Crossing the Continent 1527-1540

The First African American Explorer of the South

By: Robert Goodwin

Narrated by: Simon Prebble

Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Nearly two centuries before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their epic trek to the Pacific coast, a group of three Spanish noblemen and an African survived shipwreck, famine, Indian attack, and disease to make the first crossing of North America in recorded history.

Drawing on contemporary accounts and long-lost records, Robert Goodwin tells the amazing story of their odyssey through the American South. Goodwin's groundbreaking research in original Spanish archives has led him to a radical new interpretation of American history---one in which an African slave named Esteban emerges as the nation's first great explorer and adventurer.

Esteban (1500 - 1539) was the first man born in Africa to die in North America about whom anything is known. The first African American with a name, he was also the first great pioneer from the Old World to explore the entirety of the American South with his three companions.

In a feat of historical research, Goodwin takes us on an incredible adventure from Africa to Europe to America, filled with physical endurance, natural calamities, cannibalism, witchcraft, miraculous shamanism, and divine intervention---challenging the traditional history of the nation's discovery and placing Esteban at the heart of our historical record.

©2008 Robert Goodwin (P)2008 Tantor

Great Listen

Great read. Easy to follow and a nice glimpse into a time long past. I couldn't wait to get back to it each time I has to take a break.

This was a great audio book about history unknown

loved it. it told of the great adventures to the Americas before they were what we were taught in school.

Revealing history of an epic 16th Century odyssey

Excellent descriptions of the world of Sub-Saharan African diaspora in Northern Africa, Seville, Florida, Culiacán and Mexico City in the early 16th Century. This interpretation of who led the ill fated Spaniards across the Continent, and then in search of Cibola, is convincingly more plausible and better substantiated than the commonly believed interpretations of Cabeza de Vaca's fanciful self-serving account. We will never know conclusively, but this book makes a good case for acknowledging who deserves the "credit" for making the journey possible. The reading performance is good, but presenters poor pronunciation of Spanish names is distracting.