The Moor's Account brilliantly captures Estebanico's voice and vision, giving us an alternate narrative for this famed expedition. These four survivors would go on to make a journey across America that would transform them from proud conquistadores to humble servants, from fearful outcasts to faith healers. Within a year there were only four survivors: the expedition's treasurer, lvar Nez Cabeza de Vaca a Spanish nobleman named Alonso del Castillo Maldonado a young explorer named Andrs Dorantes de Carranza and Dorantes' Moroccan slave, Mustafa al-Zamori, whom the three Spaniards called Estebanico. But from the moment the Narvez expedition landed in Florida, it faced peril-navigational errors, disease, starvation, as well as resistance from indigenous tribes. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernn Corts. In 1527 the conquistador Pnfilo de Narvez sailed from the port of Sanlcar de Barrameda with a crew of 600 men and nearly a hundred horses. In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America-a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |