current and as long as African American history
is seen as beginning with enslavement in Africa,
then Esteban is important because he is the first
African-American.”
Robert Goodwin, historian and author, “Crossing the
Continent, 1527-1540, The Story of the first African-
American Explorer of the American South”
Estevanico: The Great African conquistador, first African-American and a medicine man
Estevanico (c. 1500–1539) was the first known person born in Africa to have arrived in the present-day continental United States. He was a polyglot (spoke about five native Indian languages) who is known 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".
Enslaved as a youth by the Portuguese, he was sold to a Spanish nobleman and taken in 1527 on the Spanish Narváez expedition. As Juan Flores and others recount, he was one of the four survivors in the ill-fated journey of Panfilo de Narvaez in 1528 from Cuba to the Florida coast (Flores 2004). After spending many years in captivity among Indian tribes, Esteban—the gunbearer, scout, slave, and solider—escaped and joined Cabeza de Vaca Andrés, Dorantes de Carranza, and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado and company on a trek across the continent spanning eight years. Not only was Esteban a remarkable survivor, one of the four out of 600 to survive, but it was believed that Esteban was a powerful healer and medicine man. He would later spend four years walking from Florida to Mexico City and would serve as a guide for missionaries. Esteban was familiar with many indigenous villages and was an “interpreter, emissary and diplomat with the natives” (Taylor 1998:28). It is also reported that Esteban had many relationships with indigenous women.
Later Estevanico served as the main guide for a return expedition to the Southwest where he was eventually killed while trying to enter the Zuni town of Hawikuh in 1539.
Most books assert that Estevanico was born in Morocco but it is historically inaccurate. Estevanico was sold into slavery in 1513 in the Portuguese town of Azemmour, on Morocco's Atlantic coast. This means Estervanico who was very black skinned African was born in one of the Black African territories, possibly West Africa and sold into slavery by the Portuguese. Some revisionist-contemporary accounts referred to him as an "Arabized black"; "Moor", a term sometimes used for Berber natives; and "black African". But Estevanico was no Muslim nor Northern African "Moor." However some historians recounts that Diego de Guzmán, a contemporary of Estevanico who saw him in Sinaloa in 1536, described him as 'brown'. (Note that in Spanish America blacks preferred to be called moreno (brown) to escape color bar).It is also said that he was raised as a Muslim, but because Spain did not allow non-Catholics to travel to the New World, some believe he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Whatever be the case, in 1520 Estervanico was sold to Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a Spanish nobleman. Estevanico traveled with Dorantes to Hispaniola and Cuba with Pánfilo de Narváez's ill-fated expedition of 1527 to colonize Florida and the Gulf Coast. Estevanico became the first person from Africa known to have set foot in the present continental United States. After a failed settlement attempt near present-day Tampa Bay, Florida the party made a series of makeshift boats to try and reach Mexico. The boats wrecked off the coast of Texas leaving only Estevanico, Dorantes, de Vaca and Castillo alive. Castillo's ability as a faith healer was said to have helped them with the Indians who told them about the 7 wonders. The four had spent years enslaved on many of the Louisiana Gulf Islands. In 1534 they 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 countrymen.
In Mexico City, the four survivors told stories of wealthy indigenous tribes to the North, which created a stir among the Spanish in the colony. While the other three men returned to Spain, Estevanico was sold to Antonio de Mendoza, the Viceroy of New Spain. He employed Estevanico as a guide in expeditions to the North.
In 1539, Estevanico was one of four men who accompanied Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding Coronado. Estevanico traveled ahead of the main party with a group of indigenous servants. 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 with a red feather, naive to the fact that it was the symbol for war, and they killed him and expelled the indigenous servants from the village. After seeing this, De Niza quickly returned to New Spain.
Accounts suggest the Zuni did not believe Estavanico's story that he represented a party of whites, and that he was killed for demanding women and 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." Juan Francisco Maura suggested in 2002 that Estevanico was not killed by the Zuni, and that he and friends among the Indians faked his death so he could gain freedom.
Some folklore legends say that the Kachina Chakwaina is based on Estevanico.
Estevanico, the Great African Conquistador
Different Account of Estevanico`s Death
(1) ESTEBAN, THE BLACK "KATSINA"
Most accounts of Esteban, the African-born slave whose exploits helped establish the Spanish claim to what is now the southwestern section of the United States, are written from the perspective of the Europeans who sponsored his foray into the Zuni village of Hawikuh in 1539. Ramon A. Gutierrez, however, attempts to explain Esteban through the eyes of the Indian leaders who encountered and were forced to kill him "so that he would not reveal our location to his brothers."
In May of 1539, as preparations were being made to call the katsina (ancestor spirit) to bring rain, the Zuni warriors of Hawikuh spotted a black katsina approaching from the west. The katsina was unlike any they had ever seen before. He was large in stature, wore animal pelts, and was richly adorned with large pieces of turquoise. He "wore bells and feathers on his ankles and arms, and carried plates of various colors." Many Pima, Papago, Opata, and Tarahumara Indians accompanied the katsina. The called him Estevanico, a great healer and medicine man. The men showered him with gifts, and the women, hoping to obtain his blessings, gave him their bodies. All along Estevanico's route, he constructed large prayersticks (crosses) that he commanded everyone to worship.
Hawikuh's cacique awaited the arrival of the black giant with great foreboding. While still a day's distance from the village, Estevanico sent the town chief a red and white feathered gourd rattle and a message that "he was coming to establish peace and to heal them." When the chief saw the rattle, he became very angry and threw it to the ground saying, "I know these people, for these jingle bells are not the shape of ours. Tell them to turn back at once, or not one of their men will be spared."
