The Narváez expedition was a Spanish journey of exploration and colonization started in 1527 that intended to establish colonial settlements and garrisons in Florida. The expedition was initially led by Pánfilo de Narváez, who died in 1528. Many more people died as the expedition traveled west along the explored Gulf Coast of the present-day United States and into the American Southwest. Only four of the expedition's original members survived, reaching Mexico City in 1536. These survivors were the first known non-Native Americans to see the Mississippi River, and to cross the Gulf of Mexico and Texas.

Narváez's crew initially numbered about 600, including men from Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Italy. The expedition met with disaster almost immediately. Making stops at Hispaniola and Cuba on the way to La Florida, the fleet was devastated by a hurricane, among other storms, and lost two ships. They left Cuba in February 1528. Their intended destination was the Rio de las Palmas (near present-day Tampico, Mexico), with the purpose of founding two settlements. Storms, opposing currents, and strong winds forced them north to present-day Florida. After landing near Boca Ciega Bay, about 15 miles north of the entrance to Tampa Bay, Narváez and his pilots determined that their landing place was not suitable for settlement. Narváez ordered that the expedition be split, with 300 men sent overland northward along the coast and one hundred men and ten women aboard the ships were also sent northward along the coast, as Narváez intended to reunify the land and seaborne expeditions at a large harbor to the north of them that would be "impossible to miss". The land expedition and the ships never met, as no large harbor existed north of their landing location. As it marched northward the land expedition encountered numerous attacks by indigenous forces and suffered from disease and starvation. By September 1528, following an attempt by survivors to sail on makeshift rafts from Florida to Mexico, only 80 men survived a storm and were swept onto Galveston Island off the coast of Texas. The stranded survivors were enslaved by indigenous nations, and more men continued to die from harsh conditions.

Only four of the original party—Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and Dorantes' enslaved Moor Estevanico—survived the next eight years, during which they wandered through what is now the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. They eventually encountered Spanish slave-catchers in Sinaloa in 1536, and with them, the four men finally reached Mexico City. Upon returning to Spain, Cabeza de Vaca wrote of the expedition in his La relación ("The Story"), published in 1542 as the first written account of the indigenous peoples, wildlife, flora, and fauna of inland North America. It was published again by Cabeza de Vaca in 1555, this time to include descriptions of his subsequent experience as Governor of the Rio de la Plata region in South America. A translation was later published under the title Naufragios ("Shipwrecks").