March 11, 2021 • 49 mins
The story of Black cowboys begins not on horseback riding the high plains, but with horses tied up on Spanish ships riding the high seas. Meet Esteban the Negro. Or Esteban the Moor. The Spanish called him Estevanico. Before his voyage and his adventures in North America are over, he will transform from a slave into a god.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
At the edge of the continent, where the sea meets
the land. The launch boat is dragged ashore by grunting
men who've come looking for gold. When the men, in
their peculiar broad chested metal armor and high leather boots
reached the dry sand, they step out of the sea
and set foot on what they think is an island.
Juan Ponce de Leon is the conquistador at the head
of the small army of invaders. In Latin and Spanish
(00:34):
post de Leon claims the land for his king and
for God in heaven. He names it La Florida. It's
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highly likely the first man from that expedition to hop
out of the boat and set foot on the North
American continent was a free black man, or rather a
gentleman adventurer, an African man who may have been born
in the kingdom of the Congo. That's with a K.
That's important. He was possibly a prince. He converted to Christianity.
Perhaps he did it for the truth he found in
the faith, or perhaps is as some historians say, he
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was enslaved, converted against his will and given a new
name before he was later freed in Spain and then
joined his former Master on an earlier voyage to the
New World. Or maybe he converted because Spain had forbidden
Jewish and Muslim people from sailing to the New World,
and thus if he wants to go searching for gold
and glory, he needs to first adopt a new faith
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and a new name. For whatever reason, the African man
changed his name to one Garrido. In Spanish, it means
handsome John or elegant John. The year was thirteen when
that free black man named Handsome John first set foot
in the sands of La Florida. This is a whole
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century before the first slave ship will arrive in Jamestown,
Virginian in six nineteen. In plain terms, the story of
Black America doesn't begin in slavery. Instead, it begins with
Spanish conquistadors and with his free African adventurer, Juan Garrido.
Pants of John, Elegant John. I'm Zarring Burnett. Welcome to
(02:28):
Black Cowboys and I are original podcast. Yeah, this is
a home. It's been a long road for us. We
take it ownership over everything else. Us realty, we surrounded
by our heritage are fisked up because we're try to
be Ammerican. Chapter four. The first black cowboy Esteban, the Negro.
(02:54):
He actual itself was really in the name. Sitting on
a mustand Friday to the play, but below little range
we love with the cowboy quay. We don't know much
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else about Handsome John, but we do know that the
story of black cowboys begins fifteen years later with a
different Spanish expedition, and it begins not on horseback riding
the high plains, but with horses tied up on Spanish
ships riding the high seas, frightened beasts, surrounded by terrified sailors,
most likely each man praying that they'd survived the brutal
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hell storm. The men pray in many languages. The storm
they encountered was so vicious that the Europeans had no
word for it. The term they used was an adopted
word from the Tyano people, hurrican. Today we'd likely call
it a category five hurricane. So we'll say our story
of Black cowboys begins with a hurricane. It's a storm
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of mythic proportions. Some of the devout Spaniards see it
as a bad omen a sign of God's displeasure with them.
The royal treasure on the voyage. A man named Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca records the storm and his chronicle
of the expedition. He is the reason we know the
details of the story were about to tell Kabiza. Devaca's
chronicle regales its readers with one of the strangest, most desperate,
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and daring adventures in the history of European exploration. It's
also the story of an African man sold into bondage,
taken by the Portuguese, sold again in a Spanish slave market,
and finally taken to the New World, all against his will.
Esteban the Negro or Esteban the more the Spanish called
him Estevanico. Before his voyage and his adventures in North
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America are over, he will transform from a slave into
a god. Eat your heart out easy, and he did
it for real. At the moment, though, Esteban doesn't know
his fate. He's yet to make landfall. He's uncertain if
he will survive the night. It's easy to imagine Esteban
the more praying in Arabic that it's the will of
(05:12):
a law that he be spared from the storm. But
is this accurate. Stevan was a man from assam Or,
sam Or, being a an Arabic speaking primarily Muslim town
on the coast of what is now Morocco. That's Professor
Andreas Percendes from the University of California Davis. He's also
(05:32):
the author of a Land So Strange, The Epic Journey
of Cabeza de Vaca. We don't know the precise details,
but it is likely that some of these inhabitants of
assam Or were sold both in Portugal but also in
the markets of neighboring Spain, and so it is likely
that Stevan in particular were sold in Seville and was
sold to his eventual owner and purchaser, who Andreas Duran
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is one of the members of this expedition. There's some
debate about whether Esteban was black or a Moorish North African,
possibly Muslim. What do we know about his ethnicity right?
I mean we know very little. Uh Salibaka himself, in
the first person account that he would later write about
this whole thing in two just describes Steban in one
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line saying that he was a man of Moorish descent
who was black. This is important because, of course, this
whole area of Morocco was a very mixed kind of area.
You could not assume the skin color of the people
who lived there. Some of them were black and some
of them were not. The fact that he says a
Laab means Moorish, so we know that he must have
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professed Islam at some point. And of course, once he
came into contact with the Portuguese, he was forced to
convert to Christianity and was given a Christian name, Esteban
as in Saint stephen Um, and then transferred to Spain.
So that's pretty much what we know about the earlier
history of Stevan. It's, as you say, extremely difficult to
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know precisely who he was. His owner is named Captain
Andres Darantis. He is an adventurer, but he chased his
wealth since he was born poor, barely able to afford
a slave. He needs the riches of the New World,
unlike say Kobe Devaka, who comes from nobility and is
the grandson of a famous veteran of the Reconquista that
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took Spain back from the Moors after centuries of foreign occupation.
After their victory over the Moors in fourteen ninety two,
Spain decided that the best defense was a good offense,
and thus the small nation expanded into an empire, a
world spanning empire. In early December fifteen twenty six, King
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Charles the Fifth, soon to be crowned the Holy Roman Emperor,
awarded a license to the land discovered and named La
Florida to a second conquistador, a man named Pnphilo de Narvaez.
The land Narvaez was awarded was an immense strip, one
that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It covered
not only the state of Florida, but land that would
become the Gulf States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, as well
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as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Baja California. To ensure
in our bias was good to his word, the Royal
Treasurer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was sent along with him.
He was the eyes of the crown. Cabeza de Vaca
was second in command, appointed by an answerable directly to
the King. Captain Andres durant Is on one of the
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five ships off Norvas's second expedition. With him is his
slave Esteban. They've crossed the Atlantic buoyed by the arrogance
of the European conquerors. But now when they meet the
humbling reality of the new world, the men's faith is
brutally shaken. Have they angered God in heaven? Sixty people
and twenty horses perished on the ships. Those who went
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on land the day will arrived, some thirty men were
all who survived from the crew of both ships. Instead
of making landfall in Mexico in April, the Narvaia's fleet
sails into present day Tampa Bay. They miss their target
by about a thousand miles. Worst of all, the Spaniards
don't understand how badly they've missed their mark. They believe
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that at most they're fifty miles away from their target destination.
So Narvaias makes a terrible decision, one that dooms his expedition.
He chooses to split his expedition in two. He sends
all of his best men and all the horses ashore.
He'll leave skeleton crews on the ships, just enough men
to handle the sales and to protect the ten women
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who also made the trip. Narvallas directs the ships to
hug the coast. He and the best soldiers and the
horsemen will explore the interior, you know, just in case
there's any gold laying about for them to discover. The
men sent ashore each given two pounds of biscuit and
half a pound of bacon. Esteban's master, Captain Durant's, is
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a loyal soldier. He obediently follows orders. This means Estebon
is forced to do the same. Da tastes and Esteban
board the launch. It's an oversized rowboat. It pushes away
from the fleet. They row for the Florida coastline or
slice into the waves. As the gold staff men's minds
hungrily devoured dreams of riches awaiting them. Each man imagines
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the life changing fortune that they will pull out of
the earth. The men disembarked from the launches and set
foot on dry land. As they marched through the swaps,
the men scan the flat and featureless sandbar that we
call Florida, assuming at any minute they might cite gold.
But Florida is a slab of limestone. Essentially, the only
way you'd ever find gold in Florida's if someone had
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dropped it. Poor Esteban, he is a slave to greedy fools.
These expeditions. These Spanish expeditions to the New World were
very much business ventures. Their business was to settle different
parts of the New World that they had pre contracted
with the Spanish ground and so the idea was that
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they would settle, but also of course that they would
turn a profit by exploring whatever profitable either precious metals
or other marketable commodities commodities they could find there. In
order to make that work, they needed an array of
different professions, different skill set uh. And so when we
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are talking about these early explorers or these early ventures,
we are really talking about a microcosm of everything from
very prominent Spanish officials normally in charge of the venture
and normally with without significant financial stake, meaning that they
had provided for their own horses and arms and provisions, slaves, etcetera,
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who had no choice in the matter, had to go
to the New World, and who whatever profit accrue to
them would be pocketed by the owner. That's the bond
is prone to all these competing whims, rivalries, and business
agenda of the gold Mad conquistadors. Within days of landing,
the expedition of men and horses is separated from the
fleet of ships they lose sight of one another. The
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survivors are now officially stranded in an inhospitable wilderness. They're
like astronauts on some distant planet. The men's bodies are
tested immediately. There are injuries, but more importantly, men start
to suffer from unknown diseases and infections. It's just the
beginning of their suffering. They don't know it yet, but
the majority of the Spaniards will die, just some will
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die slower than others. As the Spaniards marched north, they
reach a bend in the coastline where Florida turns left
at the Panhandle. The explorers are terribly confused. The coastline
bends the wrong way. This confirms two facts. They are
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nowhere near Mexico, and they are well and truly lost.
