Brutal Journey

Cabeza de Vaca and the Epic First Crossing of North America

Paul Schneider

A John Macrae/Holt Paperbacks Book

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“Schneider’s thorough research and vivid writing create a fast-paced, moving story, one that is difficult to believe and impossible to forget.” 
—The New York Times Book Review
 
A gripping survival epic, Brutal Journey tells the story of an army of would-be conquerors, bound for glory, who landed in Florida in 1528. But only four of the four hundred would survive: eight years and some five thousand miles later, three Spaniards and a black Moroccan wandered out of the wilderness to the north of the Rio Grande and into Cortes’s gold-drenched Mexico. The survivors brought nothing back other than their story, but what a tale it was. They had become killers and cannibals, torturers and torture victims, slavers and enslaved. They became faith healers, arms dealers, canoe thieves, spider eaters. They became, in other words, whatever it took to stay alive.

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Book Excerpts

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Introduction
 
On Good Friday of 1528 an army of four hundred Spaniards, Africans, and Caribbean natives landed in the vicinity of Tampa Bay, Florida, under the command of a middle-aged conquistador with a last-chance license to conquer North America. They promptly disappeared without a trace into the swamps and, except for a small contingent that remained on board the ships, were soon assumed to be dead. But then, eight years and thousands of miles later, three Spaniards and a Moroccan wandered out of what is now the United States into what was then Cortés’s gold-drenched Mexico.

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Praise for Brutal Journey

“Brutal Journey is a wonderfully rich account of an incredible cross-country journey of survival. Paul Schneider’s beautifully crafted book takes us to another time in another world, a place of native American shamans, Spanish conquistadors, and unbelievable determination. Best of all, it really happened.”—Jerald T. Milanich, Ph.D., archaeologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History and author of Florida Indians from Ancient Times to the Present

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About the Author

Paul Schneider

Paul Schneider, author of the highly praised and successful The Adirondacks (0-8050-5990-3), a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, and The Enduring Shore (0-8050-6734-5), lives with his wife and son in Martha’s Vineyard.

Paul Schneider

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Available Formats and Book Details

Brutal Journey
Cabeza de Vaca and the Epic First Crossing of North America
Paul Schneider

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Henry Holt and Co.
A John Macrae/Holt Paperbacks Book
May 2007
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780805083200
ISBN10: 0805083200
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 384 pages, Includes two maps and seven black-and-white illustrations
$18.99
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Hardcover

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Hardcover
Henry Holt and Co.
A John Macrae Book
May 2006
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780805068351
ISBN10: 080506835X
6 1/8 x 9 1/8 inches, 384 pages, 7 illus throughout; 1 map
$26.00

e-Book Agency

Learn more about this edition
e-Book Agency
Henry Holt and Co.
A John Macrae Book
April 2013
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9781466843295
ISBN10: 1466843292
384 pages, Includes two maps and seven black-and-white illustrations
$9.99
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Holt Paperbacks

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