A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca

From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, the gripping tale of a shipwrecked Spaniard who walked across America in the sixteenth century.

"Once you start this book, it's nearly impossible to put it down." -Washington Post

In 1527, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane and knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. In the end, only four survived: three Spaniards and an African slave.

Enduring a horrific march through Florida, a harrowing raft passage across the Louisiana coast, and years of enslavement in the American Southwest, this tiny band of castaways journeyed across an unknown land for almost ten years in search of the Pacific Ocean that would guide them home.

Now updated with a new afterword, A Land So Strange brings to life the vast, dynamic world of North America just a few years before European settlers would transform it forever.


Author: Andrés Reséndez
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 10/20/2026
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Size: 8.25h x 5.50w x 0.79d
ISBN13: 9781541609518
ISBN10: 1541609514
BISAC Categories:
- History | Expeditions & Discoveries
- Biography & Autobiography | Adventurers & Explorers
- History | Americas (North Central South West Indies)

About the Author
Andrés Reséndez is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. His book The Other Slavery won the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is most recently the author of Conquering the Pacific: An Unknown Mariner and the Final Great Voyage of the Age of Discovery. He lives in Davis, California.