself, for it is in the process of emergence and development as it contributes to the exchange (Sánchez 2016).…”