Undaunted by what his messengers told him, Estevanico proceeded to Hawikuh. The road to the village was closed symbolically with a cornmeal line, and when the black katsina crossed it, the pueblo's warriors took him prisoner and confined him in a house outside the village. There, "the oldest and those in authority listened to his words and tried to learn the reason for his coming." The katsina told them that other white katsina, children of the Sun, would soon arrive. The cacique thought these words were crazy, and when Estevanico demanded turquoise and women, he had him killed as a witch and foreign spy.
The old men of the village huddled together in the kiva, pondering the meaning of what had been said and done. Repeatedly they asked, Who was this black katsina? Whence had he come? What did he want? Would more katsina shortly arrive, as Estevanico said. The old men were silent on these matters, as were the ancient myths. The answers to these questions would be found not in the Pueblo world but in a distant land across a sea in a place the black katsina called Castile...
Source: Ramon A. Gutierrez, When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846 (Stanford, 1991), pp. 39-40.
(2) THE DEATH OF ESTEBAN
Although the death of Esteban at the hands of the Zuni Indians is certain, the reason for his murder remains a mystery. Four possible explanations appear below. The first is provided by Fray Marcos De Niza, the second is from Captain Hernando de Alarcon who sailed up the Gulf of California one year later where he met Indians who were aware of Esteban's encounter with the Zuni, the third is Francisco Vazquez de Coronado's report to Governor Mendoza in 1540 after he had reached Hawikuh, and the fourth, the narrative of Pedro de Castaneda, a member of the Coronado Expedition.
Fray Marcos's account: As we were on our way, one day's journey from Cibola (Hawikuh), we met two...Indians of those who had gone with Esteban. They were bloodstained and had many wounds. Upon their arrival, they and those who were with me began such a weeping that they made me cry too, both through pity and fear. They asked how they could keep still when they knew that of their fathers, sons, and brothers who had gone with Esteban, more than three hundred men were dead. They said that they would no longer dare go to Cibola as they used to... I asked the wounded Indians about Esteban and what had happened... They told me that when Esteban was within a day's travel of the city of Cibola, he sent his messengers with a gourd to the ruler of the place, informing him of his visit and of how he was coming to establish peace and to heal them. When the emissaries handed the ruler the gourd and he saw the jingle bells, he became very angry and threw the gourd to the ground, saying, "I know these people, for these jingle bells are not the shape of ours. Tell them to turn back at once, or not one of their men will be spared." The messengers went back very dejectedly,, and [told] Esteban. He told them not to fear, that he would go there, for although the inhabitants gave him a bad answer, they would receive him well.
So Esteban went ahead with all his people, who mush have numbered more than three hundred men, besides many women, and reached the city of Cibola at sunset. They were not allowed to come into the city, but were placed in a large house, quite a good lodging, which was located outside of the city. Then the natives of Cibola took away from Esteban everything he carried, saying that it had been so ordered by their lord. "During the whole night," the wounded Indians said, "they did not give us anything to eat or drink. The next morning, when the sun had risen the height of a lance, Esteban went out of the house and some of the chiefs followed him, whereupon many people came out of the city. When Esteban saw them, he began to flee, and we did also, They at once began to shoot arrows at us, wounding us, and thus we remained until night, not daring to stir. We heard much shouting in the city, and we saw many men and women on the terraces, watching, but we never saw Esteban again. We believe that they shot him with arrows and also the others who were with him, as no one except ourselves escaped."
Hearing with the Indians said, and in view of the poor conditions for continuing my journey as I desired, I could not help but feel some apprehension for their loss and mine... Thus I turned back with much more fear than food...
de Alarcon's account: I asked [the chief] about Cibola and whether he knew if they people there had ever seen people like us. He answered no, except a negro who wore on his feet and arms some things that tinkled. Your Lordship must remember this negro who went with Fray Marcos wore bells, and feathers on his ankles, and arms, and carried plates of various colors. He arrived there a little more than one year ago. I asked him why they killed him. He replied that the chieftain of Cibola asked the negro if he had any brothers, and he answered that he had an infinite number, that they had numerous arms, and that they were not very far from there. Upon hearing this, many chieftains assembled and decided to kill him so that he would not reveal their location to his brothers. For this reason they killed him and tore him into many pieces, which were distributed among the chieftains so that they should know that he was dead.
Coronado's account: The death of the negro is perfectly certain, because many of the things which he wore have been found, and the Indians say that they killed him here because the Indians of Chichilticale said that he was a bad man, and not like the Christians who never kill women, and he killed them, and because he assaulted their women, who the Indians love better than themselves. Therefore they determined to kill him, but they did not kill any of the others who came with him...
Castaneda's account: After the friars and the negro Esteban set out, it seem that the negro fell from the good graces of the friars because he took along the women that were given to him, and collected turquoises, and accumulated everything. Besides, the Indians of the settlements they crossed got along better with the negro, since they had seen him before. For this reason he was sent ahead to discover and pacify the land so that when the others arrived all they would have to do would be to listen and make a report of what they were searching for.
When Esteban got away from the said friars, he craved to gain honor and fame in everything and to be credited with the boldness and daring of discovering, all by himself, those terraced pueblos, so famed throughout the land. Accompanied by the people who followed him, he tried to cross the uninhabited regions between Cibola and the inhabited area. He had traveled so far ahead of the friars that when they reached Chichilticale...he was already at Cibola.
I say, then, that when the negro Esteban reached Cibola, he arrived there laden with a large number of turquoises and with some pretty women, which the natives had given him. The gifts were carried by Indians who accompanied and followed him through every settlement he crossed, believing that, by going under his protection, they could traverse the whole country without any danger. But as the people of the land were more intelligent that those who followed Esteban, they lodged him at a lodging house which they had outside of the pueblo, and the oldest and those in authority listened to his words and tried to learn the reason for his coming to that land.
