In 1527, Spanish colonizer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca set sail with the Narváez expedition to current-day Florida. However, the planned expedition ended in the crew's desertion, ships lost in a hurricane, and Narváez (a proven poor leader) abandoning De Vaca and three other men. Stranded near what is now Galveston, Texas, the group of four men spent the next few years as prisoners to the Karankawa Indians. De Vaca's text, The Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, documents his observations of the encountered Native American tribes during his captivity and eventual release. His record, a work of objective social science, is recognized as the first European ethnographic study of the New World.