Name Esteban de Dorantes Died 1539, Hawikuh Ruins | ||
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Similar People Alvar Nunez Cabeza d, Panfilo de Narvaez, Hernando de Soto | ||
Summer majik 2012 vincent king mid high school animation class estevanico the explorer
Estevanico (c. 1500–1539) was one of the first native Africans to reach the present-day continental United States. He is known by many different names, but is commonly known as Esteban de Dorantes, Estebanico and Esteban the Moor or Mustafa Zemmouri. Enslaved as a youth by the Portuguese, he was sold to a Spanish nobleman and taken in 1527 on the Spanish Narváez expedition to establish a colony in Florida. He was one of four survivors among 300 men who explored the peninsula. By late 1528 the group had been reduced to 80 men, who survived being washed ashore at Galveston Island after an effort to sail across the Gulf of Mexico.
Contents
- Summer majik 2012 vincent king mid high school animation class estevanico the explorer
- Mass effect 2 ita n7 msv estevanico
- Early life
- North American explorer
- Names
- Representation in other media
- References
He traveled for eight years with Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado across northern New Spain (present-day U.S. Southwest and Northern Mexico), reaching Spanish forces in Mexico City in 1536.
Later Estevanico served as the main guide for a return expedition to the Southwest. Spaniards believe that he was killed in the Zuni city of Hawikuh in 1539. That is only speculative, however, because the two Indians who reported back to Friar Marcos de Niza did not see him killed but only assumed he had been. He is considered a discoverer of New Mexico.
Mass effect 2 ita n7 msv estevanico
Early life
Estevanico was sold into slavery in 1522 in the Portuguese-controlled Berber town of Azemmour, on Morocco's Atlantic coast. Some contemporary accounts referred to him as an "Arabized black"; or "Moor", a generic term often used for anyone from North Africa. Diego de Guzmán, a contemporary of Estevanico who saw him in Sinaloa in 1536, described his skin as "brown".
He was raised as a Muslim, but because Spain did not allow non-Catholics to travel to the New World, some historians believe he converted to Roman Catholicism, though these claims remain dubious. He was sold to Andrés Dorantes de Carranza a Spanish nobleman.
North American explorer
Dorantes took Estevanico as his slave on Pánfilo de Narváez's expedition of 1527 to colonize Florida and the Gulf Coast. Many books claim Estevanico became the first black person from Africa known to have landed in the present continental United States, but he wasn't the first. Juan Garrido, a free African from Angola, was in Florida as early as 1513 with Ponce de León. After failed efforts to locate villages with gold near present-day Tampa Bay and numerous attacks by Native Americans, the diminishing party slaughtered their horses, melting down metals and making five boats to try to sail across the Gulf of Mexico to reach the main Spanish settlement. The boats wrecked off the coast of Texas, and 80 men started overland. At times survivors were enslaved by Native Americans. Eventually only Estevanico, Dorantes, de Vaca and Castillo remained alive. The four spent years enslaved on the Texas Gulf Islands.
In 1534 they escaped into the American interior and became medicine men. As medicine men they were treated with great respect and offered food, shelter, and gifts and there was a party in their honor. When they decided they wanted to leave the host village would guide them to the next village. Sometimes there would be as many as 3,000 people following them to the next village. The party traversed the continent as far as western Mexico, into the Sonoran Desert to the region of Sonora in New Spain (present-day Mexico), where they were found by a slave-hunting group of Spaniards.
In Mexico City, the four survivors told stories of wealthy indigenous tribes to the north, which created a stir among Spaniards in Mexico. When the three Spaniards declined to lead an expedition, Estevanico was sold or given to Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain. He used Estevanico as a guide in expeditions to the North.
In 1539, Estevanico was one of four men who accompanied Friar Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding Coronado by a year. Estevanico traveled ahead of the main party with a group of Sonoran Indians. He was instructed to communicate by sending back crosses to the main party, with the size of the cross equal to the wealth discovered. One day, a cross arrived that was as tall as a person, causing de Niza to step up his pace to join the scouts. Estevanico had entered the Zuni village of Hawikuh (in present-day New Mexico). He had sent a gourd. The Zuni reportedly killed him and expelled the Mexican Indians with him from the village. After seeing this, De Niza quickly returned to New Spain.
Some historians suggest the Zuni did not believe Estevanico's story that he represented a party of whites, and that he was killed for demanding turquoise. Roberts and Roberts write that "still others suggest that Estevan, who was black and wore feathers and rattles, may have looked like a wizard to the Zuni." Both theories are speculation.
Juan Francisco Maura suggested in 2002 that the Zunis did not kill Estevanico, and that he and friends among the Indians faked his death so he could gain freedom from slavery. Some folklore legends say that the kachina figure, Chakwaina, is based on Estevanico.
Names
Estevanico is recorded by different names, in the Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic and English languages, in a variety of historic works. Among the most common are Arabic: إستيفانيكو; "Mustafa Zemmouri" (مصطفى زموري), "Black Stephen"; "Esteban"; "Esteban the Moor"; "Estevan", "Estebanico", "Stephen the Black", "Stephen the Moor"; "Stephen Dorantes" and "Esteban de Dorantes," after his owner Andres Dorantes; and "Little Stephen". The names "Estevanico" and "Estebanico" are the diminutive of his actual Spanish name of "Esteban"—the diminutive being how Spaniards referred to a child affectionately or to a slave condescendingly.