Crossing the Continent 15271540, Robert Goodwin
Crossing the Continent 15271540, Robert Goodwin
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Crossing the Continent 1527-1540
The Story of the First African American Explorer of the American South

Author: Robert Goodwin

Narrator: Simon Prebble

Unabridged: 11 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/28/2008

Synopsis

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) is 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.

About Robert Goodwin

Robert Goodwin is a visiting research fellow at King's College in London. He has also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University College London and in Spain at the University of Granada and the University of Seville.

Reviews

Goodreads review by James (JD)

While I completed the book, it didn't meet my expectations. I think Goodwin let his sources dictate the pace of this book, and it was a big mistake. That's the only rationale that can explain why the five-year trek through Texas and Northern Mexico gets less space the the slave markets and court int......more

Goodreads review by Pierre

Only the best authors can have their readers suspend their disbelief. There is no place in Maine called Cabot Cove, dragons don't exist, and alien spaceships aren't battling in outer space. Historians have a similar problem. They need to convince readers that what they are describing actually happene......more

Goodreads review by John

Not a lot of this book was actually about crossing the continent. Because it is based on information from the early 1500's a lot of it is conjecture. In those days not a lot was written down, especially nothing about the years walking from Florida to Mexico. And what was written down was not often v......more

Goodreads review by Robert

The epic tale of African slave Esteban Dorantes tells of his travails in the North American wilderness with three conquistadors lost in the disastrous 1527 expedition of Panfilo Narvaez. Narvaez led an army of 300 men into the swamps of Florida and it was all downhill from there as they wandered th......more

Goodreads review by Gabriel

This deserves a proper review, but tonight I just want to say I just finishd it and really enjoyed it. Glad it was prominently displayed at North Portland Library. Another non-ficiton re-imaging of a time and character with not nearly enough documentation on, Goodwin succeeds in providing a good con......more

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