Estevanico, aka Mustapha al-Azemmour

Summary

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Stuff You Missed in History Class

Episode: Estevanico, aka Mustapha al-Azemmour (August 18, 2025)

Hosts: Tracy V. Wilson & Holly Frey

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores the life and legacy of Estevanico (also known as Mustapha al-Azemmour or Mustafa Azimor), an enslaved Moroccan who became a trailblazing explorer, guide, and translator during the early Spanish expeditions to the Americas. The hosts use Estevanico’s story to examine the often-overlooked presence and crucial roles of Africans and Muslims in early American history, as well as the complexities of enslavement, survival, and cross-cultural encounters in the 16th century.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Names

[02:24]

• Estevanico’s real name is uncertain; “Estevanico” is a diminutive form used because he was a slave, and is commonly used in English-speaking contexts.
• In Morocco, he is more often called Mustapha al-Azemmour, referencing Azemmour, his likely birthplace.
• The hosts explain his probable Muslim Amazigh (Berber) background and the pronunciation differences in Spanish and Arabic.

2. The Environment in Morocco & Circumstances of Enslavement

[05:30] – [08:42]

• Early 16th-century Morocco faced political instability, drought, plague, and influxes of refugees from Spain and Portugal after the Reconquista.
• Many people were taken by slave traffickers across North Africa and Iberia; the dire situation sometimes led people to surrender themselves to slavers, believing it was preferable to starvation.

3. Journey to the Americas and the Narváez Expedition

[09:14] – [14:19]

• Estevanico was enslaved by Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, who joined the ill-fated Panfilo de Narváez expedition to colonize Florida.
• Only African converts to Christianity (Ladinos) could legally go to the Americas at that time.
• Harsh context for the expedition: poorly funded, plagued by storms, mutiny, and desertions before even reaching the Gulf Coast.

4. Disastrous Landing and Overland Trek

[18:12] – [26:44]

• The fleet’s unintended landfall on the Florida coast set the tone for disaster: unfamiliar territory, no reliable maps, and hostile relations with local Indigenous peoples.
• Narváez’s reputation for brutality escalated tensions, including a violent incident with the Tocobaga leader.
• The expedition was split up, leading to further misfortune as the land party suffered from disease, swampy terrain, and Apalachee attacks.

Notable Quote ([21:27], Tracy V. Wilson):

“Narváez thought that he was facing an indigenous population that would be easy to pacify, and now an abandoned village that his expedition could occupy and a nearby source of gold. ... Narváez thought he had gotten things off to a very good start.”

5. Collapse and Survival

[25:05] – [29:21]

• The stranded group built makeshift rafts after many had perished from starvation, disease, and conflict.
• Only about 15 survived the ordeal of landing on a Gulf island (possibly Galveston); Estevanico was among them.
• Survivors, including Estevanico, were enslaved by various Native American groups; some assimilated, others plotted escapes.

6. Escape and Transformation of Roles

[29:50] – [35:52]

• Multilingualism and cultural adaptability allowed Estevanico to become crucial to the castaways’ survival and eventual escape.
• By 1534, he had assembled enough skill and rapport to help the party negotiate passage and shelter with regional tribes.

Notable Quote ([35:04], Tracy V. Wilson):

“They had been on radically different social strata. Estevan was black and enslaved, while Cabeza de Vaca was the second in command... By the time they escaped from their indigenous captors... things were much different.”

• The shared suffering led Cabeza de Vaca, in particular, to develop empathy toward Indigenous peoples—unique among his conquistador peers.

7. The 'Four Ragged Castaways' and the Medicine Man Persona

[38:04] – [40:43]

• The group, known as the “four ragged castaways,” gained a reputation as healers or ‘children of the sun’ among Indigenous communities—blurring lines between spiritual, cultural, and diplomatic roles.
• Estevanico served as the primary intermediary, mediator, and negotiator due to his language skills and ability to adapt.

8. Return to Spanish Control and Aftermath

[40:05] – [43:23]

• Upon their return to Spanish territory in Mexico, stories of cities of gold were embellished, fueling future expeditions.
• The Spanish survivors refused further exploration, but Estevanico (now possibly semi-free) was tasked with guiding Friar Marcos de Niza north.

9. Final Expedition and Death (or Escape?)

[43:54] – [47:30]

• Estevanico was sent as an advance scout, sending “crosses” of varying sizes back to Marcos to indicate success.
• Killed by the Zuni people (accounts differ: some attribute it to cultural transgressions, others to strategic secrecy). Some modern theories suggest he may have faked his death and disappeared.

Notable Quote ([46:59], Tracy V. Wilson):

“While all of the 16th-century accounts and most modern historians agree that Estevan was killed by Puebloan peoples in the spring of 1539, there are a few modern historians that propose something else entirely... There isn't really concrete support for this, but it is an interesting idea.”

10. Legacy and Cultural Memory

[47:30] – [48:37]

• Estevanico’s story has been overshadowed by a focus on the Spanish perspective but is increasingly recognized as foundational.
• Some Puebloan cultures may remember him through oral history and the figure of a black-skinned katsina (spirit being).
• “The first white man our people saw was a black man. And that is estevan.” ([48:37], Holly Fry, quoting Pueblo oral tradition)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the ambiguity of Estevanico's status:
  “[Estevan] had been treated less and less like a slave. It is not fully clear whether he was considered to be enslaved or free after their arrival in Mexico City...”
  —Holly Fry, [42:15]

• On Cabeza de Vaca’s transformation:
  “He started to realize that the indigenous peoples they were encountering were not one monolithic group of... pagans and barbarians. ... He also developed a deeper religious faith during his time in captivity...”
  —Holly Fry, [35:52]

• On Estevanico navigating Native communities:
  “His facility with languages meant that he could negotiate passage through these territories of multiple different tribes and trade on the group's behalf. In general, Estevan also seemed to be just more at home with the Indigenous peoples than the Spanish men were.”
  —Tracy V. Wilson, [36:55]

• On his legacy in oral history:
  “The first white man our people saw was a black man. And that is eston.”
  —Holly Fry (quoting a Puebloan saying), [48:37]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------| | 02:24 | Introduction to Estevanico and naming discussion | | 05:30 | Background on Morocco & Azemmour | | 08:08 | Enslavement conditions in North Africa | | 09:14 | Involvement in the Narváez expedition | | 12:39 | Expedition hardships and failures | | 18:12 | Landing in Florida, ill-fated trek begins | | 21:27 | Relations with Indigenous peoples & violence | | 25:05 | Starvation, raft-building, and disaster | | 28:45 | Survivors’ captivity by local tribes | | 29:50 | Escape and Estevanico's key role | | 35:04 | “Four ragged castaways” and new group dynamics | | 38:04 | Healer and mediator role among natives | | 40:05 | Return to Spanish Mexico, birth of Cibola legend | | 43:23 | Final northern expedition, ambiguous status | | 45:01 | Estevanico’s death and conflicting accounts | | 47:30 | Legacy, cultural memory, Puebloan perspective | | 48:37 | Pueblo saying, “first white man was a black man” |

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Tone & Language

The hosts maintain their signature style: clear, warm, conversational, and inquisitive. They balance scholarly rigor with empathy—especially when discussing sensitive topics like enslavement, intercultural violence, and historical erasure.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode offers a sweeping, empathetic look at Estevanico—a figure who, despite marginalization in written history, proved indispensable to one of the most harrowing expeditions in American exploration. By following his journey from Morocco to the American Southwest, Holly and Tracy illuminate overlooked narratives of migration, resilience, and cultural exchange, enriching our understanding of early colonial history and the complex figure at its heart.

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Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Since we are going to Morocco in November, I decided to pick an episode about Morocco. I only kind of got there. I chose somebody who's been on my list for a while, who probably was born in Morocco. But this story mainly takes place other places in the West. He's usually called Estevanico, also spelled Estebanico, because V and B have very similar pronunciations in Castilian Spanish. That, though, is a diminutive form of Estevan, which English speakers usually say more like Estevan. People have used that diminutive for him, which they also would have used for children because he was enslaved. I put the name Estevanico in the title of the episode because that's what he is usually called in the United States and other predominantly English speaking countries. And I wanted people to be able to find the episode if they were looking for it. But we are not going to call him that. We don't know exactly when or where Esteban was born or what his name was from birth. Estevan is probably the name that he took or was given when he converted from Islam to Christianity. In Morocco, he is more often known as Mustafa Azimor or Mustafa Al Azamor. Mustafa is an Arabic name. It means chosen, and it's one of the names of the Prophet Muhammad. Mustafa also has some phonetic similarities to the way that Esteban is usually pronounced among Arabic speakers. And Azimur is the name in Morocco where he. He's believed to have been from. So that is where the name that he's usually called in Morocco comes from. Esteban became a translator and a guide and was probably the first person of any race from outside of the Americas to enter what is now Arizona and New Mexico. That happened in 1539. So earlier than a lot of people imagine Europeans or Africans being in the United States. What is now today at all.

[Holly Fry]

Like Tracey just said, we don't know exactly when or where Estevan was born, really. We know almost nothing about his early life. But there are some pieces that we can put together based on where he lived and what other people wrote about him later. A major source of information is the relation of Alvar Nunez, Cabeza de Vaca, which chronicled a Spanish expedition to Florida that we will be getting to in a bit. And based on the relation and the timeline of that expedition, Estevan was probably born in the very early 1500s.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Cabeza de Vaca, which is a title that he inherited, meaning cow's head, describes Estevan as a native of Azimor. But it is possible that he was born Somewhere else, and then brought to Azamor later on. Azamur is on the coast of Morocco, southwest of Casablanca. Its population in the 16th century was predominantly Amazigh, also known as Berber and also predominantly Muslim.

