Volume 153 of the series "Guerreros y Batallas". In his second report to Charles I, Hernán Cortés suggested to the king what he considered to be the most appropriate name for the newly discovered territories: "La Nueva España del mar Océano" (New Spain of the Ocean). In the same year, 1519, Alvarez de Pineda's expedition set out from Jamaica, mapped the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, entered the Bay of Corpus Christi, took possession of it in the name of the Spanish crown and founded the first Spanish settlement in Texas, an area that would shortly afterwards become the setting for the unique adventure of another Spanish explorer, Alvar Núnez Cabeza de Vaca. The expansion of the great viceroyalty of New Spain made Texas a frontier land; the suppression of the warlike conflicts that had arisen in Europe brought the war to the other side of the ocean, and the enmity between the native tribes forged convenient alliances of Apaches or Comanches with the soldiers of the European kingdoms. This book gathers in its pages the epic of the exploration of Texas, its organisation and defence within the Viceroyalty of New Spain until the time of Charles III and, of course, the experiences of the protagonists of such a unique adventure, who with cross and sword expanded the empire where the sun never set.
