Estevanico

Estevanico (c. 1500–1539) was a Moroccan from sub-saharan origins who was the first known person born in Africa to land in the present-day continental United States. He is known by many different names, commonly known as Esteban de Dorantes, Estebanico and Esteban the Moor. Enslaved as a youth by the Portuguese, he was sold to a Spanish nobleman and taken in 1527 on the Spanish Narváez expedition. He was one of four survivors among the 600-man expedition, and traveled for eight years with Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado across northern New Spain (present-day U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico), before they reached Spanish forces in Mexico City in 1536.

Later Estevanico served as the main guide for a return expedition to the Southwest, where he was killed in the Zuni city of Hawikuh in 1539.

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