When they were well informed, they held councils for three days. As the negro had told them that farther back two white men, send by a great lord, were coming, that they were learned in the things of heaven, and that the were coming to instruct them in divine matters, the Indians thought he must have been a spy or guide of some nations that wanted to come and conquer them. They though it was nonsense for him to say that the people in the land whence he came were white, when he was black, and that he had been sent by them. So they went to him, and because, after some talk, he asked them for turquoises and women, they considered this an affront and determined to kill him. So they did without killing any one of those who came with him... The friars were seized with such fear that, not trusting these people who had accompanied the negro, they opened their bags and distributed everything they had among them keeping only the vestments for saying mass. From there they turned back without seeing more land than what the Indians had told them of. On the contrary, they were traveling by forced marches, with their habits up to their waists.
Source: George P. Hammond, and Agapito Rey, eds., Narratives of the Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542 (Albuquerque, 1940) pp. 77, 145, 177-178, 198-199.
ESTEVANICO THE MOOR: August '97 American History Feature
Tales of the adventures that befell three conquistadores and their Moorish slave during the sixteenth century led to Spain's Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's exploration ofwhat is now the American Southwest.
By Anne B. Allen
One of the greatest odysseys in American history began in the little town of Azamor on Morocco's west coast at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The young man who had spent his early years within sight of the Atlantic shore could have had no inkling of the bizarre future that fate had in store for him–a journey across the ocean to lands and people unknown to the Islamic world in which he was raised, where he would die as a nominal Christian in a city reputed to contain fabulous riches. Yet, given the path he would follow, the youth must, even then, have exhibited a lively interest in the ways of other peoples, a sharp ear for different patterns of speech, hardy stamina, and the ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances.
The black-skinned Moor might have been purchased from slave raiders who worked the African coast or taken captive in one of the frequent military clashes between Spain and Morocco that continued long after the Moors were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. Given the Christian name Estévanico when he was baptized by his Spanish owners, the Moorish youth was probably in his late teens or early twenties when he left Africa for the Caribbean as a slave.
By 1527, Estévanico was in the service of Andrés Dorantes, commander of a company of infantry in the expedition being formed by Pánfilo de Narváez to explore and conquer the lands stretching west from Florida along the Gulf of Mexico. A man of fairly modest origin, Dorantes had come to the New World in search of gold and glory.
Narváez, having spent more than twenty years as a conquistador in Mexico, had received a royal appointment as Spain's governor in Florida and was eager to take control of his new territory, explore it, and begin exploiting its wealth. The companies assembled for this undertaking were a motley collection of soldiers of fortune from many lands, under the command of Spanish officers.
The expedition suffered one setback after another. A hurricane destroyed one of Narváez's ships and damaged the others, forcing the party to winter in Cuba. When they set out again in February 1528, they had to weather still more violent storms before reaching Florida. It was mid-April when the four original ships and a brigantine purchased to replace the vessel that had been lost, with a complement of some four hundred men and the 42 horses that survived the trip, finally dropped anchor on the western coast of Florida, just north of Tampa Bay.
Going about his duties as Dorantes' personal servant, Estévanico (or Esteban, as he was sometimes called) undoubtedly felt the same excitement that gripped the rest of the party as they set foot for the first time on Florida's soil. The natives of a small village nearby gave them a gift of fish and venison and then vanished into the night, leaving behind, among their fishing nets, a golden rattle. This find was a promising token to the Spaniards, eager as they were to find treasure.
After Narváez went ashore to claim the territory officially in the name of King Carlos I of Spain, he divided his force, taking three hundred men–forty of them on horseback–to explore the land. He sent the ships ahead to the fine harbor that his pilots claimed was somewhere in the vicinity.
Three long, desperate months later, the shore party reached a town called Aute. They had traveled through swamps and across rivers and fought with unfriendly natives, but they had found no sign of gold, pearls, or jewels–nothing, in fact, to make conquest of the area profitable. They also saw no sign of their ships.
By this time, more than forty members of the party had died–some due to hunger or disease, others the victims of accidental drownings or the arrows of the natives. Narváez, himself sick, hungry, and discouraged, decided to give up the expedition and return to civilization. Without vessels to carry them back, the survivors set about constructing five "barges." For six weeks they worked, melting down spurs, bridles, stirrups, and crossbows to make nails; braiding ropes from palmetto fronds and horsehair; and sewing their shirts together for sails.
On September 22, 1528, having eaten all but one of their horses, they set sail for Mexico. The shallow, overloaded rafts each held about fifty men and their meager supplies. The water bags made from horses' legs rotted within a day or two, leaving the men without fresh water, and the only food remaining was a little dry maize. Estévanico and his master, Dorantes, shared a raft with another company captain, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, and 48 men from their two commands.
"So great is the power of need," wrote Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, the expedition's treasurer, "that it brought us to venture out into such a troublesome sea in this manner, and without any among us having the least knowledge of the art of navigation." To compensate for their lack of seamanship, the travelers tried to keep their craft within sight of land. But, weak from hunger, thirst, and exposure, the men could do little more than let the barges drift with the wind and current. When, toward the end of October, they reached the strong current that flows from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, it became impossible for the boats to stay together. One by one they were destroyed; some were wrecked against the shore, others–including Narváez's own vessel–drifted out to sea and vanished.
Dorantes' craft capsized, but all aboard made it safely to a nearby island, where they joined the survivors from the raft commanded by Cabeza de Vaca, whom the local natives had fed and sheltered. So pathetic were the strangers that the Indians "sat down with us and all began to weep out of compassion for our misfortune . . . ." Despite the natives' show of kindness, the Spaniards worried that they would become the victims of some ritualistic sacrifice. Instead, they were treated "so well that we became reassured, losing somewhat our apprehension of being butchered."
An attempt to retrieve Dorantes' capsized boat failed, and the two groups of castaways were forced to spend the rest of the winter on the island, which they nicknamed Malhado, or Misfortune. Of the 80 men cast ashore, only 15 survived until spring. Gripped by hunger, one group of Spaniards shocked their comrades and their native hosts when in desperation they ate the flesh of those who had died.
