About the Book
The Moor’s Account is the story of the first black explorer of America—a Moroccan slave who was left out of the history books.
In 1527, the conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez left the port of San Lucar de Barrameda in Spain, with a crew of more than five hundred men and nearly a hundred horses. 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 as famous as Hernán Cortés.
But from the moment the Narváez expedition reached Florida it met with bad luck—storms, disease, starvation, hostile Indians—so that, within a year, there were only four survivors: the expedition’s treasurer, Cabeza de Vaca; a Spanish nobleman named Alonso del Castillo Maldonado; a young explorer by the name of Andrés Dorantes; and his Moroccan slave, Mustafa al-Zamori, whom the other three Spaniards referred to as Estebanico.
The four survivors were forced to live as slaves to the Indians for six years, before fleeing their captivity and establishing themselves as faith healers. Together, they traveled on foot through present-day Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, gathering thousands of disciples and followers along the way.
Years later, three of the survivors—Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes—were asked to provide testimony about their adventure. Cabeza de Vaca even wrote a book, La Relacíon (The Account), the first European narrative of life in America. But because he was a slave, Mustafa/Estebanico was not asked to testify. His experience was considered irrelevant, or superfluous, or unreliable, or unworthy, despite the fact that he had acted as a scout, an interpreter, and a translator. This novel is his story.
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SOURCE: http://lailalalami.com/the-moors-account/about/
Categories: American History, Americas, Book, Book Release, Book Review, Book Reviews
Review from Amazon
From the widely praised author of Secret Son and Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits—a stunning piece of historical fiction: the imagined memoirs of the New World’s first explorer of African descent, a Moroccan slave known as Estebanico.
In 1527, Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from Spain with a crew of six hundred men, intending to claim for the Spanish crown what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States. But from the moment the expedition reached Florida, it met with ceaseless bad luck—storms, disease, starvation, hostile natives—and within a year there were only four survivors, including the young explorer Andrés Dorantes and his slave, Estebanico. After six years of enslavement by Native Americans, the four men escaped and wandered through what is now Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The Moor’s Account brilliantly captures Estebanico’s voice and vision, giving us an alternate narrative for this famed expedition. As this dramatic chronicle unfolds, we come to understand that, contrary to popular belief, black men played a significant part in New World exploration, and that Native American men and women were not merely silent witnesses to it. In Laila Lalami’s deft hands, Estebanico’s memoir illuminates the ways in which stories can transmigrate into history, even as storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival.
“A STUNNING PIECE OF HISTORICAL FICTION-“. Still fiction all the same.
Mr Tschannen, in saying that that Estebanico ‘was left out of the history books’, seems to suggest that one has to go to restricted archives to discover the man. Not so! He is featured in the 1991 film “Cabeza de Vaca”, and in Cabeza de Vaca’s book “Naufragios” which has been around considerably longer. I suspect that the details in the reviews above, as well as Ms. Lalami’s book, owe a lot to Cabeza de Vaca’s book, if not just Wikipedia for starters.
Also the statement ‘despite the fact that he had acted as a scout, an interpreter, and a translator’ seems fatuous considering the fact that de Vaca and his fellow captives were the first people from outside of the Americas to have traversed the land.
Both reviews are trivial, like blurbs, in that they do not delve into Ms. Lalami’s book adequately.