In his narration, Vaca described Native villages at places which are cities again today. His tales of great wealth and an Ocean deep in America rallied two Conquistadors, DeSoto and Coronado, into this continent. Neither would find the riches or ocean which Vaca claimed were here, and foreign diseases, introduced by them, would destroy native cultures, setting the stage for French and English settlement. Vaca's narration is the oldest history we have of those places and the natives who lived there.

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From the time Vaca landed in South Florida on April 9, 1528, where his ships returned to Cuba for supplies, he skirted the Gulf of Mexico north and west looking for food, shelter and his returning ships. Giving up finding any five months later, Vaca and 240 others coasted America's Southern States in crudely built boats, headed for Spanish Mexico. Two men escaped just before Vaca's boat wrecked on the island of "Misfortune." Six years later, upon his westward departure, Vaca crossed the biggest river he saw in America.

The two escapees were later reported by DeSoto's people in Alabama, indicating that they had fled Vaca's boats EAST of the giant river he crossed upon leaving the Isle of Misfortune. That river was the Atchafalaya River, given that Vaca had reported passing a great river, the Mississippi, just after the men escaped and before wrecking. Vaca wrecked in Louisiana, he didn't have time enough to get to Galveston after the two men escaped, as previous historians have suggested. Vaca had to hug the shoreline for food and water along his way. The island he wrecked on was East Island.

Vaca entered Texas six years later and met visiting Caddo Indians, the most advanced he saw in America, near Houston. Their sophistication persuaded Vaca that they lived in luxury due north of there, and that there was an "ocean" further to the north, despite the fact that Vaca never observed either in America. Vaca's statements led DeSoto north to find an ocean passage, then across the Midwest to find that Indian tribe; his army ultimately southwest to Mexico for escape - the same place Vaca ended his journey having passed through New Mexico and Arizona.