In April 1529, Andrés Dorantes gathered the survivors of his boat, including Estévanico and Castillo, and crossed to the mainland, leaving Cabeza de Vaca and his men behind. Captured by natives considerably less friendly than those on the island, Dorantes' party spent the next six years doing heavy labor and enduring the taunts and blows of their captors. Five men who tried to escape were shot with arrows and killed; others died of cold and hunger, until only Estévanico, Castillo, and Dorantes remained.
Back on the island, Cabeza de Vaca had continued to live with the natives, working as a servant and then a trader, dealing in shells, beads, ochre dye, hides, and other commodities. He made no attempt to escape from Malhado Island, he later reported, because the only other survivor from his party–Lope de Ovieda–could not be convinced to leave. When he was finally able to persuade Ovieda to go in search of fellow Christians, Cabeza de Vaca "took him away, and carried him across the inlets and through four rivers on the coast, since he could not swim."
Eventually, after six years of separation, Cabeza de Vaca met up with the other remnants of Narváez's expedition–Dorantes, Castillo, and Estévanico. The four men exchanged such news as they had gleaned from occasional encounters with other survivors, gradually putting together a picture of the fate of their comrades.
Dorantes told Cabeza de Vaca that he had attempted to convince Castillo and Estévanico to join him in trying to escape from the natives and head toward the Spanish settlements in Mexico, but they had refused. Their experience with the rafts had apparently unnerved them; there would be rivers to cross, they protested, and since neither of them could swim, they preferred to remain where they were. But by mid-September 1535, with Cabeza de Vaca having added his persuasive talents to Dorantes', the two holdouts finally agreed to attempt a getaway.
At first the four men traveled cautiously, fearful of being followed and murdered by natives. Then something happened that improved their circumstances dramatically. Natives, struck by the unusual appearance of the travelers, concluded that these men must possess magical powers. Soon after their escape, Estévanico and the three Spaniards met men who asked to be cured of severe headaches. "As soon as [Castillo] made the sign of the cross over them and recommended them to God," Cabeza de Vaca recounted in his report to the Spanish king, "at that very moment the Indians said that all the pain was gone."
The "treatment" having worked, others came to the strangers seeking similar cures. Fearful of what would happen should his efforts fail, Castillo surrendered the role of chief healer to Cabeza de Vaca, who soon was faced with a real challenge–a man who, to all appearances, was already dead. Cabeza de Vaca prayed over the man, and as if by a miracle, the man recovered. "This caused great surprise and awe," according to Cabeza de Vaca, the equally incredulous healer, "and all over the land nothing else was spoken of."
Predictably, this astonishing incident caused word of the castaways' healing powers to spread like wildfire. An admiring escort followed the men from village to village. They were showered with gifts–food, deer skins, cotton blankets, and valuable trinkets such as coral beads, turquoises, arrow-shaped emeralds, and a large copper rattle embossed with the figure of a human face–which they shared with their followers. As their reputation grew, the healers were treated with ever-increasing honor and called the "children of the sun." Their patients became so numerous that all four men had to serve as healers, and their reputations were so solid that when someone died, the people assumed that the deceased had somehow offended the healers and deserved his fate.
Having acquired some fluency in six native languages, which they supplemented with sign language, the travelers generally made themselves understood "as if they spoke our language and we theirs," Cabeza de Vaca claimed. But it was Estévanico who did most of the talking, since, in order to preserve their influence and authority, the three Spaniards seldom spoke directly with the natives. The young Moor was "in constant conversation" with the local people, finding out in what direction the party should travel, by what names the towns and tribes were called, and any other information that the Spaniards thought might be helpful.
At length, Dorantes and the others, along with their Indian followers left the coast, traveling inland across what is now Texas and northern Mexico until they were within a few days' journey of the Pacific Ocean. Here they began to hear news of their own people, until in April 1536, they encountered a group of Spanish soldiers who were in the area on a slave-raiding expedition. The meeting between the castaways–dressed as their followers were in skins and carrying large gourds, decorated with feathers as signs of their office–and their fellow countrymen proved rather awkward. The latter were, to the dismay of the four "healers," as interested in capturing the travelers' native entourage as they were in hearing the tale of their adventures. Before moving on, Cabeza de Vaca extracted promises that the Indians would be allowed to live in peace.
Dorantes and the other survivors soon arrived at Culiacán, on the west coast of Mexico, where Spanish authorities gave them a warm welcome and questioned them closely about the country through which they had passed. There had been much speculation lately in New Spain (Mexico) about the Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola, said to be located north of the Sonoran Mountains, where the streets were paved with gold and the walls were studded with precious stones. Dorantes offered to lead an expedition to explore this northern region, but his proposal came to nothing. In 1539, however, Don Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy of New Spain, authorized a reconnaissance expedition to Cíbola under the leadership of a Franciscan priest named Marcos de Niza. Because of his familiarity with the people in the Sonoran region, Estévanico received an appointment as Fray (Brother) Marcos's translator and guide.
The Moor seems to have regarded this as a great opportunity. His journey through the mountains of Sonora was a triumphal procession. The natives, delighted to see one of the great healers return, thronged around, offering him the customary gifts of food, feathers, fine skins, turquoises, and beautiful women. He strode proudly among the villagers, speaking with them in their own languages, laying his hands on their sick, and receiving their homage.
Fray Marcos was annoyed to find himself–a man of God and titular leader of this enterprise–relegated to a secondary role. When the party reached the desert beyond the mountains, he suggested that Estévanico go ahead with a few of his men and send back word of his progress.
