SEDONA, Ariz. — History is often written by the victors, but as Sedona Poet Laureate Gary Every demonstrated during his latest public appearance, the true chronicle of the American Southwest is far more complex, diverse, and harrowing than popular mythology suggests.
On August 7, Every launched a new, free public lecture series at the Sedona Winds Independent Living community in the Village of Oak Creek. His inaugural address bypassed standard textbook narratives of Spanish armor and imperial triumph, diving instead into the gritty, improbable, and tragic history of the region’s earliest non-native explorers. At the center of his presentation was a historical figure who challenges conventional assumptions about the conquest of the Americas: Esteban de Dorantes, an enslaved Black Muslim man who became the first post-Columbian explorer of Arizona and New Mexico.
The lecture series, which aims to bring forgotten or misunderstood chapters of regional history to the public, will continue throughout the autumn, with the next presentation scheduled for late September.
Main Facts: Re-Centering Southwestern History
The primary objective of Every’s lecture series is to dismantle simplistic historical tropes and introduce audiences to the nuanced, multicultural realities of early American exploration. In his August 7 talk, Every focused on the ill-fated Narváez Expedition of 1527 and the subsequent wanderings of its four survivors.
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LATEST LECTURE DETAILS & KEY FIGURES
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* Speaker: Gary Every (Sedona Poet Laureate)
* Location: Sedona Winds Independent Living, Village of Oak Creek
* Inaugural Date: August 7
* Core Subject: The Narváez Expedition & Esteban de Dorantes
* Key Theme: Deconstructing the traditional image of the Spanish Conquistador
================================================================================Historically, the popular imagination associates the conquest of the Southwest with iron-clad Spanish conquistadors riding warhorses and carrying steel swords. However, Every revealed that the first non-native person to establish contact with the indigenous populations of Arizona and New Mexico was neither Spanish nor a traditional conquistador. Instead, it was Esteban de Dorantes (also known as Estevanico), an African slave of Moorish heritage.
"The first post-Columbian explorer, again and again in the Southwest, was this Black Muslim man," Every told the audience. "Not how we picture conquistadors."
By centering the narrative on Esteban, Every’s lecture highlighted the diverse makeup of early exploratory parties and challenged the Eurocentric framework that has dominated Southwestern historical education for generations.
Chronology: The Extraordinary Odyssey of the Narváez Survivors
To understand how an enslaved African became the vanguard of Spanish exploration in the Southwest, Every guided his audience through a chronological retrospective of one of the most disastrous military campaigns in the history of the Spanish Empire.
[1527] Narváez Expedition departs Spain with 600 men to settle Florida.
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[1528] Disastrous storms and native attacks decimate the expedition.
│ Survivors flee on crude rafts; shipwrecked on Galveston Island.
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[1528–1536] Only four survivors remain, living as captives and faith healers.
│ Esteban learns sign language and acts as the primary scout.
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[1536] The four survivors walk 5,000 miles to reach Culiacán, Mexico.
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[1539] Esteban leads a northern scouting expedition to find Cíbola.
│ He is killed upon reaching the Zuni Pueblo of Hawikuh.1. The Disastrous Departure (1527)
The journey began in June 1527 when the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez departed from Spain with five ships and roughly 600 soldiers, colonists, and priests. Their royal patent authorized them to establish settlements and search for gold along the Gulf Coast of Florida. Traveling among them was Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, a Spanish nobleman who brought with him his personal slave, Esteban.
Upon landing in Florida, the expedition quickly dissolved into chaos. Narváez made the fatal decision to split his forces, sending his ships away while leading 300 men inland. The land was swampy, hostile, and devoid of the treasures they sought. Furthermore, the expedition faced fierce resistance from local indigenous groups, most notably the Apalachee.
"They faced repeated defeats by Apalachee archers who could drive an arrow through Spanish plate armor," Every noted, emphasizing that Spanish military technology was ill-suited for the terrain.
