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"Mar Pequene" or/^Small Sea", name of Mississippi Sound for many charts for tv^'centuries, was given in 1^19 by Don Alonzo AlW^ez dePixie^ra vhen reporting exploration of the northern Gulf of Mexirro"^''’’^
Pineda noted the physiographical character of the shoreline, reported the positions of dunes, low-lying sandspits, bays, knolls, marshes, and oysterbanks (ostiales) in the Mississippi Sound and on the delta of the Mississippi River. He called the River the "Rio del Espiritu Santu." Some historians think he actually meant Mobile Bay.
Panfilo de Narvaez on June 17, 1527, left Spain with 600 men aboard five ships. Cabeza de Vaca was treasurer of the fleet.
They left the south shore of Cuba in March, 1528, and landed at Tampa Bay.
Narvaez landed with 300 men to march northward through Florida while the vessels sailed parallel to join at Apalachee Bay. In two months Narvaez suffered many hardships and lost many men from starvation and in the swamps, apparently reaching the Apalachicola River.
He lost contact with the ships and decided to head westward from apparently St. George Sound. Crude boats were made using the skins of their last horses and even using their leg skins as fresh water bags.
They followed the shoreline using such lagoons as Pensacola, Santa Rosa, etc., to Chandeleur Sound. In trying to enter the mouth of the Mississippi River or go round the delta the strong currents drove them seaward and overturned the flimsy little craft drowning Narvaez and most of the men.
Cabeza de Vaca found refuge on a small island 5 leagues and
2	leagues wide which he named Isla de Malhado. It could have been Horn island as some historians have surmised.
/ The survivors lived among the Indians as slaves and even ate / their comrades to survive for 6 years until presumably 1531*- They \ remained between the Pearl River and Mobile Bay during this period. The small tribes of Indians were constantly warring on each other.
Reportedly Cabeza de Vaca led the survivors northward to apparently Mineral Shoals and then headed westward crossing the Mississippi River to reach the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers. Eventually they reached California.
—	M. James Stevens (1978)