Estévanico gladly agreed. "He thought he could get all the reputation and honor himself," reported Pedro de Casteñeda, chronicler of Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's later expedition, "and that if he should discover those settlements . . . he would be considered bold and courageous." Estévanico pressed rapidly ahead, making arrangements along the way for Marcos and the other friars to be housed and fed as they came behind him. Within a month, the Moor had reached the adobe walls of the town that, his followers assured him, was the legendary city of Cíbola.
Hawikuh, the southernmost of the Seven Cities, was an unprepossessing place, a simple mud-walled pueblo on a small hill above a dry river. But Estévanico was not deterred. After sending word back to Fray Marcos that he had arrived at Cíbola, he dispatched one of his men into the town with his ceremonial mace to inform the Zuñi inhabitants that he was the representative of a great white king from across the sea, to whom Cíbola would now be subject and whose God they would henceforth worship. He had come, he said, to receive their tribute.
The Cibolans were not impressed. Having had no contact with the armies of Spain, they did not fear them. When they met with Estévanico, they thought it "unreasonable to say that the people were white in the country from which he came and that he was sent by them, he being black." And they suspected that he might be a spy for some invading army–perhaps from Chichilticalle, the land just south of the desert from which many members of Estévanico's escort came.
It was later rumored that those followers had proved his undoing. At some point on the journey, it was said, he had killed a Chichilticalle woman, and while his reputation as a great healer prevented her relatives from taking their revenge directly, they had no objection to allowing strangers to risk heaven's anger by treating him as a mere mortal. They informed the Zuñis that he was an evil man, who assaulted their women. The Zuñis locked Estévanico in a hut while they debated what to do with him.
The chroniclers received conflicting stories of what happened next. Perhaps Estévanico panicked; apparently he tried to escape. However it came about, the would-be conquistador died ignobly, felled by the Zuñis' arrows as he ran from the pueblo.
All of Estévanico's escort–except for one boy, the Moor's closest friend, who remained behind as a hostage–were permitted to leave the town in relative safety. They rushed back to Fray Marcos with a frantic tale of Estévanico's murder and their own near brush with death. Some of them were bleeding; all were in a great state of excitement. Their story so alarmed the friar that he turned around immediately and headed back to Mexico. He gave all of his trade goods to the native escort, whom he feared might otherwise turn against him.
Fray Marcos, who had caught only a distant glimpse of Cíbola, related to the viceroy the reports he had received indicating that the city was every bit as wealthy as had been rumored. In 1540, Marcos accompanied Coronado when he led a large armed force to conquer the fabled city. Coronado's men took the pueblo with ease, its stout walls and valiant defenders not withstanding. They were shocked, however, to discover that the city's wealth was limited to corn and beans.
Coronado sent Fray Marcos back to Mexico to protect him from the wrath of the disappointed soldiers, who had expected great riches. Then, after rescuing the hostage and learning the details of the Moor's death, he and his party moved on, methodically exploring the region from the Grand Canyon to what is now central Kansas, and on to the mouth of the Colorado River. Although they added a great deal to the European map-makers' knowledge of the interior of North America, the members of the expedition found no sign of the storied wealth of Cíbola.
No one knows where Estévanico is buried. Even Hawikuh no longer exists; it was abandoned in 1670 following a series of wars that the Zuñis fought against the Spaniards and the Apache. But the Moor's story, recorded in colorful detail by his fellow explorers–Cabeza de Vaca, Fray Marcos, Coronado, and Pedro de Casteñeda–endures as one of the great adventures of the American West.
Anne B. Allen is a freelance writer specializing in historical biographies.
Esteban of Azemmour and His New World Adventures
In the spring of the year 1539, a tall black man lay mortally wounded by Zuni arrows in the village of Hawikuh, in what is today northwestern New Mexico. If he prayed in his last breaths, he surely addressed God as "Allah." How did a Muslim come to visit—and die in—New Mexico in the early 16th century? I had never come across such a figure during my university history studies in the United States, nor had I read of him in French history books at the lycée in Casablanca, Morocco, where I grew up. I heard of him only quite recently, by accident.
My father lived in Morocco for more than 50 years until his death in 1994. He left to me and my brothers a restored pasha’s residence in the old city of Azemmour, near the Atlantic coast. While sorting through his personal papers, I came upon a small sketch in a leather-bound guest book. It portrayed a handsome young man with full lips and high cheekbones. A solitary feather adorned a head of tight curls. The drawing bore the signature of John Houser of El Paso, Texas.
Intrigued, I called the artist on my return to the United States. He explained that his drawing was the likeness of a 16th-century North African slave called "Esteban" or "Estebanico" by his Spanish masters, a man better known in his native Morocco as "al-Zemmouri" ("the man from Azemmour"). He was, in fact, one of the first natives of the Old World to explore the American Southwest.
In 1993, Houser had been a guest in my father’s home while he worked at the nearby studio of noted Zemmouri sculptor Abderrahmane Rahoule. Over a period of three weeks, using a Moroccan model, Houser created a clay bust of the "black Arab, and...native of Azamor" whom we know today thanks to the lengthy, detailed memoir of conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, which carries the title La relación y comentarios del governador Alvar nuñez cabeça de vaca, de lo acaescido en las dos jornadas que hizo a las Indias (The Account and Commentaries of Governor Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, of What Occurred on the Two Journeys That He Made to the Indies).
Al-Zemmouri’s town derives its name from a Berber word for "wild olive tree." Today, the reflection of the town’s massive white ramparts in the Oum er Rbia River is one of Morocco’s more picturesque landmarks. The walls surround the labyrinthine madinah, or old city center, as well as the 500-year-old ruins of a Portuguese garrison, established there during a 30-year occupation. Portuguese cornices, decorated in the ornate Manueline style, still frame the majestic windows of their 16th-century military headquarters.