2. Collapse and the Galveston Shipwreck (1528)
By the autumn of 1528, stranded on the Florida coast without their ships, the remaining men resorted to desperate measures. They slaughtered and ate their horses, melted down their iron armor, stirrups, and weapons, and used the metal to construct five crude, fragile barges. Attempting to sail west along the Gulf Coast to reach Spanish settlements in Mexico, they were caught in a severe storm near the Mississippi River delta.
In September 1528, the makeshift rafts were wrecked on or near Galveston Island off the Texas coast. Of the roughly 80 men who survived the shipwrecks, the vast majority quickly perished from disease, exposure, and starvation.
3. Eight Years of Wandering (1528–1536)
Eventually, only four members of the original 600-man expedition remained alive:
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (the expedition’s treasurer)
- Alonso del Castillo Maldonado
- Andrés Dorantes de Carranza
- Esteban de Dorantes
For the next eight years, these four men lived among various indigenous tribes of the Texas gulf coast and interior borderlands, frequently held as slaves. Over time, however, their status shifted. The survivors began performing faith healings, combining Christian prayers with native ritual practices. As their reputation as powerful medicine men grew, they acquired a massive following of indigenous disciples who guided them from village to village.
During this grueling 5,000-mile journey on foot, Esteban proved to be the group’s most valuable asset. He possessed an extraordinary aptitude for languages and cross-cultural communication.
"Native Americans communicated with a continental sign language," Every explained. "Esteban learned sign language. He learned bits and pieces of seven or eight different languages. They sent him ahead as the scout in every village they went to."
4. Return to New Spain and the Search for Cíbola (1536–1539)
In July 1536, the four naked, sunburned survivors finally stumbled upon a Spanish slave-hunting party in northwestern Mexico and were escorted to Culiacán, an outpost of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Their harrowing tales—and the rumors they had gathered of wealthy, populous civilizations to the north—ignited the imagination of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. Eager to claim these rumored "Seven Cities of Gold" (Cíbola) for the Spanish Crown, Mendoza sought experienced guides to lead a reconnaissance mission.
While Cabeza de Vaca and the other Spanish survivors declined to return to the wilderness, Mendoza purchased Esteban from Dorantes. In 1539, the Viceroy dispatched Esteban to serve as the chief guide for a Franciscan friar, Fray Marcos de Niza, on an expedition heading north into what is now Arizona and New Mexico.
5. First Contact and Death at Hawikuh (1539)
As they traveled north, Esteban once again acted as the vanguard, scouting days ahead of Fray Marcos. He traveled in grand style, carrying a gourd rattle decorated with bells and feathers, accompanied by a greyhound, and followed by a large retinue of native escorts.
In May 1539, Esteban reached the Zuni pueblo of Hawikuh (near the modern-day New Mexico-Arizona border), marking the first recorded contact between a non-native and the Pueblo peoples. However, his arrival did not go as planned. The Zuni leaders grew suspicious of the traveler and denied him entry into the pueblo. Shortly thereafter, Esteban was killed.
Supporting Data: The Brutal Realities of Early Exploration
During his presentation, Every utilized several historical concepts and scholarly insights to paint a vivid picture of the socio-political and biological realities of 16th-century exploration.
The Legal Absurdity of the Requerimiento
To illustrate the imperial mindset of the Spanish explorers, Every discussed the requerimiento (the Requirement), a formal document drafted by Spanish jurists in 1513. Conquistadors were legally required to read this document aloud to newly encountered indigenous populations, demanding their immediate submission to the Spanish Crown and conversion to Catholicism.
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THE REQUERIMIENTO: AN IMPERIAL FICTION
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* Context: Read aloud on beaches, from ships, or to sleeping villages.
* Language: Spanish (entirely incomprehensible to the native audiences).
* Core Message: "The Pope gave your lands to us. Convert and submit immediately,
or we will wage war, enslave you, and take your property."