Narvaias And is slowly dying. Men desperately need food and
a new plan. It doesn't take them long to come
up with it. Their new plan is gruesome. They make
the difficult decision to slaughter their beloved horses. The men
believe horse meat will keep death's fingers away from Spanish throats.
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The new plan is also a long shot. They'll build
life rafts from the hides and the sinew of the
dead horses. There's one problem, though, All of the mariners
with shipbuilding skills stayed on the ships. The men now
wandering the Florida swamps, men like Cabeca de Vaca and
Captain Dantis, are mostly court officials and soldiers. Few are
actual sailors. There's just one carpenter among them. You can
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only imagine what the scene must have been in these
beach in what is now the Florida Panhandle. This is
something that we don't think about when we in in
our modern era. The difficulty of just holding water fresh water,
because they were venturing into the ocean, and they did
that by curing the legs of the horses that they
were killing. And you can also imagine the emotional tall
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of the conquissadors who were very much attached to their horses.
These were their everyday companions, and you know, they had
to be killed. They would be able to eat their
their meat, and they would use the mains and the
tails of the horses in order to braid some rope
to use it for these five five barges, and they
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would you know, chop down several dozen very large trees
chop off all the branches and make these five barges
in order to continue coasting what is now the northern
rim of the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, there's Esteban. He
knows this new plan means new hardships for him. The
labor demanded from him will be the most difficult that
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any of the survivors is asked to do at the
Bay of Horses. What is Esteban doing at this time?
Is there any record of his actions? We don't really
know what is Stevan specifically did during this You can
imagine that the work must have been grueling, and so
it's a good supposition that the slaves in the expedition
and the lowest ranking men would be especially exploited, unexpected
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to do more than than the normal share of work.
According to Kabasa Devaca, they start work on August four.
According to their rough calculations, in order to carry all
the survivors, they'll need to build five enormous barred style
life rafts. They build a metalsmithing forage and fuel it
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with air from a deer skin bellows. They melt down
their stirrups, spurs, swords and crossbows, and form the molten
metal into axis, saw blades and nails. For the hull
of the rafts, they chopped down tall pines and cedar trees.
Each raft is to be around thirty three ft long.
For five rafts, the Spanders must chop down roughly a
hundred and fifty trees using their rudimentary hand tools made
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out of melted down belt buckles. To create sales for
the rafts, the survivors use their own clothing. They sew
shirts together with the hides of their slaughtered horses. They
braid the hair of the horses tails and manes to
make the rope they used to lash together the logs.
Six weeks later, they've constructed five sea ready vessels. They're
ready to escape the swampy hell of Florida. On the
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twenty day of September, just after they kill and eat
their last horse, the men set sail for their original destination,
the Rio de Las Palmas in present day of Mexico.
But killing their horses and turning their clothing into sails
by melting down their swords and muskets, the Spaniards are
now naked and defenseless. The sea is their only salvation
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for estabond. This is less true. He doesn't know how
to swim. He climbs on board the life raft. He
has no reasonable expectation to survive, and yet he goes
on to thrive in the new world. Not just thrive.
Soon he will be a god. For the first week,
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the five life rafts hugged the coast. We sailed seven
days among those inlets, in waste deep water, with no
sign of anything like a beach. The rafts are surprisingly seaworthy,
not bad for a bunch of amateur boat builders. They
sail for a month along the Gulf coast without sinking.
At night, as they drift along, surrounded by inky darkness
the sky reflected in the surface of the ocean, it
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must have felt like they were floating in the heavens,
somewhere between life and death, somewhere between the moon and
the sea. I like to imagine Esteban, unable to swim,
yet staring up at the heavens above, wondering if he
would die there among the stars. Combat the Vaca notes
at the commander of their expedition, Ponfilo de Norvaie, selects
all the strongest and best men for his boat. Reports
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from other castaways tell us that one night he orders
everyone else on his barge to sleep on the shore
as protection for him while he sleeps aboard the life
raft along with the best mate. Somehow, the Narva's barge
slips loose from its mooring. The raft drifts out to
see the current catches them and carries them further and
further out, never to be seen again. It's the final
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failure of the conquistador Ponfilo de Narvaez. The rest of
the survivors are now officially on their own Esteban. The
Negro and Cabesta de Vaca, on different barges, have both
stayed alive and lucky, and soon their two faiths will
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once again braid together. For now both of their life
rafts eventually find friendly beaches. The fifty or so men
aboard each raft are able to safely land on an
island just off of the coast of what we call Texas,
somewhere around present day Galveston. The survivors are met by
a band of natives. They get lucky. The natives are
welcoming to the men who just stepped out of the sea.
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They take the survivors to their village to help them
recuperate from their ordeal. The tribe celebrates the arrival of
the survivors with a dance party, one that lasts all night.
Free of Norvaia's and his fatal incompetence, things are finally
looking up for the first Black Cowboy, and then the
cold of winter descends. Fish are now hard to find,
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roots and berries even harder. Hunger starts to gnaw at
the bellies of the survivors and their native hosts. European
diseases have begun to spread. They have no defenses for
the invisible killers. After a short time, out of eight
demen who had come there in our two parties, only
fifth team remained alive. Then the natives fell sick from
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my stomach ailment, so that half of them died as well.
They believed that we had killed them, and we're in
fact certain of it, so they agreed among themselves to
kill those of us who had survived. Just before the
planned slaughter of the Spaniards, one of the natives respected
leaders argues for mercy the reasons that if the Spanish
were responsible for the death of the natives, and why
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did so many Spaniards die alongside them, The Elder's argument
spares the life of Esteban and the fourteen other men
still alive. However, soon enough more men die. What was
once a mighty expedition of six men is now just
four men. They are Cabeza de Vaca, Captain's Alonzo Castillo,
and Andrestaurants, and of course Esteban. Their survival has rendered
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the four men into equals. Esteban's former master has become
his fellow slave. The last four survivors of the Nartibus
expedition are held as captives by their native hosts, and
they live as their slaves for the next six years.
That is except for Esteban. He becomes a slave to
a slave, and yet his two forms of enslavement are
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quite different. No matter what continent you were standing on
in it's likely there are enslaved people there. There were
sub Saharan black enslaved people serving Chinese emperors. There were
blonde haired Europeans serving as slaves to Ottoman Turk Sultan's.
Slavery was everywhere and everyone was doing it, including the
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indigenous tribes of the Americas. This was a very early
moment in the history of Spanish colonization of the New world.
The type of slavery that we mostly have in mind
when we read about slavery in the America's is the
plantation type slavery, which has yet to develop at this
time in the fifties and fifteen thirties. It is just beginning.
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I mean, there are some sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean,
but very incipient. So many of these slaves are accompanying
the expeditions of exploration. In some cases, these were individuals
who were taken because of their military prowess, their ability
to fight what was indigenous slavery, like for Esteban and
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the Three Spaniards. In many cases, what we find, for example,
which you know many listeners may find surprising, is that
the Europeans actually went to the native groups living there
and they wanted to be taken by them because they
were at the brink of starvation, and in some cases
the native groups would not take them. So so, rather
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than slavery in the traditional sense to gain plantations, slavery
people purposefully taken from one continent forcibly brought to another continent, etcetera.
In this case, what we have is more like stray
dogs being tolerated in camp so to speak, in part
because of the environmental and ecological constraints that existed in
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this part of the North America, in the coast of Texas,
where there wasn't too much food. You could benefit from
the added work for the labor that these individuals could bring,
but they were also mouths, additional mouths to feed, and
so these were really burdens in some cases. Nonetheless, we
do know that they were enslaved, the meaning that they
were prevented from leaving, and that's part of the story
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of white exciting that they ended up transforming themselves and
leaving the situation of captivity in which they found themselves.
After six punishing years as slaves, Esteban and his three
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Spaniard companions decide to free themselves and head west into
the unknown. On a full moon night, they sneak away.
Their plan is daring and it's also a success. They
are once again free, well except for Estebon, He's still
technically a slave. For five days, the survivors walked to
the west. When they reach a river, they pitch lodge
tents and set up camp. Soon enough, they crossed paths
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with a new neighboring tribe. Still desperate for food. They're
going to need a new strategy if they want to
avoid being enslaved again. So Esteban and the three Spaniards
become holy men. How did these men come up with
the idea of becoming rather pretending to be healers. So
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we don't know whether these four individuals trying to survive
were the ones who manipulated the natives or rather the
other way around. What we know what they say, what
these foresay is that in fact, it was the natives
who initially forced them to cure by engaging in the
types of curing ceremonies that they were used to the
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Europeans in order to gain access to food, obliged and
did what the what the Indians wanted them to do. Again,
it's very difficult to explain this. We know that they
were very successful at some of the cures that they did.
Obviously use this as an example of how God was
using these four individuals as their instruments, as his instrument
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in order to perform these conversions and miracles all through
the interior of North America. The first among the survivors
to become a healer is a long to Castillo. This
makes sense since he's the son of a physician, but
as such, she's also reluctant to misuse medicine. Kabasa de
Vaca isn't so careful. As the native demand grows, he
soon becomes a healer too. Perhaps it was the Pacebo effect,
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perhaps it was an act of faith, whatever it was.
After Kabasa Devaca performs those first rites of healing, the
next day, a native everyone thought was on deak door
can suddenly walk. Word of this quasi miracle soon spreads
from tribe to tribe to tribe. It changes everything. Now
the four are welcomed wherever they travel. Until then, Durantes
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and the Negro had not cured anyone. But we found
ourselves so pressed by the Indians coming from all sides,
that all of us had to become medicine men I
was the most daring and reackless of all in undertaking curs.
Kabasa Devaca even dares to perform a rudimentary surgery where
he removes an arrowhead from a man's chest. It's lodged
close to the man's heart. Somehow, the field surgery operation
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is a success. He stitches the man up and no
infection sets in the man is healed, thus begins their
lives as holy men. They soon become known as children
of the Sun. In your book A Lance So Strange,
you write that after ten tho years apart, the human
family was finally reconnected in the New World. What must
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have the native population made of these strange men who
are their first contact with the West. This particular expedition
is remarkable in that it was very early on and
it is the very first expedition that we know that
went into the interior of what is now North America UM.
Whenever you are really talking about early expeditions, in many
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cases Native Americans already had seen other Europeans, so it
was not the very first time. But this is one
of the rare instances in which, truly this was the
first time Native Americans, especially of the interior, actually saw
people from beyond the Americas UM. And it must have
been especially striking because, as you know, in the end,
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it was only four survivors, three European, three white Europeans,
and this black man Stevan Nico, who must have cut
a an incredible figure walking in the middle of North
America where and clearly they spoke very strange languages. They
looked completely different. They were clearly people who must have
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come from incredibly far away. The language that we know
was used to refer to them in some places was
the children of the Sun, alluding to the fact that
these people had come from beyond the ocean, from beyond
their known world. One of the most interesting parts about
their account is that they described very well populated places.
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This adventure took place in the fifteen twenties fifteen thirties,
before the great devastation that would later occur. So the
image that we would get later on from seventeenth century explorers,
especially you know, English explorers, of these virgin soil with
overgrown woods and very small indigenous footprint, this is not
at all what you're saying. Year these very early on.
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This is a time prior to these great decimation. And
at the same time, these four individuals report tremendous indigenous
mortality as their adventures unfolding. So so really this is
the closest we can get to the moment when these
great decimation is occurring in North America. In the next
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few decades, as subsequent Spaniards explore the America's the indigenous
population is reduced by disease, and estimated of the native
population is dead by the year sixt Ironically, the men
have become a traveling disease vector, a super spreader, if
you will, not that that slows them down. As Estevan
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and the other survivors continue their march west to the Pacific,
their fame grows as words spreads of the children of
the Sun, who are healing all those brought to them.
They begin to gather in indigenous entourage. A crowd travels
with them, camping with them at night, walking with them
in the day, introducing them to their neighbors, suggesting paths
to take. The entourage swells from dozens into hundreds, and
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then into the thousands. It's like a traveling tent show
or some migratory summer concert. They transformed themselves from lowly
slaves into these revered holy men, basically these four healers
who were passed from one group to another as these
very precious possessions. So that's how they essentially crossed the
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entire continent from east to west, and they re emerged
on the Pacific side. The men are site to behold, naked,
their hair long, their faces obscured by shaggy beards. Estebon
acts as the group's translator. He often travels ahead of
the others, since he's gifted with that ability to learn
languages quickly. As a show of respect, the tribes give
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the men spiritual totems. Estebon gathers the many magical items
from the tribes they heal. He decorates his naked body
in their gift of feathers. He wears all the many
beated necklaces and anklets and aqua marine jewelry. Estebon sticks
out amongst his companions a black man dressed like a god.
The further west they travel, the more Estebon looks like
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a god on earth, and the more he acts like it.
As far as God's go, Estebon isn't a shy god.
He apparently leverages his role to afford himself some physical pleasures,
such as his reported custom of asking for women to
attend to him. The overly chased Spanish treasurer Combas of
the Vaca doesn't ever mention sex explicitly in his first
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hand account of the travels across the Southwest. He knows
the church will be reading his words, but we can
assume the men feel the call of their physical needs,
and that their physical needs are satisfied on occasion over
their many years in the wilderness. None of these men
were a saint. It is curious to wonder if Estebon
or the others left behind any children fathered with a
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Native partner, and if Esteban or the others has any
descendants that still alive today. Listeners might imagine that these
men are in the wilderness, but it wasn't like they
were stumbling across America. They were essentially traveling on main
highways and roads that the indigenous people's had used for
centuries or millennia. In some cases, they reached the area
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that is directly south of New Mexico, right in the
middle of North America, and they described trade of copper
bells that are coming to the west and south, but
from hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. It was
a vibrant indigenous trading network. But by the time later
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European or even American explorers like Lewis and Clark, or
not Love in his cowboy days trekked across the wilderness
of the West, evidence of this vast transcontinental trading network
was lost to the centuries it was gone with the people.
As Esteban and the survivors continue their trek westward. They
have no idea that their idyllic life as God's on
(32:00):
Earth is about to come to an abrupt end. Fittingly,
their first indication that they are back in European dominated
lands comes to them around Christmas Day. It arrives in
the form of Christian brutality. When the survivors reached present
day Baja Mexico, it's Castillo who spots a metal belt
buckle worn by an indigenous man. The Spaniards asked the
(32:20):
native man where are he found such a belt. The
native man explains that there are Christians nearby, but they're dangerous.
The survivors soon learned that the Christians nearby are snatching natives,
taking them away by the scores and dozens. The reason
was simple, they were being traded for cows. The cattle
(32:41):
culture that took hold in Mexico in the sixteenth century
in and around Mexico City was the seed of what
would become the Volcano culture, which would then become the
cowboy culture of the West. The Spanish ranches outside Mexico
City blended the hurting traditions of Andalusia and the cattle
hurting traditions of West Africa to create a new way
to herd cattle on horseback. But first they had to
(33:01):
have something to hurt. Can you describe how the first
Mexican cattle ranches of New Spain started by trading people
for animals, such as the natives who are traveling with Esteban. Well,
of course, first of all, it was the question of
the animals, right the animals were did not exist in
the New World. Cows, pigs, chickens, They did not sheep.
So the Caribbean islands had some gold mines and did
(33:24):
not have enough labor to work them, and they had
an abundance of animals because they had been the first
ones to be colonized. Europeans had brought cattle and sheep, etcetera.
And they had reproduced there and they had so it
seemed like a perfect match made in heaven. Here you
have a fairly well populated region of Mexico, easy access
(33:45):
and directly opposite to the islands. And so by by
sending all of these Indian slaves and trading them for cattle,
what we have is an early influx of cattle into
this region in in a lowland troup tlical environment. So
I've seen estimates of about a quarter of a million
head of cattle by the sixteen twenties from just a
(34:09):
few animals that were traded for Indian slaves. Kaba, the Vaca,
and Estebon travel ahead to meet the Christian slave catchers nearby.
It doesn't take long to find them. Turns out the
Christian slave catchers are Spaniards, just like the survivors. They've
been working on their own colonial project, and as such
(34:31):
they're shocked at the sight of a naked Estebon, predecked
only in his feathers and aqua marine jewelry is full
on children of the sun fit. The Christian slave catchers
are equally shocked at the sight of the naked, long bearded,
deeply sun chapped Royal treasurer kabas the Voca looks like
no Spaniard they've ever seen before. That is probably a
(34:52):
key moment, first of all, of the degree to which
the the castaways had changed, had been transformed as a
result of these nine years wondering in the interior of
North America. I find it very hardening that by virtue
of their continued contact with natives. By inter interacting with
(35:14):
them on a more human basis, they had come to
recognize the humanity all of all of these Native Americans.
They had become very different from their fellow Europeans who
were at the other end and who wanted to enslave
the people who were accompanying the forecastaways. The Spaniards controlled
this territory, enslaved the natives to do their labor. But
(35:37):
with the arrival of the four men, the question turned
to what will become a vestibant who's been living free.
He attained a certain level of equality with the with
the other three, even though he had originally been a
slave of one of the three of Andre's dantis. But
all of that dissipated instantly when the four, as you say,
(35:58):
reached European controlled territory. And even the four survives, even
Salivaca refers very coldly, I took the black man with me. Clearly,
the the old Spanish hierarchical mode kicked in immediately, and
uh and Stevan Nico went back to being what he
had been before their adventure as slave. In these expedition
(36:21):
of discovery, it's a Sunday when Esteban and the others
(36:43):
are celebrated in the joyous streets of Mexico City. This
means everyone can come to see them. Even slaves have
Sunday off, you know, for the Sabbath. There's a grand
victory celebration in Mexico City. There is a festival, a
bull fight, and a tournament. I mean the forecast aways.
Whereas in station in Mexico City, these were guys who
(37:03):
had been presumed dead for nine years. For eight years
they had lived. They had incredible tales to tail. They
had been shown naked in a church in Mexico City,
which is something that people remembered even a generation later.
There's another black man there in Mexico City, a man
who may have taken particular interest in the return of Esteban.
(37:27):
It was Juan Handsome John Garrido, the bold and brave
black adventurer who first set foot on the dry sands
of La Florida. At the top of the show, after
he had left the service upon ste Leone, Garrido chose
to sail with the infamous her Non Cortez. Garrido stayed
by the side of that mad conquistador even after Cortez
intentionally destroyed his own fleet in order to force his
(37:49):
small army of men to fully commit to his plans
of conquest. Garrido was with the man who would be
king when Cortez launched his war of conquest against the Aztec.
