Estévanico, also known as Estevan, Esteban, Estebanico, is among the earliest individually named Africans known to the Americas. He was a polyglot, who spoke about five native Indian languages and was known by different names, in the Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic and English languages. He is known by "Mustafa Zemmouri", "Black Stephen"; "Esteban"; "Estevan", "Estebanico", and "Estévanico," which he is commonly referred. Very little is known about the background of Estevanico. Most books assert that he was born in Azamor Morocco, which is in Northern African as "Moor", a term sometimes used for Berber natives; and "black African". There are some accounts that say Estevanico who was very Black skinned African was born in one of the Black African territories, possibly West Africa. Nevertheless he was born at the end of the 15th century. The year and date is unknown.
He was sold into slavery by the Portuguese in 1513 from his native home of Morocco. 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. His Christian name Estevan (is a Spanish form of "Stephen"), implies that he was baptized. Whatever be the case, by 1520, Estevanico was sold from Portugal to a Spanish captain, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza. Slavery in Spain was very different, as it did not take part in the Atlantic slave trade, and there were paths to freedom more readily available in the Spanish Empire. By this time, Spain was establishing colonies along the Gulf Coast of what is now known as the United States and Mexico regions, and within the Caribbean islands and South America.
A few years later, Dorantes took Estevanico as his slave on the roster of the famous Panfilo de Narvaez expedition to colonize Florida and the Gulf Coast in early September of 1527. 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 Spanish expedition included a fleet of five ships containing about 600 men. Estevanico sailed on the ship "Magdalena" as it made its way across the Atlantic landing first on the island of Hispaniola (Haiti).
After a month, the ship continued to Santiago, Cuba. They left Cuba in February 1528, weathering violent storms, intending to establish two settlements in present-day Mexico at the Isla de las Palmas near today's Tampico. The Narváez fleet was forced by strong winds to sail to Florida. The Narváez expedition landed in present-day St. Petersburg, Florida, on the shores of Boca Ciega Bay in April 1528. Estevanico became the first person from Africa known to have set foot in the present continental United States. Estévanico 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 among their fishing nets, a golden rattle.
Narváez went ashore to claim the territory officially in the name of King Carlos I of Spain. After failed efforts to locate villages with gold near present-day Tampa Bay and after enduring numerous attacks by Native Americans, Narváez split his forces, hoping to find a better place for settlement at a large bay to the north. Narváez ordered his ships, and 100 men and 10 women to sail north in search of a large harbor that his pilots assured them was nearby. He ordered the ships to sail north along the coast. He led another 300 plus men, with 42 horses, north along the coast, intending to rejoin his ships at the large harbor. There is no large harbor north of their landing site, and the ships and the land expedition did not meet again.
Narvaez dreamed of riches when he reached the Florida coast. After finding mere traces of gold, he split the crews into sea and land expeditions and faced both friendly and unfriendly indigenous people in the Florida region. After traveling 300 miles north to the St. Marks River, Narváez determined they could reach Panuco by sailing westward along the coast. The estimated 250 survivors slaughtered their horses, melted down metals from bridles and stirrups, and on September 22, 1528, having eaten all but one of their horses, they made five boats to try to sail along the coast Gulf of Mexico to reach the main Spanish settlement at Pánuco. The shallow, overloaded rafts each held about fifty men and their meager supplies.
Estévanico and his master, Dorantes, shared a raft with another company captain, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, and 48 men from their two commands. When, toward the end of October, the winds that flows from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, was so strong that it became impossible for the boats to stay together. Estevanico and about 80 of the ship's surviving crew found themselves wrecked off the coast of Texas, and most of men aboard the boats were lost at sea. 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 in desperation, ate the flesh of those who had died.
Dorantes' craft capsized, but all aboard made it safely to a nearby island, where they joined the survivors from the raft commanded by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. 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. The men traveled west by land, walking along the Rio Grande. The men were enslaved by some Indian tribes along the way, and were helped by other tribes. They were the first non-natives to travel in this area of the southwestern North America. 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.
After many years of separation, Cabeza de Vaca met up with the other remnants of Narváez's expedition. By 1533, there were only four survivors. Those four men were Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, Cabeza de Vaca, and Alonso Castillo Maldonado and the enslaved African, Estevanico -- thought to be the first non-Natives to this region. The four men man plans to head toward the Spanish settlements in Mexico. The four men traveled cautiously, fearful of being followed and murdered by natives. Having walked nearly 2,000 miles since their initial landing in Florida, they finally reached a Spanish settlement in Sinaloa in July 1536. The men made small ships from animal hides and eventually began to travel along the Gulf of Mexico Coast region.
They ventured into the interior and are known to have traded with native peoples in the region to survive. Natives, struck by the unusual appearance of the travelers, concluded that these men must possess magical powers, after Cabeza de Vaca healed a dying man. This astonishing incident caused word of the castaways' healing powers to spread like wildfire. Then they traveled from there to Mexico City, 1,000 miles to the south, where they were welcomed by the Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and became medicine men. As medicine men they were treated with great respect and offered food, shelter, and gifts, and villages held celebrations in their honor. When they decided they wanted to leave, the host village would guide them to the next village. Sometimes as many as 3,000 people would follow them to the next village.
In Mexico City, the four survivors told stories of wealthy indigenous tribes to the north in the "Seven Cities of Cibola", which created a stir among Spaniards in Mexico. For his part, Esteban became a well-known figure on the streets of Mexico City, and he enjoyed relative freedom. When the three Spaniards declined to lead an expedition to the north, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza then sold Estevanico to the Viceroy. 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 where the streets were paved with gold and the walls were studded with precious stones. Estevanico traveled ahead of the main party with a group of Sonoran Indians.
Like the others before him, Estevanico was consumed by discovering the Seven Cities of Gold. 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, naïve 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. No one ever found the seven Golden Cities. But Estevanico's search for them transformed him into the immortal "Black Mexican of Zuni" myth.
There is no first-person account of what took place at Hawikuh. There are two general accounts surrounding the fate of Estevanico. In one scenario, the Zuni people decided he was a spy and killed him. A second theory is that the Zunis didn’t kill him and that Estevanico staged his own death with the help of his allies, therefore finally gaining his freedom from slavery. There is no certainty as to the cause or manner of Estevanico's death, and likely never will be. Virtually all stories of his death are based on legend or speculation. Several of his Native Indian escorts reportedly escaped from the Zunis and returned to Mexico to inform Fray Marcos that Estevanico was dead.
And it was Estevanico's bold quest to find the Seven Cities that kept its legend alive. That led to Coronado and de Soto's fateful explorations of the Southwest. There is no certainty as to the cause or manner of Estevanico's death, and likely never will be. Virtually all stories of his death are based on legend or speculation. Several of his Native Indian escorts reportedly escaped from the Zunis and returned to Mexico to inform Fray Marcos that Estevanico was dead. Estevanico was one of a kind. He was the first Black person mentioned by name in American history; the only Black person in the first party to cross the North American continent; the first non-Indian to discover the Old World Southwest; the first to set foot in Arizona and New Mexico. His courage and ingenuity opened the Southwest to civilization.