* Purpose: To provide a legal and moral justification for conquest.
================================================================================"If you don’t become a Christian immediately, we can do whatever we want with you," Every said, summarizing the document’s ultimatum. "But they claimed it was a legal precedent."
Biological Devastation
The lecture also addressed the devastating epidemiological impact of European contact. Years before Spanish soldiers established a permanent physical presence in the Southwest, Old World pathogens like smallpox, measles, and influenza outpaced them, decimating native populations.
Every estimated that up to 80 percent of the indigenous population in some regions died within a few years of initial exposure. To help his modern audience conceptualize the scale of this catastrophe, Every offered a striking localized comparison:
"What would you do if 80 percent of Sedona disappeared tomorrow? Where would you get gas? Would there be anybody stocking the grocery stores?"
Conflicting Historical Theories on Esteban’s Death
While historical records agree that Esteban died at Hawikuh in 1539, the precise motivations behind his execution remain a subject of debate among historians. Every presented two distinct perspectives:
- The Cultural Provocation Theory: Every suggested that Esteban’s flamboyant arrival—complete with a European greyhound, native servants, and demands for tribute—clashed profoundly with Zuni cultural norms. The Zuni, unfamiliar with people of African descent, did not know what to make of him. To test whether he was a mortal man or a supernatural deity, they drew straws. The selected warrior shot Esteban with an arrow. "If he’s a god, well, then they’re just mad at one person," Every explained. "If he’s not a god, then he’s going to die. Well, he died."
- The Diplomatic Infraction Theory: Other historical sources suggest a more pragmatic reason. In his seminal work, The Spanish Frontier in North America, historian David J. Weber notes that when Coronado’s larger expedition arrived at Hawikuh a year later, the Zuni explained that they had executed Esteban because of the liberties he had taken with their women and his demands for turquoise and other valuables.
Official Responses and Academic Perspectives
The historical legacy of the Narváez Expedition and Esteban de Dorantes has received significant attention from state and federal preservation agencies, as well as academic institutions.
According to historical briefs published by the National Park Service at the Coronado National Memorial:
"The testimonies from their journey would fuel the rumors of wealthy civilizations in the north. Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza began dreaming of the expedition to find these fabled cities of ‘Tierra Nueva’ and desired experienced travelers to lead a reconnaissance expedition to scout the region."
Modern academic historians increasingly view Esteban not merely as a passive participant or a servant, but as a primary historical actor. His linguistic fluency, diplomatic skill, and resilience were the linchpins that kept the four survivors alive during their eight-year trek. By re-evaluating his role, contemporary historiography seeks to give Esteban his rightful place as one of the most remarkable explorers in North American history.
Implications: The Power of Public History in Local Communities
Every’s new lecture series highlights a growing movement to make complex, academic history accessible to local communities outside of traditional university settings. By hosting these free events at senior living communities like Sedona Winds, Every is fostering civic engagement and lifelong learning.
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UPCOMING LECTURE DETAILS
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* Date & Time: Friday, September 25 at 11:00 AM
* Venue: Sedona Winds Independent Living, Village of Oak Creek
* Topics Covered:
- Ghost towns of the Verde Valley
- American Indian history and archaeological ruins
- Lesser-known geographic and historic sites in the region
* Admission: Free and open to the public
* Contact Information: Call 928-284-1021 (Ask for Norene)
================================================================================The implications of Every’s work extend beyond simple entertainment. By educating the public on the diverse and often painful histories of Arizona’s founding, he helps locals and visitors develop a deeper, more empathetic connection to the land they inhabit.
The next installment of the lecture series, scheduled for Friday, September 25, will pivot from early Spanish exploration to local geography and archaeology, exploring the rich tapestry of ghost towns, ancient Native American ruins, and hidden historical gems tucked away in the Verde Valley. For residents of Sedona and the surrounding communities, the series offers a unique opportunity to view the familiar red rock landscape through a historical lens.
