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Speaker 1: 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 post de Leon claims the land for his king and for God in heaven. He names it La Florida. It's 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 of discovery, it's a Sunday when Esteban and the others 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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. 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 Plains Buffalo, So to the King of the Rains, we in love with the Chwboys. Way
Speaker 1: 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 post de Leon claims the land for his king and for God in heaven. He names it La Florida. It's 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 of discovery, it's a Sunday when Esteban and the others 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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. 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 Plains Buffalo, So to the King of the Rains, we in love with the Chwboys. Way
