Everything about Estevanico totally explained
Estevanico (c.
1500 –
1539) (also known as "Mustafa Zemmouri", "Black Stephen", "Esteban", "Esteban the Moor", "Estevan", "Estebanico", "Stephen the Black", "Stephen the Moor", and "Little Stephen") of North African origins, possibly from Azamor
Morocco. He is mentioned in various 16th century
Southwestern United States expeditionary logs as a slave servant in the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca's party.
Early life
Born in the town of
Azamor (Azemmour), a
Portuguese enclave on
Morocco's
Atlantic coast. In 1513, Estevanico was
enslaved by the Portuguese at an early age and forcibly converted to
Roman Catholicism. He was sold in 1520 to
Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a
Spanish nobleman with whom he developed close ties.
American explorer
Estevanico travelled with Dorantes to
Hispaniola and
Cuba on
Pánfilo de Narváez's ill-fated
expedition of 1527 to conquer
Florida; in doing so Estevanico became the first person born in Africa known to have set foot in what is now the
continental United States. He and Dorantes were two of the expedition's four survivors, and had sailed with others on makeshift rafts in an attempt to reach
Mexico. The group was shipwrecked on
Galveston Island and most of the men either drowned, starved, or were killed by natives; by 1533 only Estevanico, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza,
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, and
Alonso del Castillo Maldonado survived. The four spent years enslaved by the Ananarivo of the Louisiana Gulf Islands, but they eventually escaped into the American interior, contacting other
Native American tribes along the way. The party traversed the continent as far as present-day southeastern
Arizona, and through the
Sonoran Desert to the region of
Sinaloa in
New Spain (present-day
Mexico), where they were reunited with their countrymen.
In 1539, Estevanico was one of the four who would accompany
Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled
Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding
Coronado. However, the others were struck ill and Estevanico continued alone, opening up what is now New Mexico and Arizona. He was killed at the
Zuni village of
Hawikuh (in present-day
New Mexico); the tribe regarded him with mistrust, partially because his medicine gourd was trimmed with feathers from an
owl, a bird that symbolized death to the Zuni.
Legends
It is said that Estevanico was a remarkable
polyglot and that he was able to learn, in a matter of weeks, the languages of the Native Americans. It is also said that he was accepted as a deity by some Native American tribes because of his knowledge of herbs and medicines. It has been hypothesized that Esteban was not, in fact, killed by the Zunis, but rather kicked out of their village after being imprisoned. He may have then been hidden by the Pimas, who held him in high regard. For most historians, however, the eye-witness accounts of various associates, and the lack of references to Estevanico in later accounts is proof enough of the explorer's death.
Further Information
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