In "The Conquistador Who Wrote a Captivity Narrative," Carmen Gomez Galisteo argues that even though Cabeza De Vaca was tasked with writing a relacion, or a report to the king about his expedition, the text he wrote would more accurately be considered a "captivity narrative," a genre of writing later popularized by English Puritan colonizers in which they are captured by American Indians as a way for God to solicit their repentance (Galisteo).  While the comparisons she draws between Cabeza De Vaca's text and later Puritan captivity narratives are compelling, Galisteo also acknowledges some key differences between them.  While Cabeza De Vaca acknowledges his expedition's shipwreck to be punishment for their sins (in general), Galisteo contrasts this from an example from a Puritan captivity narrative that goes on ad nauseam detailing the specific sins that had been committed.  She also points out that Puritan captivity narratives draw religious and narrative inspiration from the Old Testament Patriarchs, while Cabeza De Vaca's work is more Christocentric.

This narrative inspiration from Jesus' life made me think that maybe Cabeza De Vaca's work was really a relacion after all.  I remember learning in church when I was young that the word "Gospel" was originally associated with a kind of pillar that kings would erect to commemorate victory in war.  I don't know if that's actually true, but I do think it demonstrates a point about the nature of the Gospels in the bible (the four books that detail Jesus' life).  The messianic tradition believed that one day, a descendant of King David would come to liberate Israel from foreign rule.  Though the Old Testament prophets were read as describing military victory under a great leader, the Christian tradition inverted this through Jesus' "conquering of death" when he was resurrected after being executed. At every turn, the Gospels are subversive in that they challenge your conception of what a proclamation of victory should look like.

I think Cabeza De Vaca took a similar narrative approach when he wrote his relacion. He takes care to often specifically address the king in his writing, making clear that he really did expect it to be read as a report.  He also occasionally goes out of his way to describe the landscapes he travels through in a way more akin to that of a property surveyor than of a narrative storyteller.  But it is the utilization of this narrative framework that also allows Cabeza De Vaca to continually surprise us: the story is not what you'd expect a conquistador to write.  Like Christ, he is expected to be a conqueror, and like Christ, he "conquers" in the service of God through poverty and submission,  and more importantly is an agent of God's miracles.