Garrido is there for every horror inflicted on the Aztec people,
and Garto is still there with Cortez in Mexico City
in July A, fifteen thirty six, when Esteban arrives, Esteban
(38:11):
and the other survivors are paraded through the streets hailed
as returning heroes. Did Handsome John meet Esteban the Negro?
Did the two black men's paths cross in Mexico City
when Esteban and Cabeza de Vaca arrived. It is possible.
Clearly they probably met many people during their stay in
Mexico Sydney, and it is not inconceivable that Juan Garrigo
(38:35):
and Estevanico may have met. So there's no I don't
know of any evidence to this, but it is reasonable
to assume that they could have. Soon after they arrived
in Mexico City, Estebon the Negro, the Royal Treasurer Cabeza
de Vaca, along with captains and restaurants, and Alonzo Castillo,
are called before the Spanish court, there to tell the
authorities of the conquered land all that they saw and
(38:57):
experience on their travels from Florida to Mexico. Esteban's observations
are the most valuable to their inquisitors. Although a slave
under Spanish law, when Estebon speaks, even her non Cortez
listens and wrapped attention. Esteban describes for the gold craze
Spaniards cities where gemstones decorate the walls. He calls them
(39:18):
the Seven Cities of Gold. A new explanation north is
immediately planned. Cortes dreams of new adventure for gold and glory.
He'll just need someone to lead it, someone who's been there.
There's one big problem for Cortes, though, and his plans
to find the fabled Cities of Gold. He now has
a new rival, Antonio de Mendoza. He's been appointed the
(39:40):
first Viceroy of New Spain, which means he has more
power than Cortez. Mendoza asked of the Voca, but the
Royal treasurer is over it. He doesn't want to go back.
Mendoza next goes to the captains and ask both of them,
but Darante and Castillo both refuse. The fourth man doesn't
have to be asked, he only has to be purchased.
Mendoza attempts to buy Esteban from Durants. I wonder did
(40:06):
Captain durant is hesitate at all to sell his fellow survivor.
There's very little information. We know that viceroy men those
offered five hundred paces, which is a very considerable sum
for a steban, and send it to Durantis, and Durant refused,
and he basically gave a steban because he believed that
was for the greater good of Spain. I suppose there
(40:27):
was an emotional connection in the sense that he could
not conceive of himself essentially selling his slave, but he
could conceive of himself giving up his slave and friend
and companion for a greater cause for the Spanish colony
that existed in the New World. Durants and Castillo make
(40:47):
plans to set sail home for old Spain. Worn out,
they count themselves lucky to be alive kbisit. Devaca also
leaves as the former's second in command, he must report
to his king on the fate of the doomed Narvaias expedition.
After years relying on each other to stay alive, the
three other men leave Esteban alone in Mexico City. His
(41:07):
life is now in the hands of a greedy viceroy,
a man who leads the most powerful province of the
most powerful empire on earth, the Holy Roman Empire. But
perhaps Esteban wants to return to the wilderness. What if
his stories of the Seven Cities of Gold are part
of a ploy to return to the Southwest. Could he
be exaggerating his stories in order to get back to
(41:29):
where he was once a god. One thing everyone in
the New World figures out real quick is that the
best way to get the Spanish to leave you alone
is to tell them there's gold down the road, then
draw them a map of how to get there. The
Spanish padre named Friar Marcos Niza, is sent along on
(41:51):
the expedition. He records their adventures as they marched north
into the present day Sinalo in state of Mexico and
further into what his present day New Mexico. At home
in the wilderness of the Southwest, moving between communities of natives,
peoples who knew and revered him, Estebon begins to once
again act as a god on earth. This, of course,
offends the devout monk the Friar grows so offended by
(42:14):
Esteban's behavior he suggests that they split into two parties
to create a little distance between them. His choice mirrors
the earlier doomed Narvaias expedition. When Esteban and his scouting
party reached the first of the seven Cities of Gold,
the fabled city of Cibola, he sends runners ahead to
the city to announce his imminent arrival. He is, after all,
(42:35):
a god on earth. The runners return with a message.
It's a warning not to enter the city. Esteban laughs
off their warning. He asked runners from his entourage to
take his gourd to the chief of the sebe La community.
It's a necklace, he wares that holds great medicine. It
was a gift. It signifies his status as a powerful figure,
a holy man. It was also made by an enemy tribe.
(42:59):
That's bad news for Esteban. He doesn't know this though. Meanwhile,
when his gourd isn't returned, Esteban sends a new message.
He tries to scare the community with threats of the Spaniards.
Esteban tells the people of Cibolow that behind him there
is an army of white men and they are coming,
and they will not stop coming, and they cannot be defeated.
(43:21):
The people he's just met are the Ashwi. They're also
known as the Zuni. They're one of the bands of
the Pueblo people who still reside in the canyon lands
of New Mexico and Arizona. The Ashwi have their own vibe.
Their language is what linguists call an isolate language. That
means it shares no known shared root words with their
neighbors or any other indigenous language, not a single one
(43:45):
which you think about. It suggests a general cultural attitude,
or at least it offers an insight into their relationships
with their neighbors. Unaware of whose hosts are, Esteban gladly
accepts his new hosts offer to stay of the night,
but outside their city. There are some versions of the
(44:06):
story that suggests Esteban asked the ash to send him
some young women to entertain him for the night. It
said this request offends his host and ultimately is why
they choose to kill him. I don't know. That feels
like a white anthropologist projecting if you ask me. The
truth is, we don't know exactly what happens on that
fateful night. Esteban maybe wondering if his luck is finally
(44:27):
run out, or perhaps he falls asleep easily like some
guiltless infant. In the morning, Esteban and his entourage are
summoned before the leaders of the Ashwi. He steps forward,
expecting to be invited in. We don't know exactly what
happens that next morning either. Here is an account of
the fate of the first Black Cowboy, as recorded by
(44:48):
Friar Marcos de Niza, and as told to him by
two natives who were traveling with Esteban and barely live
to tell the tale. The next day, when the sons
Lunt's land, High Stepan went from the house and some
of the chiefs with him, and at once there came
many people from the city, and when he saw them,
(45:10):
he began to flee, and we with him immediately arrows,
trokes and gashes, and we felt, and upon us felt
some dead men, and so we remained until night without
daring to move. We heard loud voices in the city
and on the terrace as we saw many men and
women watching. We saw no more of a Stevan, but
(45:33):
we believe that they shot him with arrows, as they
did the rest who were with him, of whom there
escaped none but us. Today, artisans the Ashway people create
cocina dolls. They're distinctive figurines which depict the spirit world
(45:56):
and its gods and demons. One of the kachina dolls
at the ash We still make is an all black
figure named Chakwaina. Some say it's a totem figure of
Esteban and that it tells the story of the time
a black god came to them and warned them that
behind him followed the white men. There are those among
the Ashwi who have yet to forgive Esteban for bringing
(46:16):
the armies of white men to their front door. The
story of Esteban Durant's ak Estebon the nekro a k
a Estebon the more a k Estebanico is the tale
of an Arabic speaking African man who found himself at
home in the west, a black man who called the
stars his ceiling and the hard earth his bed, although
(46:37):
we have no record that he ever rode a horse
or that he knew a single solitary thing about cows.
Esteban was the first black cowboy. His story in his
Undeniable Cowboy Way, embodies the spirit of the black men
who would follow him into the America's particularly the Southwest.
He represents all the black men who would later walk
their way to freedom, men who stole away into the
(46:59):
wilderness escape slavery, men who relied on the traditions of
their African ancestors to survive as they labored in the
land of their captors. It's said that black people were
born on the water there on the waves of the Atlantic,
somewhere halfway between Africa and the New World. It's equally
important that we remembered that there were Spanish speaking black
(47:20):
cowboys riding around outside of Mexico City on horseback, and
later they moved with the cattle into the Southwest. They
helped create facio culture, which becomes cowboy culture. And all
of this happens long before Shakespeare ever published his first play.
(47:53):
Thanks for listening. Next up, John Horse, a black Seminole
war chief of led America's most successful revolted within People,
a black Indian hero who won freedom and land for
his people from two presidents of the US and one
President of Mexico. Black Cowboys is written by me Is
Aaron Burnett, produced and edited by Ryan Murdoch and Michelle Lands.
(48:15):
Our theme song is written and performed by Demeanor. Sound
designed in music by Jeremy Thal. Additional music by Alvin
Young Blood Heart with special musical guest guitarist jose Manuel Alcantara.
Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson, Marissa Brown, Jocelyn Sears,
and Aaron Blakemore with voices by Marco jan Yellie Special
(48:37):
thanks to Professor Andreas Rossendez. Check out his book A
Lanso Strange, The Epic Journey of Kabasa Devaka. Show logo
by Lucy Quentinia. Executive producers are Jason English and Man
Guesh At Ticket Special thanks as always to my pop. Yeah.
This is a home that's been a long role for us.
(48:59):
We take it on its tip over everything else to us.