Long before the Portuguese occupation, however, Phoenicians and, later, Romans traveled down the Atlantic coast to trade with the indigenous Berbers of Azemmour. By the 12th century, the town had become a center of Islamic culture; philosophers like Moulay Bouchaib Erredad attracted disciples there from across the Arab world. One of them, Lallah Aicha Bahria, undertook the long journey from her native Baghdad to visit Erredad, but she died on the northern bank of the river, just a stone’s throw away from her long-awaited meeting with her mentor and lifelong correspondent. The town erected a monument to her at the river’s mouth and to this day women from around the country visit the site to seek guidance in resolving affairs of the heart.
Three centuries after Lallah Bahria’s death, the Republic of Azemmour was composed of a patchwork of tribes and shaykhdoms. At the time of al-Zemmouri’s birth, around 1500, skirmishes between local Berbers and Portuguese invaders were on the rise. In 1508, the king of Portugal exacted an annual tribute in kind from the town: 10,000 achabel, a species of shad prized as much for its delicious flavor as for its oil, which the Portuguese burned in their lamps.
In 1513, Shaykh Moulay Zeyyam defiantly withheld the tribute. Portugal responded with a flotilla of 400 ships bearing 8000 men and 2500 horses. On August 27, during a fierce battle that lasted more than four hours, the Portuguese set fire to barges on the river and delivered a crushing military blow to the Zemmouris. Their dominance restored, the Portuguese regained access to the achabel—and also to wheat, wool and horses, which they traded for gold and slaves in sub-Saharan outposts.
As a young man, al-Zemmouri may have heard rumors and stories of adventure from Portuguese sailors. There was no shortage of adventure to be had: Prior to his circumnavigation of the globe, Ferdinand Magellan was among those who spent time in Azemmour, and in fact was severely wounded in a battle with Berbers.
In 1521, drought and famine ravaged the Maghrib. Shad, once so plentiful, virtually disappeared from the shrinking Oum er Rbia. The fertile Doukkala plains surrounding Azemmour became parched and barren. Many starving Zemmouris were captured by Portuguese and sold into slavery; others sold themselves to the Portuguese in exchange for food. The exact circumstances of al-Zemmouri’s enslavement remain a mystery. We do know that a Spanish aristocrat of modest means, Andres de Dorantes, looking for a personal servant, purchased him in a slave market of Castile.
In 1527, Dorantes’s royal connections won him a commission and orders to join the expeditionary force of Pámfilo de Narváez, a one-eyed, red-haired veteran of the conquests of Cuba and New Spain (now Mexico) who was already infamous for his cruelty toward the people of the Americas. Esteban, as he was now known, accompanied Dorantes. King Charles V of Spain granted him the authority to settle all of La Florida, a territory that stretched from the southern tip of the Florida peninsula westward to the "Rio de las Palmas," today’s Soto de la Marina River in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico.
The route of the Narváez expedition remains subject to debate. Cabeza de Vaca, the group’s treasurer, did not write his Relación until 12 years afterward, and it includes great miscalculations of distances and dates, and confused chronology.
The expedition’s departure from Spain, however, is well documented. On June 17, 1527, Narváez and his crew of 600 set sail in five caravels from San Lucar de Barrameda in Andalusia. It would become, according to translators Martin A. Favata and José B. Fernández, "one of the most disastrous enterprises in the annals of Spanish history."
The Atlantic crossing proved so arduous that 140 men jumped ship upon reaching the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Soon afterward, 60 people and 20 horses perished in a hurricane off the coast of Trinidad. The Spaniards finally dropped anchor off the La Florida coast on April 12, 1528, somewhere near today’s Old Tampa Bay (or perhaps Sarasota Bay). Narváez took formal possession of La Florida on May 1 of that year.
He then decided to send his ships and 100 of his men ahead to their final destination, Pánuco, on Mexico’s Gulf Coast, while he led the rest of his force there overland—a journey whose length he apparently underestimated.
Narváez, Esteban and the rest of the expedition headed north to the province of Apalachee, near the present city of Tallahassee, where, according to captured Timicuan Indians, there were great quantities of gold. Instead, the Spaniards found 15 huts and a few meager plots of maize. Narváez was bitterly disappointed.
The ensuing weeks were fraught with fever, drownings and Indian attacks. To ward off starvation, some of the men resorted to eating their horses. Only the threat of mutiny persuaded Narváez to abandon the march on August 4. He gave orders to return to the coast. There, he and his men built five small boats. "And we agreed that we would make nails, saws, axes and other necessary tools out of our stirrups, spurs, crossbows and other iron items we had, since we had such a great need for this," noted Cabeza de Vaca. They used horsehair to fashion riggings and rope, and sewed their shirts together for sails. They "skinned the legs of the horses in one piece and cured the hides to make skins for carrying water."
By the time they set sail, they had lost more than 40 more of their number to illness and starvation, not counting those killed by Indians. Only one horse remained. Esteban, his master Dorantes, Castillo and a crew of 45 left the "Bay of Horses"—possibly in today’s Apalachee Bay—on September 22. "So great was our hardship," wrote Cabeza de Vaca, who took the helm of another of the boats, "that...it forced us...to go out into such rough seas without having anyone with us who knew the art of navigation."
The water bags made of hide rotted within a few days, and the men who attempted to drink seawater died in agony. The meager rations of raw corn were soon depleted. Yet Esteban and his companions clung to life. At the mercy of capricious winds, they drifted westward along the Gulf Coast, coming ashore periodically to forage for food and replenish their water supply. In this manner, they covered more than 1500 kilometers (930 mi) in just over 40 days.
At the mouth of the Mississippi, strong currents pushed two of the boats, including the one piloted by Narváez, out to sea. They were never seen again. Relief came to the others on November 6, when, according to Cabeza de Vaca, "a great wave took us and cast the boat out of the water as far as a horseshoe can be tossed. The boat ran aground with such force that it revived the men on it, who were almost dead." They were on the island of Malhado near modern-day Galveston Island, Texas.