[Holly Fry]

Some translations of the relation and some books about Estevan describe him as a moor, which was a general term for Muslims in Spain and northern Africa, Including Arabs and converts from the Iberian peninsula. But the word moro was used in Spanish during Estevan's lifetime, and that's not. Not what Cabeza de Vaca called him. Cabeza de Vaca used the Spanish word for black, along with the word al arabe, which in this context, probably meant that he spoke Arabic. Morocco was a multilingual society, and in addition to Arabic, Estevan likely would have spoken an Amazigh language as well as some Portuguese or Spanish or even both.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, the fact that some accounts describe him as a Moor means that sometimes he's also depicted as having kind of an Arab appearance, But he's pretty consistently described in accounts from the time as black. If he was from Azamor, that gives us some other clues, but also some questions about his early life. There was a lot of turmoil and instability in Morocco in the 15th and 16th centuries, including multiple changes in ruling dynasties, A plague, and a series of severe droughts. Multiple kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula had also started to coalesce into modern Spain, and the reconquista, or the Spanish reconquest of that peninsula from Muslim kingdoms had ended in 1492. Spain and Portugal both expelled their Jewish and Muslim populations, and that led to large numbers of refugees arriving in Morocco and other parts of northern Africa. Spain and Portugal also tried to establish or take control of ports and trading routes in northern Africa, including Azamor, which had become a tributary of Portuguese king Joo II in 1486. That's a lot going on. And on top of all of it, Northern Africa was also facing ongoing threats and trade disruptions from the Ottoman Empire to the east.

[Holly Fry]

In this environment, slave traffickers captured people from Morocco and from farther south in Africa and sold them for profit. And according to 16th century chronicles and eyewitness accounts, the situation was so dire that people in northern Africa surrendered themselves to Spanish and Portuguese slavers or to merchants who were willing to take them across the Strait of Gibraltar, Knowing that the law in Spain and Portugal required slaves to be fed, clothed, and housed, and that the likely alternative in northern Africa was starvation and death.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We really don't know whether Estevan was captured or if he was in such a desperate situation that enslavement seemed like his only alternative for survival, or possibly if he entered into something that he thought was going to be more like a temporary indenture rather than permanent enslavement. Regardless, though, by around 1522, he was being enslaved by minor Spanish noble Andreas Dorantis de Carranza.

[Holly Fry]

While Dorantis was technically part of the nobility, his family was poor, and in 1527, he joined Panfilo de Narvaez's expedition to the Americas with the hopes of gaining fortune and status for himself. King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, known as King Carlos I in Spain, had appointed Narvaez governor of Florida, which at the time covered all of what is now the southern US Stretching west to what's now Texas. Narvaez was going there to conquer and colonize it, and he chose Durantes as captain of his infantry. And when Durantes joined the expedition, he took Estevan with him. Estevan at this point was probably in his mid-20s.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

If Estevan was Muslim, which does seem likely given what we know about him, he would have had to convert to Catholicism in order to accompany Durantes on this expedition. At this time, under Spanish law, only Africans who had converted to Christianity and assimilated to Spanish culture, who were known as ladinos, were allowed to be taken to the Americas and the Caribbean. That policy actually changed right around this time, as Spanish authorities came to believe that Latinos were too independent and too hard to control. So instead, they allowed only bozales, or Africans, who did not speak Spanish and had not converted. The term bozales also included people who were trafficked directly from Africa to the Caribbean or the Americas without being brought through Spain first.

[Holly Fry]

So much about Esteban's life up to this point is completely unclear or the source of speculation, including when he got to Spain and how long he was there before Durantes joined this expedition, when and under what circumstances he converted to Christianity and whether he continued to think of himself as Muslim afterward. And we don't really know the details of his experience at the beginning of the expedition. At that point, Panfilo de Narvaez, Andres Durantes de Saranza, and other Spanish men on board didn't have much reason to take notice of Estevan or any other enslaved person who was with them. So for a while after the convoy set sail on June 17, 1527, we know that Estevan was part of the expedition and generally where the convoy was going, but we know almost nothing else.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Pamphilo de Narvaez already had some experience on these kinds of expeditions. He had been one of the first Spanish people to arrive in Jamaica. And then he was part of Spain's efforts to conquer the island of Cuba. In 1520, he had been dispatched to Mexico to capture Hernan Cortez, who had been charged with treason. Narvaez was supposed to replace Cortez as governor of Mexico, but this campaign was unsuccessful. Cortez defeated Narvaez in battle and imprisoned him for two years, and Narvaez lost an eye. It was only after Narvaez was released after all of this, that he was appointed governor of Florida and tasked with this second expedition, a decision that, with the benefit of historical hindsight, I find questionable.

[Holly Fry]

This expedition did not go any better than Narvaez's first one had. As was the case for Spain's other expeditions to the Americas around this time, conquistadors had to fund everything themselves, and they had to recruit their own men. Narvaez was able to raise a fleet of five ships and recruit about 600 men. They set sail on June 17, 1527, with the wives of some of the married men and some enslaved people also on board. But their Atlantic crossing was difficult, as Atlantic crossings generally were in the 16th century. People died along the way, and about 140 men deserted as soon as they arrived at Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola in August.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

From there, the fleet continued on to Cuba. The Spanish did not have a word for hurricane. It comes from the Carib language, and it had not made its way into the Romance languages yet. But after they arrived in Cuba, they endured a series of powerful storms. At one point, when the weather seemed clear, Narvaez sent two of his ships to another port to pick up supplies that were waiting for them there. And then another storm blew in, wrecking both of those ships and scattering all the supplies that they had loaded and destroying them. Crews on the remaining ships threatened to mutiny if the fleet tried to leave the waters around Cuba. So they did not depart for the Gulf coast until February 21st of 1528, at which point they were hit by still more storms along the way.