Real ty were surrounded by our heritage are fisked up
because we're try to be American. Ask himself was really
in the name. Sitting on a Mustang Friday through the
(49:21):
Plains Buffalo, So to the King of the Rains, we
in love with the Chwboys. Way
At the edge of the continent, where the sea meets
the land. The launch boat is dragged ashore by grunting
men who've come looking for gold. When the men, in
their peculiar broad chested metal armor and high leather boots
reached the dry sand, they step out of the sea
and set foot on what they think is an island.
Juan Ponce de Leon is the conquistador at the head
of the small army of invaders. In Latin and Spanish
(00:34):
post de Leon claims the land for his king and
for God in heaven. He names it La Florida. It's
(00:56):
highly likely the first man from that expedition to hop
out of the boat and set foot on the North
American continent was a free black man, or rather a
gentleman adventurer, an African man who may have been born
in the kingdom of the Congo. That's with a K.
That's important. He was possibly a prince. He converted to Christianity.
Perhaps he did it for the truth he found in
the faith, or perhaps is as some historians say, he
(01:18):
was enslaved, converted against his will and given a new
name before he was later freed in Spain and then
joined his former Master on an earlier voyage to the
New World. Or maybe he converted because Spain had forbidden
Jewish and Muslim people from sailing to the New World,
and thus if he wants to go searching for gold
and glory, he needs to first adopt a new faith
(01:39):
and a new name. For whatever reason, the African man
changed his name to one Garrido. In Spanish, it means
handsome John or elegant John. The year was thirteen when
that free black man named Handsome John first set foot
in the sands of La Florida. This is a whole
(02:07):
century before the first slave ship will arrive in Jamestown,
Virginian in six nineteen. In plain terms, the story of
Black America doesn't begin in slavery. Instead, it begins with
Spanish conquistadors and with his free African adventurer, Juan Garrido.
Pants of John, Elegant John. I'm Zarring Burnett. Welcome to
(02:28):
Black Cowboys and I are original podcast. Yeah, this is
a home. It's been a long road for us. We
take it ownership over everything else. Us realty, we surrounded
by our heritage are fisked up because we're try to
be Ammerican. Chapter four. The first black cowboy Esteban, the Negro.
(02:54):
He actual itself was really in the name. Sitting on
a mustand Friday to the play, but below little range
we love with the cowboy quay. We don't know much
(03:16):
else about Handsome John, but we do know that the
story of black cowboys begins fifteen years later with a
different Spanish expedition, and it begins not on horseback riding
the high plains, but with horses tied up on Spanish
ships riding the high seas, frightened beasts, surrounded by terrified sailors,
most likely each man praying that they'd survived the brutal
(03:39):
hell storm. The men pray in many languages. The storm
they encountered was so vicious that the Europeans had no
word for it. The term they used was an adopted
word from the Tyano people, hurrican. Today we'd likely call
it a category five hurricane. So we'll say our story
of Black cowboys begins with a hurricane. It's a storm
(04:05):
of mythic proportions. Some of the devout Spaniards see it
as a bad omen a sign of God's displeasure with them.
The royal treasure on the voyage. A man named Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca records the storm and his chronicle
of the expedition. He is the reason we know the
details of the story were about to tell Kabiza. Devaca's
chronicle regales its readers with one of the strangest, most desperate,
(04:27):
and daring adventures in the history of European exploration. It's
also the story of an African man sold into bondage,
taken by the Portuguese, sold again in a Spanish slave market,
and finally taken to the New World, all against his will.
Esteban the Negro or Esteban the more the Spanish called
him Estevanico. Before his voyage and his adventures in North
(04:50):
America are over, he will transform from a slave into
a god. Eat your heart out easy, and he did
it for real. At the moment, though, Esteban doesn't know
his fate. He's yet to make landfall. He's uncertain if
he will survive the night. It's easy to imagine Esteban
the more praying in Arabic that it's the will of
(05:12):
a law that he be spared from the storm. But
is this accurate. Stevan was a man from assam Or,
sam Or, being a an Arabic speaking primarily Muslim town
on the coast of what is now Morocco. That's Professor
Andreas Percendes from the University of California Davis. He's also
(05:32):
the author of a Land So Strange, The Epic Journey
of Cabeza de Vaca. We don't know the precise details,
but it is likely that some of these inhabitants of
assam Or were sold both in Portugal but also in
the markets of neighboring Spain, and so it is likely
that Stevan in particular were sold in Seville and was
sold to his eventual owner and purchaser, who Andreas Duran
(05:57):
is one of the members of this expedition. There's some
debate about whether Esteban was black or a Moorish North African,
possibly Muslim. What do we know about his ethnicity right?
I mean we know very little. Uh Salibaka himself, in
the first person account that he would later write about
this whole thing in two just describes Steban in one
(06:20):
line saying that he was a man of Moorish descent
who was black. This is important because, of course, this
whole area of Morocco was a very mixed kind of area.
You could not assume the skin color of the people
who lived there. Some of them were black and some
of them were not. The fact that he says a
Laab means Moorish, so we know that he must have
(06:44):
professed Islam at some point. And of course, once he
came into contact with the Portuguese, he was forced to
convert to Christianity and was given a Christian name, Esteban
as in Saint stephen Um, and then transferred to Spain.
So that's pretty much what we know about the earlier
history of Stevan. It's, as you say, extremely difficult to
(07:04):
know precisely who he was. His owner is named Captain
Andres Darantis. He is an adventurer, but he chased his
wealth since he was born poor, barely able to afford
a slave. He needs the riches of the New World,
unlike say Kobe Devaka, who comes from nobility and is
the grandson of a famous veteran of the Reconquista that
(07:25):
took Spain back from the Moors after centuries of foreign occupation.
After their victory over the Moors in fourteen ninety two,
Spain decided that the best defense was a good offense,
and thus the small nation expanded into an empire, a
world spanning empire. In early December fifteen twenty six, King
(07:45):
Charles the Fifth, soon to be crowned the Holy Roman Emperor,
awarded a license to the land discovered and named La
Florida to a second conquistador, a man named Pnphilo de Narvaez.
The land Narvaez was awarded was an immense strip, one
that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It covered
not only the state of Florida, but land that would
become the Gulf States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, as well
(08:08):
as Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Baja California. To ensure
in our bias was good to his word, the Royal
Treasurer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was sent along with him.
He was the eyes of the crown. Cabeza de Vaca
was second in command, appointed by an answerable directly to
the King. Captain Andres durant Is on one of the
(08:29):
five ships off Norvas's second expedition. With him is his
slave Esteban. They've crossed the Atlantic buoyed by the arrogance
of the European conquerors. But now when they meet the
humbling reality of the new world, the men's faith is
brutally shaken. Have they angered God in heaven? Sixty people
and twenty horses perished on the ships. Those who went
(08:52):
on land the day will arrived, some thirty men were
all who survived from the crew of both ships. Instead
of making landfall in Mexico in April, the Narvaia's fleet
sails into present day Tampa Bay. They miss their target
by about a thousand miles. Worst of all, the Spaniards
don't understand how badly they've missed their mark. They believe
(09:12):
that at most they're fifty miles away from their target destination.
So Narvaias makes a terrible decision, one that dooms his expedition.
He chooses to split his expedition in two. He sends
all of his best men and all the horses ashore.
He'll leave skeleton crews on the ships, just enough men
to handle the sales and to protect the ten women
(09:33):
who also made the trip. Narvallas directs the ships to
hug the coast. He and the best soldiers and the
horsemen will explore the interior, you know, just in case
there's any gold laying about for them to discover. The
men sent ashore each given two pounds of biscuit and
half a pound of bacon. Esteban's master, Captain Durant's, is
(09:54):
a loyal soldier. He obediently follows orders. This means Estebon
is forced to do the same. Da tastes and Esteban
board the launch. It's an oversized rowboat. It pushes away
from the fleet. They row for the Florida coastline or
slice into the waves. As the gold staff men's minds
hungrily devoured dreams of riches awaiting them. Each man imagines
(10:14):
the life changing fortune that they will pull out of
the earth. The men disembarked from the launches and set
foot on dry land. As they marched through the swaps,
the men scan the flat and featureless sandbar that we
call Florida, assuming at any minute they might cite gold.
But Florida is a slab of limestone. Essentially, the only
way you'd ever find gold in Florida's if someone had
(10:37):
dropped it. Poor Esteban, he is a slave to greedy fools.
These expeditions. These Spanish expeditions to the New World were
very much business ventures. Their business was to settle different
parts of the New World that they had pre contracted
with the Spanish ground and so the idea was that
(11:00):
they would settle, but also of course that they would
turn a profit by exploring whatever profitable either precious metals
or other marketable commodities commodities they could find there. In
order to make that work, they needed an array of
different professions, different skill set uh. And so when we
(11:21):
are talking about these early explorers or these early ventures,
we are really talking about a microcosm of everything from
very prominent Spanish officials normally in charge of the venture
and normally with without significant financial stake, meaning that they
had provided for their own horses and arms and provisions, slaves, etcetera,
(11:46):
who had no choice in the matter, had to go
to the New World, and who whatever profit accrue to
them would be pocketed by the owner. That's the bond
is prone to all these competing whims, rivalries, and business
agenda of the gold Mad conquistadors. Within days of landing,
the expedition of men and horses is separated from the
fleet of ships they lose sight of one another. The
(12:08):
survivors are now officially stranded in an inhospitable wilderness. They're
like astronauts on some distant planet. The men's bodies are
tested immediately. There are injuries, but more importantly, men start
to suffer from unknown diseases and infections. It's just the
beginning of their suffering. They don't know it yet, but
the majority of the Spaniards will die, just some will
(12:30):
die slower than others. As the Spaniards marched north, they
reach a bend in the coastline where Florida turns left
at the Panhandle. The explorers are terribly confused. The coastline
bends the wrong way. This confirms two facts. They are
(12:52):
nowhere near Mexico, and they are well and truly lost.
Narvaias And is slowly dying. Men desperately need food and
a new plan. It doesn't take them long to come
up with it. Their new plan is gruesome. They make
the difficult decision to slaughter their beloved horses. The men
believe horse meat will keep death's fingers away from Spanish throats.
(13:13):
The new plan is also a long shot. They'll build
life rafts from the hides and the sinew of the
dead horses. There's one problem, though, All of the mariners
with shipbuilding skills stayed on the ships. The men now
wandering the Florida swamps, men like Cabeca de Vaca and
Captain Dantis, are mostly court officials and soldiers. Few are
actual sailors. There's just one carpenter among them. You can
(13:37):
only imagine what the scene must have been in these
beach in what is now the Florida Panhandle. This is
something that we don't think about when we in in
our modern era. The difficulty of just holding water fresh water,
because they were venturing into the ocean, and they did
that by curing the legs of the horses that they
were killing. And you can also imagine the emotional tall
(14:00):
of the conquissadors who were very much attached to their horses.
These were their everyday companions, and you know, they had
to be killed. They would be able to eat their
their meat, and they would use the mains and the
tails of the horses in order to braid some rope
to use it for these five five barges, and they
(14:20):
would you know, chop down several dozen very large trees
chop off all the branches and make these five barges
in order to continue coasting what is now the northern
rim of the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, there's Esteban. He
knows this new plan means new hardships for him. The
labor demanded from him will be the most difficult that
(14:41):
any of the survivors is asked to do at the
Bay of Horses. What is Esteban doing at this time?
Is there any record of his actions? We don't really
know what is Stevan specifically did during this You can
imagine that the work must have been grueling, and so
it's a good supposition that the slaves in the expedition
and the lowest ranking men would be especially exploited, unexpected
(15:03):
to do more than than the normal share of work.
According to Kabasa Devaca, they start work on August four.
According to their rough calculations, in order to carry all
the survivors, they'll need to build five enormous barred style
life rafts. They build a metalsmithing forage and fuel it
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with air from a deer skin bellows. They melt down
their stirrups, spurs, swords and crossbows, and form the molten
metal into axis, saw blades and nails. For the hull
of the rafts, they chopped down tall pines and cedar trees.
Each raft is to be around thirty three ft long.
For five rafts, the Spanders must chop down roughly a
hundred and fifty trees using their rudimentary hand tools made
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out of melted down belt buckles. To create sales for
the rafts, the survivors use their own clothing. They sew
shirts together with the hides of their slaughtered horses. They
braid the hair of the horses tails and manes to
make the rope they used to lash together the logs.
Six weeks later, they've constructed five sea ready vessels. They're
ready to escape the swampy hell of Florida. On the
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twenty day of September, just after they kill and eat
their last horse, the men set sail for their original destination,
the Rio de Las Palmas in present day of Mexico.
But killing their horses and turning their clothing into sails
by melting down their swords and muskets, the Spaniards are
now naked and defenseless. The sea is their only salvation
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for estabond. This is less true. He doesn't know how
to swim. He climbs on board the life raft. He
has no reasonable expectation to survive, and yet he goes
on to thrive in the new world. Not just thrive.
Soon he will be a god. For the first week,
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the five life rafts hugged the coast. We sailed seven
days among those inlets, in waste deep water, with no
sign of anything like a beach. The rafts are surprisingly seaworthy,
not bad for a bunch of amateur boat builders. They
sail for a month along the Gulf coast without sinking.
At night, as they drift along, surrounded by inky darkness
the sky reflected in the surface of the ocean, it
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must have felt like they were floating in the heavens,
somewhere between life and death, somewhere between the moon and
the sea. I like to imagine Esteban, unable to swim,
yet staring up at the heavens above, wondering if he
would die there among the stars. Combat the Vaca notes
at the commander of their expedition, Ponfilo de Norvaie, selects
all the strongest and best men for his boat. Reports
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from other castaways tell us that one night he orders
everyone else on his barge to sleep on the shore
as protection for him while he sleeps aboard the life
raft along with the best mate. Somehow, the Narva's barge
slips loose from its mooring. The raft drifts out to
see the current catches them and carries them further and
further out, never to be seen again. It's the final
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failure of the conquistador Ponfilo de Narvaez. The rest of
the survivors are now officially on their own Esteban. The
Negro and Cabesta de Vaca, on different barges, have both
stayed alive and lucky, and soon their two faiths will
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once again braid together. For now both of their life
rafts eventually find friendly beaches. The fifty or so men
aboard each raft are able to safely land on an
island just off of the coast of what we call Texas,
somewhere around present day Galveston. The survivors are met by
a band of natives. They get lucky. The natives are
welcoming to the men who just stepped out of the sea.
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They take the survivors to their village to help them
recuperate from their ordeal. The tribe celebrates the arrival of
the survivors with a dance party, one that lasts all night.
Free of Norvaia's and his fatal incompetence, things are finally
looking up for the first Black Cowboy, and then the
cold of winter descends. Fish are now hard to find,
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roots and berries even harder. Hunger starts to gnaw at
the bellies of the survivors and their native hosts. European
diseases have begun to spread. They have no defenses for
the invisible killers. After a short time, out of eight
demen who had come there in our two parties, only
fifth team remained alive. Then the natives fell sick from
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my stomach ailment, so that half of them died as well.
They believed that we had killed them, and we're in
fact certain of it, so they agreed among themselves to
kill those of us who had survived. Just before the
planned slaughter of the Spaniards, one of the natives respected
leaders argues for mercy the reasons that if the Spanish
were responsible for the death of the natives, and why
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did so many Spaniards die alongside them, The Elder's argument
spares the life of Esteban and the fourteen other men
still alive. However, soon enough more men die. What was
once a mighty expedition of six men is now just
four men. They are Cabeza de Vaca, Captain's Alonzo Castillo,
and Andrestaurants, and of course Esteban. Their survival has rendered
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the four men into equals. Esteban's former master has become
his fellow slave. The last four survivors of the Nartibus
expedition are held as captives by their native hosts, and
they live as their slaves for the next six years.
That is except for Esteban. He becomes a slave to
a slave, and yet his two forms of enslavement are
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quite different. No matter what continent you were standing on
in it's likely there are enslaved people there. There were
sub Saharan black enslaved people serving Chinese emperors. There were
blonde haired Europeans serving as slaves to Ottoman Turk Sultan's.
Slavery was everywhere and everyone was doing it, including the
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indigenous tribes of the Americas. This was a very early
moment in the history of Spanish colonization of the New world.
The type of slavery that we mostly have in mind
when we read about slavery in the America's is the
plantation type slavery, which has yet to develop at this
time in the fifties and fifteen thirties. It is just beginning.
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I mean, there are some sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean,
but very incipient. So many of these slaves are accompanying
the expeditions of exploration. In some cases, these were individuals
who were taken because of their military prowess, their ability
to fight what was indigenous slavery, like for Esteban and
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the Three Spaniards. In many cases, what we find, for example,
which you know many listeners may find surprising, is that
the Europeans actually went to the native groups living there
and they wanted to be taken by them because they
were at the brink of starvation, and in some cases
the native groups would not take them. So so, rather
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than slavery in the traditional sense to gain plantations, slavery
people purposefully taken from one continent forcibly brought to another continent, etcetera.
In this case, what we have is more like stray
dogs being tolerated in camp so to speak, in part
because of the environmental and ecological constraints that existed in
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this part of the North America, in the coast of Texas,
where there wasn't too much food. You could benefit from
the added work for the labor that these individuals could bring,
but they were also mouths, additional mouths to feed, and
so these were really burdens in some cases. Nonetheless, we
do know that they were enslaved, the meaning that they
were prevented from leaving, and that's part of the story
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of white exciting that they ended up transforming themselves and
leaving the situation of captivity in which they found themselves.
After six punishing years as slaves, Esteban and his three
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Spaniard companions decide to free themselves and head west into
the unknown. On a full moon night, they sneak away.
Their plan is daring and it's also a success. They
are once again free, well except for Estebon, He's still
technically a slave. For five days, the survivors walked to
the west. When they reach a river, they pitch lodge
tents and set up camp. Soon enough, they crossed paths
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with a new neighboring tribe. Still desperate for food. They're
going to need a new strategy if they want to
avoid being enslaved again. So Esteban and the three Spaniards
become holy men. How did these men come up with
the idea of becoming rather pretending to be healers. So
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we don't know whether these four individuals trying to survive
were the ones who manipulated the natives or rather the
other way around. What we know what they say, what
these foresay is that in fact, it was the natives
who initially forced them to cure by engaging in the
types of curing ceremonies that they were used to the
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Europeans in order to gain access to food, obliged and
did what the what the Indians wanted them to do. Again,
it's very difficult to explain this. We know that they
were very successful at some of the cures that they did.
Obviously use this as an example of how God was
using these four individuals as their instruments, as his instrument
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in order to perform these conversions and miracles all through
the interior of North America. The first among the survivors
to become a healer is a long to Castillo. This
makes sense since he's the son of a physician, but
as such, she's also reluctant to misuse medicine. Kabasa de
Vaca isn't so careful. As the native demand grows, he
soon becomes a healer too. Perhaps it was the Pacebo effect,
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perhaps it was an act of faith, whatever it was.
