ESTEVANICO THE BLACK [SOLD]

ESTEVANICO THE BLACK by John Upton Ferrell

Westernlore Press Publishers, Los Angeles

Hardback with slip cover, first edition 1968. 155 pages, map on end covers, front and back.

Excellent condition

This book will disturb many who hold to the opinion that Fray Marcos of Nice was the first foreign explorer to enter Arizona and New Mexico.  According to John Upton Terrell, not only does Fray Marcos fall considerably short of what historians claim for him, but was not, as purported, the discoverer of the so-called Seven Cities of Cibola.

The first man of Old World blood to traverse the region was Estevanico the Black.  Estevanico went ahead of Fray Marcos from Mexico, crossed Arizona, and reached Hawikuh, the most westerly pueblo of Cibola, in New Mexico, in 1539—several days’ journey beyond the padre’s farthest point of advance.  It was Estevanico, a Moor, and a Negro, who actually opened the land gate to the American Southwest.  And for this great accomplishment, he paid with his life.

Earlier—with Cabeza de Vaca, Andres Dorantes and Alonzo del Castillo—he made the greatest journey into the unknown and unmapped wilderness in North American history . . . the first crossing of this continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific north of Mexico.  Estevanico was truly one of the most intrepid, brave, indomitable and accomplished explorers of the New World.  And, up to now, there has been no monument raised to the name of this remarkable man.