[Holly Fry]

Things did not improve once they started trying to voyage over land, and we will talk about that after we pause for a sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

On April 15, 1528, Pampilo de Narvaez and his expedition arrived on the Gulf coast of Florida, just north of what is now known as Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is almost directly north of Havana, Cuba, and in good weather, these ships should have been able to make that crossing in about four days, but it had taken them almost two months due to a series of storms that sort of blew them all over the Gulf of Mexico, and they had to also sail around and try to evade them. Also, at one point, most of the ships got stuck on a sandbar.

[Holly Fry]

A lot about this is unclear, but it doesn't seem like the area north of Tampa Bay is where they wanted to be or where they thought they were. Based on what happened after this, it seems like Narvaez might have been aiming for the river of Palms in Mexico, known as the Soto la Marina river today that marked the western boundary of Florida, and It was roughly 250km, or 155 miles north of an established Spanish settlement. That was Panuco, established by Hernan Cortez in 1522. It would have made sense for Narvaez to want to start off within the territory that he'd been appointed to govern, but also relatively close to an existing Spanish outpost.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

While this obviously wasn't the first Spanish expedition to arrive in this part of North America, Spanish knowledge of its geography was still really limited. Unlike some other expeditions, they also had no local people with them to help them out. Earlier in the 16th century, Hernan Cortez and cartographer Alonso Alvarez de Pineda had each made maps of the Gulf coast, which obviously would have been kind of limited, but we don't know whether Narvaez had access to either of them at all, or whether he had any other charts or maps of the area. Even with all of that in mind, though, Narvaez was nowhere near the river of Palms or Panuco. He was on the opposite side of the Gulf of Mexico, more than a thousand miles away from that.

[Holly Fry]

He was also very wary of the indigenous peoples living there. His purpose was to explore and colonize, which would mean at some point he would have to conquer or ally with the region's indigenous peoples. But he also knew that Juan Ponce de Leon had been attacked on his expeditions to Florida and had died after Caluza defenders shot him with an arrow in 1521. So, especially since many of Narvaez's men were exhausted and sick, he wanted to be cautious. They spotted a village near the coast which probably belonged to the Tocobaga, and sent a small party to try to negotiate with them. Narvaez's men were given some fish, which seemed like a gesture of goodwill, but the Tocabagas seemed to have seen them as a threat. They fled during the night and apparently spread the word about the new arrivals. And so for a few days, it didn't seem like there were many indigenous people around.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This probably gave Narvaez the impression that the indigenous peoples in the area would not be particularly dangerous. And then not long after that, somebody pulled up a gold object in a fishing net. So Narvaez thought that he was facing an indigenous population that would be easy to pacify, and now an abandoned village that his expedition could occupy and a nearby source of gold. Gold was one of the reasons for Spain's efforts to colonize the Americas. So Narvaez thought he had gotten things off to a very good start.

[Holly Fry]

Now, none of that lasted. Narvaez already had a reputation for cruelty and brutality against indigenous peoples. Friar Bartolome de la Casas, who is sometimes described as one of the first European advocates for the rights and protections of indigenous peoples, had previously denounced Narvaez's treatment toward the indigenous peoples of Cuba, including a massacre carried out by Narvaez's men during the conquest of the island. When the Tocabaga resumed contact with the Spanish and objected to their insistence that the land belonged to Spain, Narvaez had their leader's nose cut off and had the party's war dogs attack his mother. And it turned out there also wasn't any gold nearby. The piece that they found in a fishing net may have even been something that washed up from a Spanish shipwreck, which was also probably true of other pieces of gold that they came across from time to time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Tocabaga eventually convinced Narvaez that they did not have any gold, but they told him that another tribe, the Apalachee, did. Apalachee Territory was north of where the Tocabaga lived. Narvaez decided that he should split up his company to investigate. He would send the boats ahead while he and about 300 men continued on foot through Apalachia territory. He thought that the river of Palms was not too far away and that they could all rendezvous there.

[Holly Fry]

As they journeyed north. Narvaez and his party on land faced difficult, inhospitable, swampy terrain. Many of them got malaria, something that may have been introduced to the Americas by Europeans and the enslaved Africans that they brought with them. And it turned out the Tocabaga had been strategic in sending Narvaez to the Apalachee. The Apalachee were armed with longbows that were capable of piercing the leather, cloth, and chainmail armor that most of his men wore. The Appalachian developed tactics that were particularly effective against Narvaez's force, including ambushes and removing their arrowheads when shooting at soldiers wearing chainmail. So the arrow shafts would break against the rings and drive long splinters of wood into the soldiers bodies.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I think there's kind of an imagined image of the conquistador wearing full plate armor, and that is not what overwhelmingly these guys were in. And what they were in was easily pierceable by these longbows. Since Narvaez had sent his ships on ahead, the company had no easy way to escape from the Appalachian, and they also had no way to send for any kind of supplies or reinforcements. Meanwhile, they were all so off course that they never made that rendezvous. The ships looked for Narvaez and his party for about a year before they started running low on food and supplies, and they ultimately left.