After Kabasa Devaca performs those first rites of healing, the
next day, a native everyone thought was on deak door
can suddenly walk. Word of this quasi miracle soon spreads
from tribe to tribe to tribe. It changes everything. Now
the four are welcomed wherever they travel. Until then, Durantes
(25:30):
and the Negro had not cured anyone. But we found
ourselves so pressed by the Indians coming from all sides,
that all of us had to become medicine men I
was the most daring and reackless of all in undertaking curs.
Kabasa Devaca even dares to perform a rudimentary surgery where
he removes an arrowhead from a man's chest. It's lodged
close to the man's heart. Somehow, the field surgery operation
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is a success. He stitches the man up and no
infection sets in the man is healed, thus begins their
lives as holy men. They soon become known as children
of the Sun. In your book A Lance So Strange,
you write that after ten tho years apart, the human
family was finally reconnected in the New World. What must
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have the native population made of these strange men who
are their first contact with the West. This particular expedition
is remarkable in that it was very early on and
it is the very first expedition that we know that
went into the interior of what is now North America UM.
Whenever you are really talking about early expeditions, in many
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cases Native Americans already had seen other Europeans, so it
was not the very first time. But this is one
of the rare instances in which, truly this was the
first time Native Americans, especially of the interior, actually saw
people from beyond the Americas UM. And it must have
been especially striking because, as you know, in the end,
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it was only four survivors, three European, three white Europeans,
and this black man Stevan Nico, who must have cut
a an incredible figure walking in the middle of North
America where and clearly they spoke very strange languages. They
looked completely different. They were clearly people who must have
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come from incredibly far away. The language that we know
was used to refer to them in some places was
the children of the Sun, alluding to the fact that
these people had come from beyond the ocean, from beyond
their known world. One of the most interesting parts about
their account is that they described very well populated places.
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This adventure took place in the fifteen twenties fifteen thirties,
before the great devastation that would later occur. So the
image that we would get later on from seventeenth century explorers,
especially you know, English explorers, of these virgin soil with
overgrown woods and very small indigenous footprint, this is not
at all what you're saying. Year these very early on.
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This is a time prior to these great decimation. And
at the same time, these four individuals report tremendous indigenous
mortality as their adventures unfolding. So so really this is
the closest we can get to the moment when these
great decimation is occurring in North America. In the next
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few decades, as subsequent Spaniards explore the America's the indigenous
population is reduced by disease, and estimated of the native
population is dead by the year sixt Ironically, the men
have become a traveling disease vector, a super spreader, if
you will, not that that slows them down. As Estevan
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and the other survivors continue their march west to the Pacific,
their fame grows as words spreads of the children of
the Sun, who are healing all those brought to them.
They begin to gather in indigenous entourage. A crowd travels
with them, camping with them at night, walking with them
in the day, introducing them to their neighbors, suggesting paths
to take. The entourage swells from dozens into hundreds, and
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then into the thousands. It's like a traveling tent show
or some migratory summer concert. They transformed themselves from lowly
slaves into these revered holy men, basically these four healers
who were passed from one group to another as these
very precious possessions. So that's how they essentially crossed the
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entire continent from east to west, and they re emerged
on the Pacific side. The men are site to behold, naked,
their hair long, their faces obscured by shaggy beards. Estebon
acts as the group's translator. He often travels ahead of
the others, since he's gifted with that ability to learn
languages quickly. As a show of respect, the tribes give
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the men spiritual totems. Estebon gathers the many magical items
from the tribes they heal. He decorates his naked body
in their gift of feathers. He wears all the many
beated necklaces and anklets and aqua marine jewelry. Estebon sticks
out amongst his companions a black man dressed like a god.
The further west they travel, the more Estebon looks like
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a god on earth, and the more he acts like it.
As far as God's go, Estebon isn't a shy god.
He apparently leverages his role to afford himself some physical pleasures,
such as his reported custom of asking for women to
attend to him. The overly chased Spanish treasurer Combas of
the Vaca doesn't ever mention sex explicitly in his first
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hand account of the travels across the Southwest. He knows
the church will be reading his words, but we can
assume the men feel the call of their physical needs,
and that their physical needs are satisfied on occasion over
their many years in the wilderness. None of these men
were a saint. It is curious to wonder if Estebon
or the others left behind any children fathered with a
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Native partner, and if Esteban or the others has any
descendants that still alive today. Listeners might imagine that these
men are in the wilderness, but it wasn't like they
were stumbling across America. They were essentially traveling on main
highways and roads that the indigenous people's had used for
centuries or millennia. In some cases, they reached the area
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that is directly south of New Mexico, right in the
middle of North America, and they described trade of copper
bells that are coming to the west and south, but
from hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. It was
a vibrant indigenous trading network. But by the time later
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European or even American explorers like Lewis and Clark, or
not Love in his cowboy days trekked across the wilderness
of the West, evidence of this vast transcontinental trading network
was lost to the centuries it was gone with the people.
As Esteban and the survivors continue their trek westward. They
have no idea that their idyllic life as God's on
(32:00):
Earth is about to come to an abrupt end. Fittingly,
their first indication that they are back in European dominated
lands comes to them around Christmas Day. It arrives in
the form of Christian brutality. When the survivors reached present
day Baja Mexico, it's Castillo who spots a metal belt
buckle worn by an indigenous man. The Spaniards asked the
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native man where are he found such a belt. The
native man explains that there are Christians nearby, but they're dangerous.
The survivors soon learned that the Christians nearby are snatching natives,
taking them away by the scores and dozens. The reason
was simple, they were being traded for cows. The cattle
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culture that took hold in Mexico in the sixteenth century
in and around Mexico City was the seed of what
would become the Volcano culture, which would then become the
cowboy culture of the West. The Spanish ranches outside Mexico
City blended the hurting traditions of Andalusia and the cattle
hurting traditions of West Africa to create a new way
to herd cattle on horseback. But first they had to
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have something to hurt. Can you describe how the first
Mexican cattle ranches of New Spain started by trading people
for animals, such as the natives who are traveling with Esteban. Well,
of course, first of all, it was the question of
the animals, right the animals were did not exist in
the New World. Cows, pigs, chickens, They did not sheep.
So the Caribbean islands had some gold mines and did
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not have enough labor to work them, and they had
an abundance of animals because they had been the first
ones to be colonized. Europeans had brought cattle and sheep, etcetera.
And they had reproduced there and they had so it
seemed like a perfect match made in heaven. Here you
have a fairly well populated region of Mexico, easy access
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and directly opposite to the islands. And so by by
sending all of these Indian slaves and trading them for cattle,
what we have is an early influx of cattle into
this region in in a lowland troup tlical environment. So
I've seen estimates of about a quarter of a million
head of cattle by the sixteen twenties from just a
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few animals that were traded for Indian slaves. Kaba, the Vaca,
and Estebon travel ahead to meet the Christian slave catchers nearby.
It doesn't take long to find them. Turns out the
Christian slave catchers are Spaniards, just like the survivors. They've
been working on their own colonial project, and as such
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they're shocked at the sight of a naked Estebon, predecked
only in his feathers and aqua marine jewelry is full
on children of the sun fit. The Christian slave catchers
are equally shocked at the sight of the naked, long bearded,
deeply sun chapped Royal treasurer kabas the Voca looks like
no Spaniard they've ever seen before. That is probably a
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key moment, first of all, of the degree to which
the the castaways had changed, had been transformed as a
result of these nine years wondering in the interior of
North America. I find it very hardening that by virtue
of their continued contact with natives. By inter interacting with
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them on a more human basis, they had come to
recognize the humanity all of all of these Native Americans.
They had become very different from their fellow Europeans who
were at the other end and who wanted to enslave
the people who were accompanying the forecastaways. The Spaniards controlled
this territory, enslaved the natives to do their labor. But
(35:37):
with the arrival of the four men, the question turned
to what will become a vestibant who's been living free.
He attained a certain level of equality with the with
the other three, even though he had originally been a
slave of one of the three of Andre's dantis. But
all of that dissipated instantly when the four, as you say,
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reached European controlled territory. And even the four survives, even
Salivaca refers very coldly, I took the black man with me. Clearly,
the the old Spanish hierarchical mode kicked in immediately, and
uh and Stevan Nico went back to being what he
had been before their adventure as slave. In these expedition
(36:21):
of discovery, it's a Sunday when Esteban and the others
(36:43):
are celebrated in the joyous streets of Mexico City. This
means everyone can come to see them. Even slaves have
Sunday off, you know, for the Sabbath. There's a grand
victory celebration in Mexico City. There is a festival, a
bull fight, and a tournament. I mean the forecast aways.
Whereas in station in Mexico City, these were guys who
(37:03):
had been presumed dead for nine years. For eight years
they had lived. They had incredible tales to tail. They
had been shown naked in a church in Mexico City,
which is something that people remembered even a generation later.
There's another black man there in Mexico City, a man
who may have taken particular interest in the return of Esteban.
