Within the book “A Land So Strange” Cabeza de Vaca is faced with many opportunities to decide the fate of himself and his fellow Spaniards while stranded on the island known to them as Malhado, the “Isle of Ill Fate”. While on this small island, he was encountered by some of the natives who witnessed their condition of obvious starvation and lack of clothing due to a failed attempt to get their raft unstuck from the sand. The natives decided to give them food in exchange for labor, slave like labor that included some of the slave treatments like beatings if they didn’t do the job right.  Cabeza de Vaca had a choice to stay and be a slave to stay alive or leave and put his team in danger as they would most likely die in the wilderness trying to navigate their way to Panuco.

The chain of events that followed are the result of staying alive through the natives. He was able to survive and become apart of different tribes of Indians and eventually landed the opportunity to become a merchant to the Charrucos tribe, him access to be mobile and not be in danger of being beaten to death by a native. this gave him an opportunity to leave and head west to try and find Panuco and the others that left before him. If it wasn’t for his choice to stay with the natives in the beginning he would not be alive to get to the point where he would meet up with Castillo, Estabanico and Dorantes. Had Cabeza de Vaca not decided to stay and endure the 6 years of slavery, he most likely would not have survived and the others never get to their intended destination.