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Estevanico (ca. 1503-1539) (also known as "Black Stephen", "Esteban", "Esteban the Moor", "Estevan", "Estebanico", "Stephen the Black", "Stephen the Moor", and "Little Stephen") was a Muslim Berber originally from North Africa who was one of the early explorers of the Southwestern United States. Born in the town of Azamor (Azemmour), which existed as a Portuguese enclave on Morocco's Atlantic coast from 1513 to 1541, Estevanico was enslaved by the Portuguese at an early age. He was sold in 1520 to Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a Spanish nobleman with whom he developed close ties.
Estevanico travelled with Dorantes to Hispaniola and Cuba on Pánfilo de Narváez' ill-fated expedition of 1527 to conquer Florida. They 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, Dorantes, 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 linguist 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. Some historians believe 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. A undated scrap of paper was found in Mexican government records that read as follows:
- "Esteban arrived at the Rio Mayo, was struck by the beauty and handsomeness of the Mayos cousins of the Pimas, hid himself there and stayed. Later he married four or five women according to the custom of the land, had offspring, and in the year 1622 his son Aboray was living there, a tall withered mulatto with an ugly face, a captain or chief of a section of Tesia..."
No one knows if this paper refers to the same Esteban.
References
- Clarke, John Henrik. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism. A & B Publisher Group, Brooklyn. 1998. p. 81.
- Shepherd, Elizabeth. "The Discoveries of Esteban the Black." New York, Dodd, Mead, 1970. pp. 111-4
External links
1503 births | 1539 deaths | Spanish explorers and conquistadores | Explorers of North America | Slaves
"Estevanico"