[Holly Fry]

After a summer that was full of extreme heat, illnesses, deaths, and very effective attacks by the Appalachia. Narvaez decided their best means of escape would be to build boats and go westward along the coast. Over the span of about six weeks, they killed their horses, eating their meat, and using their hides to make things like water skins and their manes and tails to make rope. The men melted down their armor to make nails, and they made sails from their clothing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The resulting boats were more like rafts with slightly built up sides and a tiller. They were powered by sails and oars. They were also barely big enough to hold all of the men that needed to get onto each one of them. So once somebody got aboard, there was nowhere to move. Once they had taken a place, they still were not sure how far they needed to go to get to territory that Spain was actually occupying. But they thought that they had traveled roughly 700 miles or 1125 kilometers over land. Since they had arrived in Florida, there have been innumerable attempts to trace the journey of all of this over the centuries, and there's a lot of disagreement in all of the various maps. But they had probably gone closer to 250 miles or 400 km. It is hard to know the distances for sure. They were measuring things in leagues, and they were also estimating a distance that had involved a lot of backtracking and detours because of the terrain.

[Holly Fry]

They set sail aboard these rafts on September 22, 1528. They were mostly able to stay out of range of the Apalachee's bows, but now they were facing seasickness, dehydration, starvation, and the unrelenting sun. They did manage to go in the right direction, skirting along the coast, but when they reached the outflow of the Mississippi river, the force of the current scattered the rafts and pushed them out to sea. They regrouped, but as they approached what is now known as Galveston Island, a storm swamped or capsized most of the rafts. At some point during all of this, Narvaez's raft was blown out to sea, and he almost certainly drowned or died of exposure or dehydration.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He's presumed to have died at that point by some means. Only about 80 sailors finally made landfall on an island near modern Galveston. It might have been Galveston island. It might have been a neighboring island. They nicknamed this Isa de Malajado, or the island of Misfortune. At first, the survivors got some assistance from the Karinkawa people. But the Spanish survivors apparently lost the Karankawa's sympathies after some of them turned to cannibalism over the winter.

[Holly Fry]

That winter was obviously difficult. By April of 1529, there were only 15 survivors left from the 300 or so men who had started the trek to the river of Palms over land. One of those men was Estevan, and another was his enslaver, Andres Dorantes de Saranza. These survivors made various attempts to continue on to Spanish controlled territory, but none of them got very far. Then, in the summer of 1529, they and other survivors started to be captured and enslaved, some by the Karankawa and some by other indigenous tribes in the areas.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Over the next few years, some of the expedition survivors died. Others essentially assimilated into the tribes that had captured them. There were various escape attempts, and at first none of them was successful. The Spanish captives and Esteban rarely saw each other, and for a while they did not really have any way to communicate. According to Cabeza de Vaca's account, he eventually convinced his captors to let him work as a traitor and that allowed him to travel to some extent and gave him a way to relay messages to the others.

[Holly Fry]

The only time they were all in the same place at the same time was when multiple tribes came together for the prickly pear harvest. Estevan Andres Durantes de Saranza, Alonso de Castillo Maldonado and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca had various contact with one another in 1532 and they planned to meet during the prickly pear harvest in 1533. That meeting did happen, but they were not able to escape.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

They tried again in 1534 and this time they were successful, and that was largely thanks to Estevan. We said earlier he was already multilingual before being enslaved in Morocco. He had learned more languages during his time in North America, including learning shared trading languages and a trading sign language. He was able to negotiate safe passage and shelter with a trader that Cabeza de Vaca's relation describes as being from the Avevare tribe that is not a tribe that is mentioned outside of this document. So we do not know exactly how to identify these people today, but it is possible that this is something that Esteban and the other survivors had started planning during that prickly pear harvest in 1533 and had been working on for a year until they did it.

[Holly Fry]

There are a lot more references to Esteban in the relation after this point and we will get into that after we pause for a sponsor break.

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[Big Three Basketball Announcer]

The reviews and ratings are in and Ice Cube's Big three is the surprise hit of the summer. And to cap off the season, iHeart presents the Big 3 Basketball Championship and 8th Annual Big 3 All Star Game this coming Sunday, August 24th. Live from Orlando, the remaining two teams fight it out for the Big 3 Championship Dr. Jake Trophy in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. Don't miss the wild conclusion of Big Three's eighth and most historic season ever. This is the game no one wants to lose and there's no crying in the Big Three. The action starts with the Big Three eighth Annual All Star Game. Don't miss All Stars Dwight Howard, Montrez Harrell, MVP Michael Beasley, Lance will make you Dan Stephenson, Jordan Crawford, Greg Monroe, Earl Clark, Nazir Kor and more show you why they are the best three on three basketball players in the world. Big three's exciting all star game plus the crowning of a new big three champion. The no holds part action starts Sunday at 2pm Eastern, 11 Pacific only on CBS.

[Holly Fry]

This episode brought to you by T. Rowe Price It's a quickly changing world, and when it comes to investing, every day brings new questions. The way to truly confident investing? Well, that road is paved with curiosity. That's why at T. Rowe Price, they're relentlessly curious. They don't settle for fast answers, especially when it comes to your retirement. Because yesterday's answers may not be the ones you need today to secure a successful retirement tomorrow. So how much is enough? What if you don't want to stop working or even switch gears and take on Chapter two? These questions just scratch the surface. The possibilities and the unexpected of what your future could hold are endless. Find out more on their podcast Confident Conversations on Retirement, where they dig deep with questions that will get you to the answers you're looking for so you can feel confident investing in your future. T. Rowe Price Confident Conversations on Retirement Podcast. Find it on your favorite podcast platform or visit t roweprice.com podcast.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

[Holly Fry]

Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of a air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Until this, pull that, turn this. It's just I can do my eyes closed. I'm Manny.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm Noah, this is Devin.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And on our new show, no Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

[Holly Fry]

Those who lack expertise lack the expertise.

[Big Three Basketball Announcer]

They need to recognize that they lack expertise.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the Runway. I'm looking at this thing.

[WashablesOfAs.com Advertiser]

See?

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Listen to no such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Esteon Andreas, Dorantis de Saranza, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca are sometimes described as the first four ragged castaways. When they had first set sail From Spain in 1527, they had been on radically different social strata. Estevan was black and enslaved, while Cabeza de Vaca was the second in command of Panfio de Narvaez's expedition. Cabeza de Vaca's relacion makes it clear that at the start of the voyage he was a typical conquistador. He was going to the Americas hoping for fortune and glory, and he was also viewing the Spanish as superior to Africans and indigenous peoples.

[Holly Fry]

But by the time they escaped from their indigenous captors in 1534, things were much different. Cabeza de Vaca had been through the experience of being enslaved himself. He had also been given shelter and care by people of multiple indigenous nations while also being enslaved and forced to work for some of those same peoples. He had started to realize that the indigenous peoples they were encountering were not one monolithic group of from Spanish Catholic mindset, pagans and barbarians. He had contact with at least 20 different indigenous tribes and nations during his journey around the Gulf and into Mexico, and each one was its own people. He also developed a deeper religious faith during his time in captivity and the journey that followed. His relation followed that progression and became a document not just of their journey, but also of the land they traveled through and the peoples they encountered with far more empathy toward indigenous people at the end of the account than at the beginning.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that he suddenly became a perfect person, but he definitely started seeing other non Spanish Catholic people as more human than before. It would be a stretch to say that the three Spanish men ever saw Estevan as their equal, but when they escaped from their captors, it was immediately obvious that his knowledge and skills were going to be critical to their survival. They still had hundreds of miles they needed to travel through unfamiliar territory. His facility with languages meant that he could negotiate passage through these territories of multiple different tribes and trade on the group's behalf. In general, Esteban also seemed to be just more at home with the indigenous peoples than the Spanish men were. For example, on their first night with the Avavari tribe, he joined in their dancing, while the others just watched. The people that they encountered often seemed more willing to negotiate with him than with the others.

[Holly Fry]

Various articles about the four ragged castaways describe them as smoothing their passage through native territories by pretending to be faith healers or medicine men. But pretending is kind of an oversimplification. Details on this are very fuzzy, and the primary sources recounting this voyage are contradictory. But at some point, an indigenous person was sick or injured. Cabeza de Vaca or one of the other men prayed over them, using Christian prayers and making the sign of the cross. At some points, they may have also used some kind of other treatments, either something that would have been used among Spanish conquistadors or something that they had seen indigenous people do over time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It seems like Cabeza de Vaca thought they really were healing these people, or really that God was healing, healing them through them. This was something he had to be really careful in how he described, given that they were not priests, and this was the kind of thing that the Spanish Inquisition would not look favorably on at all if they ever managed to make it back home. Eventually, somebody, either one of this foursome or someone indigenous, started calling them the Children of the sun or the Sons of the Sun.

[Holly Fry]

The four ragged castaways continued west and south for months, and over time, they built up an indigenous following. It's not always clear how much of this alleged faith healing Estevan did, because contemporary accounts sometimes call him Durantes, being the name of his enslaver. But over time, as they acquired a large group of indigenous followers, it seems like the three Spanish men used Estevan as an intermediator between themselves and that group. This was both because he was the one who best knew their languages, and because doing so gave them an air of mystery that helped maintain this idea that they were healers with divine powers.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the spring of 1536, more than eight years after Narvaez's expedition first arrived on the Gulf coast of Florida, the four ragged castaways ran into a group of Spanish slaves, slavers, in Nueva Galicia, confirming that they were finally back in territory that was actively being occupied by Spain, they made their way from there to Mexico City. While in Mexico City, Estevan met Juan Garrido, known as the Black Conquistador, who had been born in the Kingdom of Congo and had been part of multiple Spanish expeditions in the Caribbean and the Americas.

