61 pages • 2 hours read
The Moor's Account
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Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Story of Ramatullai”
The narrative returns to Mustafa’s time in Seville. Ramatullai is desperate to contact her daughter. She dictates a letter to Mustafa in hopes that it will find its way to her.
One night, Mustafa discovers Ramatullai being raped by their master Rodriguez. It brings them closer together: “Our friendship grew, strengthened not only by our common ordeal, but also by a sense that we had no one else with whom to share it” (142).
Rodriguez’s business thrives due to his persuasive abilities. He starts drinking and gambling, which leads to arguments with his wife. Ramatullai overhears his wife telling him that he must sell one of the people he has enslaved to settle his debts.
Rodriguez sells Mustafa to Dorantes and seals the deal with a golden earring from the Yucatan. Mustafa is frustrated when he realizes that the clerk who records the sale is the hunchback he’s been searching for.
When Dorantes tells the clerk that he’s joining the Narváez expedition, the clerk warns Dorantes about Narváez by recounting how Narváez was outmaneuvered by Cortés in New Spain. Eager to complete the transaction, Dorantes dismisses the story, saying, “This mission has nothing to do with Cortés. Narváez has a license from His Majesty to claim La Florida for the Crown” (148).
As he prepares for his voyage across the ocean to an unknown land, Mustafa reflects on his loss: “once again, I was forced to drink from the bitter cup of separation. The little joy I had managed to wring from my bondage, the joy she gave me, was gone from my life” (150). The chapter ends with Mustafa on a ship bound for the new world.
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Story of the Rafts”
The narrative returns to the new world, where the surviving expeditioners are traveling on makeshift rafts. Mustafa observes that there’s no way to maintain rank in such dire conditions; “For Dorantes, especially, it was a humbling experience. But for one like me, who had already known these humiliations, it was a reminder that all fates, including my master’s, could turn upside down” (152).
After discovering that the water they’d stored in horsehide containers has gone rancid, the men suffer from a terrible thirst. When they find an island, Mustafa, who refrained from stealing in earlier raids, takes food and water from the natives. Once again, he feels intense guilt: “The shame of my theft settled upon me all at once. How low I had sunk as a man. But once again I told myself that I had no other choice […] It was necessity, not greed that had driven me to this” (155).
Dorantes and Castillo return to the beach to find Narváez’s men destroying the natives’ canoes with their axes. Narváez explains that he wants to use the wood to reinforce their rafts. Fearing retribution from the natives, Dorantes tells Narváez, “You should have consulted with us before taking such a drastic measure” (157). Narváez stands firm, saying he had no choice.
The men set out on their rafts before nightfall to avoid retribution from the natives. When they find another island, they quickly determine that there’s no fresh water. The men, already suffering terribly from lack of water, begin to panic. The ration master drinks seawater and dies horribly.
A group of natives approaches in boats, inviting the men to follow them to their village. The men, weak and broken, accept the invitation. The leader welcomes them to his village and tells them of a great river. The chief feeds them fish and squash.
After the warm welcome, the natives attack them, perhaps warned about their visitors by a neighboring tribe. The men flee on their rafts at first light.
Two days later, the rafts sail into a powerful river. When Dorantes suggests to Narváez that they should tie the rafts together for safety, Narváez says, “each raft should try to save itself. That’s what I intend to do” (163). An intense storm begins, and everyone prepares for death, “praying to God that he forgive us our sins and grant us eternal life in heaven” (164).
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Story of the Island of Misfortune”
The wind carries Mustafa’s raft to the open sea. Realizing that they have very little chance of survival on a rotting raft with no food or water, he blames himself for his fate.
By the time they find land, Mustafa is close to death, lost in dreams of returning home and seeing his family again. Mustafa spies a native village in the distance and insists that they go to the village to ask for help. Ruíz, always distrustful of natives, disagrees. Mustafa volunteers to go. At first, Dorantes says no, but Mustafa persists.
The natives offer them food and drink. The men decide to camp on the beach near the village until spring. Ruíz refuses and decides to go to the far side of the island. Dorantes orders him not to leave. Ruíz leaves, openly disobeying Dorantes’s order and taking four other soldiers with him.
The next time they visit the village, they are surprised to see Cabeza de Vaca. He greets Dorantes and Castillo warmly, shares how the Han tribe rescued him, and suggests that Dorantes’s men should join his camp. Dorantes insists that Cabeza de Vaca’s men should join their camp. Mustafa speaks up in favor of staying with their own tribe, and Dorantes agrees. Cabeza de Vaca returns to the Han village with an agreement to meet in the spring.
Eventually the natives tire of the men begging for food and insist they learn to catch their own. Mustafa and Dorantes’s young brother Diego are unable to master the native techniques for hunting and fishing. As punishment, they are sent to dig for roots with the native women, a job they find to be very hard work.
Ruíz unexpectedly returns from the other side of the island. The men are horrified to learn that one of the soldiers who followed Ruíz killed and ate the others, and finally, Ruíz killed and ate him. The natives overhear this story and refuse to allow the survivors back to their village.
Bowel diseases strike both the natives and the Europeans. Although many settlers die, five times as many natives are killed by the disease. The natives blame the Europeans.
The settlers discover that Cabeza de Vaca now has a native wife whom he will not leave and that the notary has gone mad. Although Cabeza de Vaca and his men refuse to leave the island, Dorantes, Castillo, Mustafa, and nine of their men trade their most prized possessions for a trip to the mainland in the natives’ canoe.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
In Chapter 10, Mustafa loses his only friend and becomes enslaved to Dorantes. The clerk’s account of Narváez’s defeat at Cortés’s hands provides the first hint that Narváez may not be a great leader, though Dorantes ignores this warning.
In Chapter 11, Narváez’s arrogance and poor leadership become more apparent. Time and again, Narváez’s absolute lack of empathy for the Indigenous people he encounters puts his own crew in danger. Dorantes disagrees with Narváez’s decision to destroy the natives’ canoes, telling Narváez, “You have endangered us all” (156). Dorantes can put himself in the position of the Indigenous people and thus imagine how they will react to the destruction of their canoes, but Narváez cannot let go of the belief that everything he sees belongs to him by order of the king. Later, Dorantes suggests to Narváez that they should tie the rafts together for safety. Narváez, who chose the best raft and strongest crew for himself, shows his poor leadership when he refuses risk to his own safety to help his men.
By Chapter 12, Mustafa is increasingly finding his voice and asserting himself. He stands up to Dorantes and insists that he must travel to the Indigenous village to ask for help. Mustafa recognizes his own agency when he reflects on the blurred line between enslaver and enslaved:
I was almost startled by his order. Did he think he could still impose his will upon me? I had already lost everyone and everything that mattered to me. All I had left now was my life, which I had sworn never again to put in the hands of others (168).
Mustafa reclaims control over his own destiny, a means of Survival in the Face of Colonial Dehumanization. He is the first to recognize that, far from the centers of imperial power, his status as an enslaved person no longer has meaning. He forces his enslavers to recognize this fact as well.
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