The Indians inhabiting the island, while friendly at first, quickly turned against the expedition. Fifteen of the survivors—including Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, Dorantes and Esteban—were enslaved and dispersed among several local tribes—an ironic twist for the already enslaved Zemmouri.
The Indians, in awe of their prisoners’ mental and physical fortitude, ordered them to act as medicine men during an epidemic of dysentery. Cabeza de Vaca relates that "they wanted to make us physicians, without testing or asking for any degrees, because they cure illnesses by blowing on the sick person and cast out the illness with their breath and their hands. So they told us to be useful and do the same. We laughed at the idea, saying they were mocking us and that we did not know how to heal. They in turn deprived us of our food until we did as they ordered."
Castillo was the first to try his hand at healing, and—doubtless to his own surprise—he was successful. As word spread, he enlisted the aid of Dorantes and Cabeza de Vaca. Esteban, too, soon became a healer, ministering to increasing numbers of patients. Cabeza de Vaca wrote, "Our fame spread throughout the area, and all the Indians who heard about it came looking for us so that we could cure them and bless their children.... People came from many places seeking us, saying that we were truly children of the sun. Up to this time Dorantes and the black man had not performed any healings, but we all became healers because so many people insisted. They believed that none of them would die as long as we were there."
Nonetheless, the "children of the sun" still hoped to reach Pánuco. On September 15, 1534, when their captors were busy harvesting prickly-pear fruit, they made an escape, and were taken in by another tribe that had heard of their abilities. The four began performing minor surgical procedures, using European techniques of the day: On one occasion they opened a man’s chest to remove an arrowhead. "The entire village came to see [the arrowhead] and they sent it further inland so that the people could see it. Because of this cure, they made many dances and festivities as is their custom...and this cure gave us such standing throughout the land that they esteemed and valued us to their utmost capacity."
The Spaniards thought it wise to appoint Esteban as intermediary between themselves and any natives they might encounter in their wanderings, for only he had learned six of the local dialects. Cabeza de Vaca explained another reason as well: "We enjoyed a great deal of authority and dignity among [the Indians], and to maintain this we spoke very little to them. The black man always spoke to them, ascertaining which way to go and...all the other things we wanted to know."
Esteban’s abilities, and the position of the four men as wanderers in a new world where their very survival was in question, made his status that of companion rather than slave. And none of the four men could have imagined how their understanding of native medicine was to change their status, and their standard of living, among all the other tribes they would encounter.
As their medical miracles multiplied, so did the gifts. The four were held in such awe that they could lay claim to anyone or acquire possession of anything. Yet they sought no riches. "After we had entered their homes," writes Cabeza de Vaca, "they offered us everything they had.... We would give all these things to their leaders for them to distribute."
Medicine men from the Arbadaos tribe, who made their home on the banks of the Concho River near present-day Big Spring, Texas presented Esteban and the others with two sacred gourds and an engraved copper rattle. These objects greatly added to their credibility as shamans. "From here on we began to carry the gourds with us, and added to our authority with this bit of ceremony, which is very important to them." For the Indians, hollow gourds with pebbles in them were "a sign of great solemnity, since they bring them out only for dances and for healing ceremonies, and no one else dares touch them.... They say that those gourds have powers and that they came from heaven, because there are none in that land.... They are washed down by the rivers during the floods."
Around Christmas 1536, the four healers and the legions of Indian followers they had acquired reached the Pueblo de los Corazones ("Village of Hearts"), today the town of Ures, 160 kilometers (100 mi) from the Gulf of California, in the state of Sonora, Mexico. "At this time," Cabeza de Vaca writes, "Castillo saw a buckle from a sword belt around an Indian’s neck, with a horseshoe nail sewn to it.... We asked the Indians what it was. They replied it had come from heaven. We questioned them further, asking who had brought it from there. They told us that some bearded men like us, with horses, lances and swords, [had done so]."
Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, Castillo, and probably Esteban as well, desperately wanted to make contact with their countrymen, the first they had heard of in more than eight years. De Vaca’s Indian companions, however, were reluctant to search for them. They knew of Spanish plunder, slave raids and brutal killings, and that local Indians did not plant crops for fear of attracting the attention of the avaricious Spaniards. De Vaca writes: "When I saw [the Indians’] unwillingness,... I took the black man and eleven Indians and, following the trail of the Christians...caught up with four...on horseback, who were quite perturbed to see me so strangely dressed and in the company of Indians. They looked at me for a long time, so astonished that they were not able to speak or ask questions. I told them to take me to their captain.... After I spoke to him, he told me that he had quite a problem because he had not been able to capture Indians for many days...[so] he and his men were beginning to suffer want and hunger.... He wanted me to ask [the Indians] to bring us food, although this was not necessary since they always took care to bring us everything they could."
The fact that their countrymen were taking slaves, and indeed demanded that de Vaca turn his Indian followers over to them, caused Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo and Dorantes great distress, and made the long-hoped-for reunion only bittersweet. "They said that they were lords of that land, and that the Indians should obey and serve them, but the Indians believed very little or nothing of what they were saying," especially that there was some kind of bond between the slave-raiders and the "children of the sun." "Speaking among themselves, [the Indians] said instead that the Christians [the Spaniards] were lying, because we [the children of the sun] had come from the East and they [the Spaniards] had come from the West; that we healed the sick and they killed the healthy; that we were naked and barefoot, and they were dressed and on horseback, with lances; that we coveted nothing but instead gave away everything that was given to us and kept none of it, while the sole purpose of the others was to steal everything they found, never giving anything to anybody."
Cabeza de Vaca could not hide his dismay at the other Spaniards’ cruelty and greed, and in fact in his Relación he would urge more humane policies on the Spanish crown. Years later, as governor and captain-general of the South American province of Rio de la Plata, de Vaca would initiate a number of progressive reforms in Indian affairs.