(37:27):
It was Juan Handsome John Garrido, the bold and brave
black adventurer who first set foot on the dry sands
of La Florida. At the top of the show, after
he had left the service upon ste Leone, Garrido chose
to sail with the infamous her Non Cortez. Garrido stayed
by the side of that mad conquistador even after Cortez
intentionally destroyed his own fleet in order to force his
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small army of men to fully commit to his plans
of conquest. Garrido was with the man who would be
king when Cortez launched his war of conquest against the Aztec.
Garrido is there for every horror inflicted on the Aztec people,
and Garto is still there with Cortez in Mexico City
in July A, fifteen thirty six, when Esteban arrives, Esteban
(38:11):
and the other survivors are paraded through the streets hailed
as returning heroes. Did Handsome John meet Esteban the Negro?
Did the two black men's paths cross in Mexico City
when Esteban and Cabeza de Vaca arrived. It is possible.
Clearly they probably met many people during their stay in
Mexico Sydney, and it is not inconceivable that Juan Garrigo
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and Estevanico may have met. So there's no I don't
know of any evidence to this, but it is reasonable
to assume that they could have. Soon after they arrived
in Mexico City, Estebon the Negro, the Royal Treasurer Cabeza
de Vaca, along with captains and restaurants, and Alonzo Castillo,
are called before the Spanish court, there to tell the
authorities of the conquered land all that they saw and
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experience on their travels from Florida to Mexico. Esteban's observations
are the most valuable to their inquisitors. Although a slave
under Spanish law, when Estebon speaks, even her non Cortez
listens and wrapped attention. Esteban describes for the gold craze
Spaniards cities where gemstones decorate the walls. He calls them
(39:18):
the Seven Cities of Gold. A new explanation north is
immediately planned. Cortes dreams of new adventure for gold and glory.
He'll just need someone to lead it, someone who's been there.
There's one big problem for Cortes, though, and his plans
to find the fabled Cities of Gold. He now has
a new rival, Antonio de Mendoza. He's been appointed the
(39:40):
first Viceroy of New Spain, which means he has more
power than Cortez. Mendoza asked of the Voca, but the
Royal treasurer is over it. He doesn't want to go back.
Mendoza next goes to the captains and ask both of them,
but Darante and Castillo both refuse. The fourth man doesn't
have to be asked, he only has to be purchased.
Mendoza attempts to buy Esteban from Durants. I wonder did
(40:06):
Captain durant is hesitate at all to sell his fellow survivor.
There's very little information. We know that viceroy men those
offered five hundred paces, which is a very considerable sum
for a steban, and send it to Durantis, and Durant refused,
and he basically gave a steban because he believed that
was for the greater good of Spain. I suppose there
(40:27):
was an emotional connection in the sense that he could
not conceive of himself essentially selling his slave, but he
could conceive of himself giving up his slave and friend
and companion for a greater cause for the Spanish colony
that existed in the New World. Durants and Castillo make
(40:47):
plans to set sail home for old Spain. Worn out,
they count themselves lucky to be alive kbisit. Devaca also
leaves as the former's second in command, he must report
to his king on the fate of the doomed Narvaias expedition.
After years relying on each other to stay alive, the
three other men leave Esteban alone in Mexico City. His
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life is now in the hands of a greedy viceroy,
a man who leads the most powerful province of the
most powerful empire on earth, the Holy Roman Empire. But
perhaps Esteban wants to return to the wilderness. What if
his stories of the Seven Cities of Gold are part
of a ploy to return to the Southwest. Could he
be exaggerating his stories in order to get back to
(41:29):
where he was once a god. One thing everyone in
the New World figures out real quick is that the
best way to get the Spanish to leave you alone
is to tell them there's gold down the road, then
draw them a map of how to get there. The
Spanish padre named Friar Marcos Niza, is sent along on
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the expedition. He records their adventures as they marched north
into the present day Sinalo in state of Mexico and
further into what his present day New Mexico. At home
in the wilderness of the Southwest, moving between communities of natives,
peoples who knew and revered him, Estebon begins to once
again act as a god on earth. This, of course,
offends the devout monk the Friar grows so offended by
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Esteban's behavior he suggests that they split into two parties
to create a little distance between them. His choice mirrors
the earlier doomed Narvaias expedition. When Esteban and his scouting
party reached the first of the seven Cities of Gold,
the fabled city of Cibola, he sends runners ahead to
the city to announce his imminent arrival. He is, after all,
(42:35):
a god on earth. The runners return with a message.
It's a warning not to enter the city. Esteban laughs
off their warning. He asked runners from his entourage to
take his gourd to the chief of the sebe La community.
It's a necklace, he wares that holds great medicine. It
was a gift. It signifies his status as a powerful figure,
a holy man. It was also made by an enemy tribe.
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That's bad news for Esteban. He doesn't know this though. Meanwhile,
when his gourd isn't returned, Esteban sends a new message.
He tries to scare the community with threats of the Spaniards.
Esteban tells the people of Cibolow that behind him there
is an army of white men and they are coming,
and they will not stop coming, and they cannot be defeated.
(43:21):
The people he's just met are the Ashwi. They're also
known as the Zuni. They're one of the bands of
the Pueblo people who still reside in the canyon lands
of New Mexico and Arizona. The Ashwi have their own vibe.
Their language is what linguists call an isolate language. That
means it shares no known shared root words with their
neighbors or any other indigenous language, not a single one
(43:45):
which you think about. It suggests a general cultural attitude,
or at least it offers an insight into their relationships
with their neighbors. Unaware of whose hosts are, Esteban gladly
accepts his new hosts offer to stay of the night,
but outside their city. There are some versions of the
(44:06):
story that suggests Esteban asked the ash to send him
some young women to entertain him for the night. It
said this request offends his host and ultimately is why
they choose to kill him. I don't know. That feels
like a white anthropologist projecting if you ask me. The
truth is, we don't know exactly what happens on that
fateful night. Esteban maybe wondering if his luck is finally
(44:27):
run out, or perhaps he falls asleep easily like some
guiltless infant. In the morning, Esteban and his entourage are
summoned before the leaders of the Ashwi. He steps forward,
expecting to be invited in. We don't know exactly what
happens that next morning either. Here is an account of
the fate of the first Black Cowboy, as recorded by
(44:48):
Friar Marcos de Niza, and as told to him by
two natives who were traveling with Esteban and barely live
to tell the tale. The next day, when the sons
Lunt's land, High Stepan went from the house and some
of the chiefs with him, and at once there came
many people from the city, and when he saw them,
(45:10):
he began to flee, and we with him immediately arrows,
trokes and gashes, and we felt, and upon us felt
some dead men, and so we remained until night without
daring to move. We heard loud voices in the city
and on the terrace as we saw many men and
women watching. We saw no more of a Stevan, but
(45:33):
we believe that they shot him with arrows, as they
did the rest who were with him, of whom there
escaped none but us. Today, artisans the Ashway people create
cocina dolls. They're distinctive figurines which depict the spirit world
(45:56):
and its gods and demons. One of the kachina dolls
at the ash We still make is an all black
figure named Chakwaina. Some say it's a totem figure of
Esteban and that it tells the story of the time
a black god came to them and warned them that
behind him followed the white men. There are those among
the Ashwi who have yet to forgive Esteban for bringing
(46:16):
the armies of white men to their front door. The
story of Esteban Durant's ak Estebon the nekro a k
a Estebon the more a k Estebanico is the tale
of an Arabic speaking African man who found himself at
home in the west, a black man who called the
stars his ceiling and the hard earth his bed, although
(46:37):
we have no record that he ever rode a horse
or that he knew a single solitary thing about cows.
Esteban was the first black cowboy. His story in his
Undeniable Cowboy Way, embodies the spirit of the black men
who would follow him into the America's particularly the Southwest.
He represents all the black men who would later walk
their way to freedom, men who stole away into the
(46:59):
wilderness escape slavery, men who relied on the traditions of
their African ancestors to survive as they labored in the
land of their captors. It's said that black people were
born on the water there on the waves of the Atlantic,
somewhere halfway between Africa and the New World. It's equally
important that we remembered that there were Spanish speaking black
(47:20):
cowboys riding around outside of Mexico City on horseback, and
later they moved with the cattle into the Southwest. They
helped create facio culture, which becomes cowboy culture. And all
of this happens long before Shakespeare ever published his first play.
(47:53):
Thanks for listening. Next up, John Horse, a black Seminole
war chief of led America's most successful revolted within People,
a black Indian hero who won freedom and land for
his people from two presidents of the US and one
President of Mexico. Black Cowboys is written by me Is
Aaron Burnett, produced and edited by Ryan Murdoch and Michelle Lands.
(48:15):
Our theme song is written and performed by Demeanor. Sound
designed in music by Jeremy Thal. Additional music by Alvin
Young Blood Heart with special musical guest guitarist jose Manuel Alcantara.
Research and fact checking by Austin Thompson, Marissa Brown, Jocelyn Sears,
and Aaron Blakemore with voices by Marco jan Yellie Special
(48:37):
thanks to Professor Andreas Rossendez. Check out his book A
Lanso Strange, The Epic Journey of Kabasa Devaka. Show logo
by Lucy Quentinia. Executive producers are Jason English and Man
Guesh At Ticket Special thanks as always to my pop. Yeah.
This is a home that's been a long role for us.
(48:59):
We take it on its tip over everything else to us.
Real ty were surrounded by our heritage are fisked up
because we're try to be American. Ask himself was really
in the name. Sitting on a Mustang Friday through the
(49:21):
Plains Buffalo, So to the King of the Rains, we
in love with the Chwboys. Way
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