Pánfilo de Narváez was a Spanish soldier, conquistador, and explorer. He participated in the Spanish conquest of Cuba and later served as a colonial official there. In 1527, the Spanish king gave Narváez permission to lead an expedition to claim and colonize territory along the Gulf Coast of North America.
Narváez left Spain in 1527 with several ships and hundreds of people. After stopping in the Caribbean, the expedition reached the west coast of Florida near present-day Tampa Bay in April 1528. Narváez claimed the land for Spain and led part of his expedition inland.
The expedition soon ran into serious problems. The Spanish struggled to find enough food and became involved in conflicts with Indigenous peoples. The ships that were supposed to support the expedition were no longer with the group. With no easy way to leave Florida, Narváez and his men decided to travel west along the Gulf Coast toward Spanish settlements in Mexico.
The men built five makeshift rafts using materials they could find. They even used tools and metal from their equipment to help construct the rafts. In September 1528, about 250 survivors set out across the Gulf of Mexico. They traveled west along the coast, but storms, hunger, thirst, and strong currents separated the rafts.
By November, the expedition had reached the coast of the land that is now Texas. Narváez's raft was swept along the coast toward the area near present-day Matagorda Bay and Cavallo Pass. Narváez disappeared during this part of the journey and is believed to have drowned.
Other rafts continued along the Texas coast. About 80 survivors were shipwrecked or washed ashore on or near present-day Galveston Island. Among them was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, an officer in the expedition.
The survivors depended on Indigenous communities for food, shelter, trade, and knowledge of the region, although their relationships with different communities varied. Over the following years, nearly all members of the expedition died. Cabeza de Vaca and three other men eventually survived the journey across parts of what are now Texas and northern Mexico. They reached a Spanish settlement in 1536.
Narváez's expedition failed to establish the Spanish colony it had set out to create. However, Cabeza de Vaca's later account gave Spanish officials information about the lands and Indigenous peoples north of Mexico and contributed to later Spanish interest in the region.