[Holly Fry]

At this point, once all four men had recovered from having made this Incredibly arduous journey. The three Spanish men, but not Estevan, were questioned about what they had been through. They made the territory they had traveled through sound wealthier than it actually was, fueling rumors of the Seven Cities of Cibola much later also called the Seven Cities of Gold. So Antonia de Mendoza, Viceroy of New Spain, wanted them to travel north again, back in the direction they had just come from to look for this wealth and and to claim it for Spain. He also wanted them to gather information for Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who was planning an expedition as well.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Understandably, Andres Durantes, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, and Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca all said, no, thank you. Durantes did discuss doing this with the viceroy, but ultimately declined that offer. Castillo got married to a rich widow, and Cabeza de Vaca went to Sarah, Spain. He was hoping that he would be named governor of Florida and then he could come back and he could succeed where Pamphia de Narvaez had failed. That did not work out for him, though, because by the time he got back to Spain, Hernando de Soto had been authorized to conquer Florida. Cabeza de Vaca became governor of some of Spain's territory in South America instead. He obviously has a whole story beyond this that we are not getting into.

[Holly Fry]

Esteban, though, may not have had a choice. He had not exactly been treated as a free man during that journey across what's now Texas in northern Mexico. But over time, he had been treated less and less like a slave. It is not fully clear whether he was considered to be enslaved or free after their arrival in Mexico City, but from this point, documents were more likely to reference him as Estevan than Estevanico. And when he was tasked with accompanying Franciscan Friar Marcos Deniza on an expedition north, he was given explicit instructions to follow Marcos orders. Those kinds of instructions would not have seemed necessary if he was enslaved. At the same time, it seems as though Durantes approval was needed for Estevan to go on this expedition, something that would not have been necessary if he was free. So there's some conflict here. Apparently. Durantes originally refused, and then he agreed to letting Estevan go on this travel only after having irritated the Viceroy by refusing to go on this expedition himself.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It seems like he was kind of trying to smooth things over. Friar Marcos's expedition departed on March 7, 1539. It consisted of Marcos, another Franciscan friar, Esteban, and about 100 enslaved Indigenous people who had been promised their freedom in exchange for their participation. Esteban's role was similar to what he had done before. He was working as a scout, a guide, and a translator and negotiator with all the indigenous tribes they would encounter.

[Holly Fry]

A couple of weeks after they left Mexico City, Marcos sent Estevan to scout ahead. Estevan was to update Marcos on his progress by sending a runner back with a cross, with the size of the cross corresponding to the value of what he had found. This sounds like a wild way to communicate, but it is what it is. Some sources conclude that this was because Estevan and the others with him could not read or write. But as we talked about in our recent episode on Ballpoint Pens, writing on this kind of expedition would have actually been incredibly cumbersome.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Okay, we need you to keep up with an inkwell. Quills your paper might get wet or fall apart. Although Estevan was supposed to wait, after sending word back to Marcos, he kept on pushing ahead. First, though, he would make arrangements for Marcos and the rest of the party to be fed and provisioned and cared for at each of the settlements he came to. Marcos kept struggling to catch up as Estevan kept sending back a series of crosses, each one bigger than the last.

[Holly Fry]

Finally, In May of 1539, a runner reached Marcos and told him that Estevan was dead. According to Friar Marcos, Estevan and many of his party were killed by the Zuni outside the city of Cibola, which Estevan had managed to reach. It's believed that Estevan was somewhere in what is now Arizona, but there is debate over exactly where. Marcos never made it to that location himself.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, there's a lot of discussion of exactly which pueblo might have been being described as the city of Cibola. There are no eyewitness accounts of Estevan's death. And accounts from later on in the 16th century are wildly contradictory, including contradicting what Marcos wrote down, which was pretty straightforward. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado claimed that Estevan had a reputation for inappropriate relationships with indigenous women, and the Zuni had killed killed him after he had demanded women and turquoise from them. Coronado said this when he was about to face charges over his own behavior with indigenous people. So there's some speculation that he said this to try to distract from what he was being accused of. Hernando de Alarcon claimed that the Zunis killed Esteban because they did not want him to reveal their location to the Spanish.

[Holly Fry]

Zuni. Anthropologist Edmund J. Ladd, writing in the 20th century, concluded that the Zuni had probably heard about the expedition through indigenous trade networks and that they just did not trust the Spanish. According to Zuni tradition, Estevan had sent a gourd rattle decorated with red and white feathers to the Zuni leader to introduce himself. The Zuni leader recognized this rattle and became angry, and he ordered Estevan and not to enter the town. When Estevan approached anyway, they killed him.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

While all of the 16th century accounts and most modern historians agree that Estevan was killed by Puebloan peoples in the spring of 1539, there are a few modern historians that propose something else entirely, which is that Esteban worked with one of the Puebloan peoples to fake his own death, and then he escaped from enslavement by the Spanish. There isn't really concrete support for this, but it is an interesting idea.