Under Spanish escort, the four reached San Miguel de Culiacan, 150 kilometers (90 mi) away, where they met with the mayor, Captain Melchior Diaz. He seemed to lend a more receptive ear to their pleas of leniency towards the Indians. Diaz instructed the Indians that if they professed a belief in God, they would be left in peace. (His promises were broken before the four Narváez survivors had reached Mexico City.)
On July 24 in Mexico City, Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of New Spain, greeted the four with fanfare, but their return to the Spanish fold was not without difficulty. For almost nine years, they had gone naked and lived off the land like the Indians. They found it hard to adapt to contemporary Spanish life.
For his part, Esteban became a well-known figure on the streets of Mexico City, and he enjoyed relative freedom. However, his linguistic abilities soon caught the viceroy’s attention. He acquired Esteban from Dorantes, and appointed the Moroccan interpreter and scout for the expedition of the French-born Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza, who was being sent north to investigate rumors of great wealth beyond the northern border of New Spain.
Hernando de Alarcón, a contemporary of Esteban’s who would later investigate his death, describes the dashing Moroccan’s departure from Mexico City on March 7, 1539 with an entourage of women, Indians and several Spanish friars, including Fray Marcos, the titular head of the expedition. Esteban was wearing "certain things which did ring, ...bels and feathers on his armes and legs," and he was flanked by a pair of what were probably Spanish greyhounds. The animals must have been a comforting presence to Esteban, since this breed of gazehound is descended from the North African saluki, a dog believed by Moroccans to possess baraka, or a blessing.
The Moroccan and the friar did not see eye-to-eye. Pedro de Castañeda, a soldier who accompanied Coronado on a subsequent northward expedition, gives us this explanation:
"The Negro did not get on well with the friars, because he took the women that were given him and collected turquoises.... Besides, the Indians in those places through which they traveled got along better with the Negro, because they had seen him before."
Esteban traveled some distance ahead of the main body of the expedition. Near their destination, in spite of strict orders to await Fray Marcos, he pressed onward to the village of Hawikuh, 20 kilometers (12 mi) southwest of today’s Zuni Pueblo. He apparently expected the Zunis to greet him with the same fanfare he had experienced when visiting other tribes. He was, it turned out, overconfident.
He sent messengers ahead to the fortified village bearing his gourd rattle adorned with a white and a red feather. But the village chief reacted with scorn, either because the decorated gourd came from a hostile tribe, or because Esteban had unknowingly disrupted a sacred ceremony. According to Nick Houser, an anthropologist and project historian for the Twelve Travelers Memorial of the Southwest, "al-Zemmouri was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The chief denied Esteban and his entourage entry to the pueblo, and ordered them confined outside the village. For three days, they were denied food and water while the council of elders debated. Some suspected Esteban of being a Spanish spy. Others thought it unreasonable that the white-skinned Spaniards would send a black man as a herald to their pueblo, as the Moroccan had claimed.
According to a secondhand account in Fray Marcos de Niza’s Relación, which is taken from testimony of surviving Indian members of Esteban’s party, "in a great rage [the chief] threw the mace to the ground and said: ‘I know these people; these bells are not of the same style as ours; tell them to go away at once, because otherwise there will not be one of them left alive.’" Unfortunately, as they were virtually imprisoned, leaving "at once" was not possible. Desperately thirsty, Esteban attempted to reach water at a nearby river, and was immediately shot down by Zuni bowmen. According to Alarcón, the chief appropriated Esteban’s precious belongings, including "four green dishes which he had gotten, together with that dogge, and other things of a blacke man."
Learning of the massacre at Hawikuh, Fray Marcos retreated to Mexico City, where his account of the journey referred to the village and others around it—which he had not laid eyes on—as "The Seven Cities of Cibola," and described them as immensely rich. Scholars disagree on the reason for his mendacity; perhaps it was simply a desire to have something positive to report to the viceroy. The result, in any case, was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado’s expedition of 1540 to conquer what by then were believed to be cities of gold.
Five hundred years later, a centenarian Zuni oral historian told the following story in the 1992 television documentary Surviving Columbus: The Story of the Pueblo People, produced by the Institute of American Indian Arts for PBS:
"The people who lived at the steaming springs had a giant who led them, who
walked ahead of them as their guide. And the people from Hanihipinnkya had
the twin war gods as their leaders. The Sun Father knew that the giant could
not be killed, so that when they brought the weapons to the twin war gods they
pierced them with arrows, but the giant wouldn’t die.... Sun Father said: ‘His
heart is in the gourd rattle. The gourd is his heart, and if you destroy it you will
kill him, and your way will be cleared.’ The younger war god stepped forward
from the fighting and shot the gourd rattle. The giant fell and all of his people ran away."
Could this legend be a reference to Esteban?
Four hundred fifty years after his death at Hawikuh, Esteban returned to the American Southwest in the form of John Houser’s clay bust. After plaster impressions, waxing and investing, a bronze replica was finally cast, and it is currently on display at the XII Travelers Gallery in El Paso. Nick Houser hopes that a two-meter (12’) statue of Esteban al-Zemmouri will be unveiled soon as one of the 12 such statues commissioned by the city of El Paso to commemorate the most important explorers of the American Southwest.
Kitty Morse (www.kittymorse.com) was born in Casablanca. She is the author of nine cookbooks, most recently The Scent of Orange Blossoms (co-authored with Danielle Mamane, Ten Speed Press, 2001). For assistance during her research she thanks archeologist Aboulkacem Chebri, historian Guy Martinet and Nick Houser.
Owen Morse is a free-lance food and travel photographer whose work has frequently illustrated his wife’s books.
This article appeared on pages 2-9 of the March/April 2002 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.
source:http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200202/esteban.of.azemmour.and.his.new.world.adventures.htm
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