[Holly Fry]

Today the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition is known primarily for its spectacular failure and the long journey of its four survivors that then paved the way for Coronado's expeditions into what is now the American Southwest. There has been less focus on Estevan until much more recently.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

One possible connection to Estevan that continues in Pueblo culture today is a katzina, or a spirit being who is depicted as having black skin. I don't want to get into a ton of detail about this because this is sacred Pueblo and cultural knowledge. Some sources have described this katsina straightforwardly as a representation of Estevan, although others note that there were katsinas depicted with black skin before he had contact with any Puebloan peoples. There is also a saying among some Puebloan peoples, as reported by Dr. Joe S. Of J.E.S. pueblo, that quote, the first white man our people saw was a black man. And that is eston.

[Holly Fry]

Do you have listener mail?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I have listener mail. It is from Heather. Heather wrote hello Holly and Tracy. I started writing this email before I even finished listening to the behind the scenes episode on Beatrice Kenner and Mildred Smith. Side note, shout out to those ladies for all the great work they did to make that time of the month more bearable. I wanted to write to share that I had similar memories and feelings when I read Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. I'm a few years younger than you ladies and I probably read the book around my late elementary years, maybe going into middle school, which would have been very late 1980s early 1990s. The copy I read also had references to the belted pads and by that time I felt like the adhesive ones were pretty ubiquitous and I also had my mother explain the belts to me. It made me feel like the book was out of date and silly and I never really wanted to read Judy Blume anymore. As an adult, I feel bad about that because obviously Judy Blume is amazing. I also find it pretty funny that just the day before this episode came out, my son who is 16, had his girlfriend over to our house. It's his first girlfriend and she needed a tampon. I was outside and she made him text me that she needed one, which I found hilarious. Everybody just needs to get over any squeamishness about periods. They are everywhere. Hahaha. As Petax, I'm attaching a picture of my dogs, Nellie and Malcolm. Nellie is red and white and is an 11 year old Welsh Springer Spaniel. This is a different breed than the English springer that most people know. Most people think she's a Brittany or a cocker, but to me she's just a precious angel baby. Malcolm is an 8 year old black and white English Springer spaniel, the springer breed that most people know. He's not the smartest boy, but he would literally die for me and that's all I could ever ask for. Thanks for reading this email. Have a wonderful day. Heather thank thank you so much for this email Heather. Thank you for these very cute dog pictures. They look like they are sitting in a kitchen very patiently, but also eagerly awaiting a treat. I love this story about getting a text about needing a tampon and it reminded me of a story that has been passed to me from my mother, which is that my mom was one of five, four girls and a boy and their neighbors across the street. Also five children, four boys and a girl. So the joke was that each of the moms would just count every night. As long as they each had five children, everything was okay. So one day my mom was helping her mom unload the groceries that had just been brought in and one of the boys from across the street was there helping. He was passing the things to my mom from inside the bag and then was like, that's it, I'm done, bye. And my mom was like, there's obviously something in that bag still. And he was like, nope, nothing left in this bag. Nothing at all.

[Big Three Basketball Announcer]

Bye.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And mom went. And being a household that contained, you know, a mother and four sisters. Sisters. It was an industrial sized box of pads and I don't know, that story makes me laugh every time I think of it. Thank you so much again Heather for this email and the dog pictures. If you would like to send us a Note, we'[e-mail] and you can also subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Big Three Basketball Announcer (alternate)]

Iheart presents the Big three Playoffs this Sunday. The remaining four teams battle to make the championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive battle basketball league in the world. The action starts with the Big three Monster Energy Celebrity Games, then Dwight Howard and his Ellie Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets. The finale will see popular Miami 305 with stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas power who will make it to the big three championship. The no holds barred action starts Sunday at 3pm Eastern, 12 Pacific only on CBS.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Why are TSA rules so confusing?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You got a hoodie on.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Take it all.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

I'm Manny.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'm Noah.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

This is Devin and we're best friends and journalists. List with a new podcast called no Such Thing where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do now if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it, you know.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Lock him up.

[No Such Thing Podcast Hosts (Manny, Noah, Devin)]

Listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Holly Fry]

No Such Thing.

[Lizzie Logan or Dana Schwartz]

Have you ever looked at a piece of abstract art or music or poetry and thought that's just a bunch of pretentious nonsense? That's exactly what two bored Australian soldiers set out to prove during World War II when they tricked the literary world with their intentionally bad poetry, setting off a major scandal. We break down the truth, the lies, and the poetry in between on Hoax, a new podcast hosted by me, Lizzie Logan and me, Dana Schwartz. Every episode, Hoax explores an audacious fraud or ruse from history. Listen to hoax on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[WashablesOfAs.com Advertiser]

Everyone thinks they'd never join a cult, but it happens all the time to people just like you and people just like us. I'm Lilla Blanc. And I'm Megan Elizabeth. We're the hosts of Trust Me, a podcast about cults, manipulation and the psychology of belief. Each week we talk to fellow survivors, former believers and experts to understand why people get pulled in and how they get out. Trust me. New episodes every Wednesday on Exactly Right. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an I Heart podcast.